{In one of England’s University seats of learning Louis van Gaal will get another rapid lesson in the FA Cup on Friday night when United visit Cambridge.}
The Dutchman’s education began at League One bottom club Yeovil and now the Reds will face former Liverpool European Cup winner Richard Money’s League Two side, where the local council have intervened to spruce up Abbey Stadium for the arrival of Van Gaal’s squad.
The United boss identified the famous competition as the quickest route to silverware to keep up his record of a trophy in the first season of all his clubs.
As well as League titles in his debut campaigns at Barcelona and Bayern Munich he also won the domestic cup in Spain and Germany.
With Chelsea having opened up a 12-point gap at the top of the Premier League with 16 games to go United are more preoccupied with the battle for the Champions League places and the FA Cup is Van Gaal’s salvation as far as silverware is concerned.
But the Gods are not making it that easy with another banana skin on Friday after the struggle at Yeovil before a couple of second half quality goals saw off Gary Johnson’s side at Huish Park.
There will be just 52 more fans in the sell-out Abbey Stadium than there were at Yeovil’s 9,565 capacity ground in round three.
Van Gaal was saved such minefields when he won the Copa del Rey in 1998 with Barcelona and the DFB-Pokal with Bayern in 2010.
Games against lower league clubs Oberhausen and Greuther Furth for Bayern were both played in the Allianz Arena and led to 5-0 and 6-2 easy successes respectively for Bayern.
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