VAN GAAL

Van Gaal: United can win Champions League

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Louis van Gaal believes his youthful Manchester United side is capable of winning the UEFA Champions League, should it progress past Club Brugge, although the boss has stopped short of comparing the Reds to his Ajax team that famously lifted the trophy in 1995.
Van Gaal is currently assembling a squad filled with both young and experienced players, mixing the youthful exuberance of Memphis Depay and Adnan Januzaj, among other prospects, with the invaluable knowhow of veterans Wayne Rooney, Michael Carrick and Bastian Schweinsteiger.
It is a group currently preparing for Wednesday night's play-off second leg against Brugge in a match the Reds are definitely not taking lightly, as the manager is extremely keen to point out.
But during his pre-match press conference, van Gaal was asked how his current United squad compares to his former Ajax side that shocked the world by winning the Champions League with a group of untested teenagers who complimented some much wiser heads back in 1995.

“They were still younger at that time as we won the final with 18 and 19-year-olds,” he said. “We have players like Michael Carrick and Bastian Schweinsteiger and at that time it was Frank Rijkaard and Danny Blind who were above the 30-year mark. I believe in the mix. Yes, I believe we can win the Champions League and I believe more in the mix of ages than players only from 27 to 34.”

Pressed further on the subject, van Gaal was quizzed on the turning points that shaped Ajax’s road to glory in the Champions League. “We played the first match against AC Milan and they were the champions the year before. Then we played with players like Clarence Seedorf, who was 16 and [Nwankwo] Kanu who was 18, [Patrick] Kluivert was 18, and we beat AC Milan two times, away and at home. From that time we all believed that we could win.

“We played the semi-final against Bayern Munich and won 5-2. Then we played in the final against AC Milan and that was challenging our luck because we had already won two times. But fortunately it was not the best final and we won 1-0, with the goalscorer being Kluivert, who was 18 years old.”

Expanding on the comparison, van Gaal concluded: “I did not bring Pereira and Lingard [to Belgium]. We have a lot of young players like McNair and Blackett. Johnstone showed his talents in the USA, for example, and they are not so old. We have a great selection of 25 or 26 players. We have the two older guys, so I think our mixture is good but you cannot compare it with the mixture that I had in 1995.”