Louis van Gaal rejected the Belgium job for a ridiculously petty reason

The 66-year-old has also suggested that he would be open to the idea of returning to the Premier League, just so he could get some revenge on his former side. Van Gaal was in the running to replace Marc Wilmots as Belgium coach in late 2016 but, in incredibly petty style, he rejected it so that United would have to continue paying off the final year of his contract. "It would have been really great if I had become Belgium national coach, but I was so resentful and vindictive that I let that job go by," Van Gaal told De Volkskrant, as translated by the Independent. "It was stupid, really, because the sporting value should always come in the first place. That should have been the most important thing. But that's how I looked at things. It was not about money. It was all about the act of revenge. "I went for my instinct, not the rational. I just have to live with that. I've been a really successful manager, so I don't want to slag the world of football down. I have had a lot of good times. "The way Manchester United have treated me was terrible. They have been mean and low. In contrast, the way president [Joesp Lluis] Nunez of Barcelona treated me was fantastic. "That proves that the world of football is not full of false people. There are also straight and warm people among those people."