Louis Van Gaal, current head coach of the Netherlands national team has revealed he has been diagnosed with a ‘pretty aggressive’ form of prostate cancer.
The 70-year-old, who is the former manager of English side Manchester United, made the admission on a TV show in the Netherlands called Humberto on Sunday, April 3 while promoting a new documentary about his life.
“In each period during my time as manager of the national team I had to leave in the night to go to the hospital without the players finding it out until now, while thinking I was healthy, but… I am not,” he said.
“I think you don’t tell people you work with like that because it might influence their choices, their decisiveness. So I thought they shouldn’t know,” he added.
Going into more detail on his health issue, Van Gaal revealed that he had a ‘pretty aggressive form’ of cancer, but was staying positive as he paid tribute to the hospital staff that had treated him.
“You don’t die from prostate cancer, at least not in 90 per cent of the cases. It is usually other underlying diseases that kill you. But I had a pretty aggressive form, got irradiated 25 times. Then you have a lot of management to do in order to go through life,” he said.