The Ramblings of a Bitter Man 11 Aug 2015 20:28

By Frank Mead, Editor 

Barcelona legend Hirsto Stoichkov, undoubtedly Bulgaria’s greatest ever player, decided to have a pop at Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal this week – and not for the first time. Whatever your opinion of the Old Trafford boss, this smacks of pure bitterness.

Make no mistake about it, Hristo Stoichkov was one of the greatest players of the 1990’s, and one of my personal favourites. A player any football fan would have loved to have in their side. Strong as an ox, pace to burn and a finish as explosive as his temper. No doubt he was the main “bad boy” of La Liga, and there are several similarities to a certain Frenchman who was ruling English football at the time. Finishing joint top scorer at the 1994 World Cup, his goals were the main reason why Bulgaria achieved third place, defying everyone’s expectations.

But this week, he claimed van Gaal to be a “bad person” for the way he has treated Víctor Valdes, and advising Pedro not to leave the Nou Camp for Old Trafford while the Dutchman is in charge. Is this because van Gaal had the balls to drop Stoichkov from the team during his first spell in charge at Barcelona? If so, maybe he should get his facts right.

By 1997, when LVG took charge, Stoichkov was 31, and hadn’t managed ten goals in a single campaign for more than two years. His predecessor, the late Bobby Robson, had left the Bulgarian hitman on the bench when Barcelona won the Cup Winners Cup Final earlier that year, hardly indicative of someone whom the team relied upon.

Clearly, by the point that van Gaal took charge at the Nou Camp, Stoichkov’s career had seen its best days, and he was given a free transfer at the end of the season having made just four league appearances that season. Barcelona finished as La Liga champions – but, van Gaal got it wrong did he? That might be why Stoichkov’s next destination was back in his homeland with CSKA Sofia, rather than in one of Europe’s top leagues, and was followed by spells in Saudi Arabia, Japan and the USA.

Maybe he couldn’t get his head around the fact that he was no longer the player who ripped United apart in the Nou Camp in 1994, when he scored twice in a 4 – 0 Champions League destruction of Alex Ferguson’s side – maybe he believed that, four years later, he still WAS that player. His partnerships with Michael Laudrup, and later the great Romario, were breathtaking in Johann Cruyff’s “Dream Team”, but after winning the Ballon d’Or in 1994-95, he scored just two goals in the rest of the campaign, and finished the season having fallen out with his manager.

In the summer of 1995, he transferred to Parma in Italy, but scored just seven goals in all competitions in his single season in Serie A. When Cruyff was sacked in 1996, new manager Bobby Robson brought Stoichkov back to Catalonia, but it became clear that the fire in his belly which propelled him to be one of Europe’s most feared strikers was beginning to peter out. Having won practically everything at club level with Barcelona, maybe the passion (or the pace) just wasn’t there. Whatever the reason, he wasn’t a key player at the Nou Camp anymore, which van Gaal demonstrated by winning Barcelona’s first league title in four years – without Stoichkov, or the recently departed Ronaldo.

If van Gaal is such a “bad person”, why do so many players revere him to the point that they would run through brick walls for him? Sure, he may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but he backs up his arrogance with results – when he gets rid of a player, it is usually the right decision, because they have outlived their usefulness to the team. Think of the players that have left Old Trafford since the Dutchman took charge, and ask yourself, how many of them do you wish were still here?

Another point worth considering is that, if van Gaal buys Pedro, then the chances are he is going to play him as long as he works hard, whereas Stoichkov was already at Barcelona when LVG arrived, and was quickly identified as surplus to requirements. For most of his Barcelona career, the Bulgarian was considered undroppable, and maybe not just because of his talent, but because people were afraid to stand up to him, and got a bit of a shock when van Gaal did just that.

It’s clear that Stoichkov will never forgive Louis van Gaal for ending his Barcelona career in 1998. But given how both men’s careers have panned out since then, it not like you can point to any kind of statistic and say “Louis, you got that one wrong”.

What did Stoichkov think? That maybe, at the age of 32, he hadn’t peaked yet?