Louis van Gaal was at the helm of Manchester United between 2014 and 2016. However, the service of the coach at Old Trafford was not an unqualified success, as he only managed to win the FA Cup and was evicted after the 2015/16 season. Rafael da Silva went through the first year of the Dutch trainer in Manchester and the current right back of Istanbul Basaksehir looks back with little pleasure on his collaboration with Van Gaal.

“When it was announced that Van Gaal would be the new manager, I received a call from a lot of friends. I could not believe it, as many people told me that he does not like Brazilians because of their playing style ”, the now 30-year-old Rafael looks back in conversation with The Athletic. “They told me, ‘The first thing he will do is get you out.’ That eventually became the second thing, as he didn’t say anything to me on the first day.

“On the second day he said, ‘You can go.’ I hadn’t even trained when he said that. I could not believe it. Ryan Giggs tried to stand up for me. I talked to him about it and I didn’t get it, as I didn’t even get the chance to show myself to Van Gaal at training. He just came in and said, “You can go.” He didn’t explain anything. He said, ‘You won’t be playing this season, I’m not going to use you. If you want to leave, you can leave ”, Rafael continues. “I said, ‘Okay.’ Then I tried to fight for my place. I stayed for a year and that was very hard. He’s one of the worst people I’ve ever worked with. ”

One of the things that Rafael didn’t like about Van Gaal’s way of working was his habit of having a chat in front of the group several times a day. According to the defender, the trainer only did this to ‘assert his authority’: “Every day, after breakfast, after lunch or after we had dinner together, he talked about the training for 15 minutes, about what had happened. , about everything, about life. ”

“You know that moment when you stop listening to someone because they talk so much? He wanted to show that he could speak well, but he did it every day! All the time! You have to wait for everyone to finish their food and that’s fine, but then we had to sit for another 15 minutes while he talked, with all due respect, about nonsense. That’s it, man. It was shit”Rafael concludes.