'Van Gaal is completely crazy'

"If I tell you about a great manager, but one who is completely crazy: Van Gaal. He goes a bit too far sometimes," the Argentine reveled in an interview with 'La Nación'.

"In one game we were winning 3-0 at half-time and he came into the dressing room kicking the door, the kitbags and shouting that everything had been a disaster. As captain, I had to calm him down: 'Stop insulting us, have some respect.' I played badly in the second half and the following day he told me that I had performaed badly because I had emotionally unbalanced myself," he recalled.

The former Manchester City man continued, recalling a period when he had been suffering from injury: "If you were out for three weeks with a strain, you needed another three weeks of training to be able to play again. That's what he thought. I had an ankle operation, I made my comeback for Argentina but Van Gaal wouldn't play me.

"One day, in a game for the starters against the substitutes, with him as referee, the goalkeeper gave me the ball and I smashed the ball in his direction, aiming at his face. It missed him by inches. There was a deafening silence and he said: 'I ask you all that no one else gives the ball to Demichelis.' We later ended up arguing in the dressing room," he revealed.