Why Leeds boss Bielsa is a game changer for the Championship

CREATE a new culture. That is what is demanded of Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa. Yet one might say he did that the moment he signed the contract.

The Premier League has long been the destination for the world’s best coaches. Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, Unai Emery, Rafa Benitez and Jose Mourinho are here now; Maurizio Sarri appears to be coming to Chelsea; Carlo Ancelotti, Claudio Ranieri, Louis van Gaal and, probably, Antonio Conte have recently passed through.

Those who leave often seek to return, as Manuel Pellegrini did. There are fortunes to be made in China. He chose West Ham.

Yet Bielsa’s appointment in the league below is a potential gamechanger. Here is a great coach, a huge influence on some of the most modern thinkers in the sport, electing to come to England’s second tier.

To undertake away journeys to Brentford and Rotherham. To place his reputation in the hands of Andrea Radrizzani, an owner who bounces from one knee-jerk managerial decision to the next, at a club that was last in the top division 14 years ago.

Bielsa, 62, will no doubt have been sold the dream of Leeds the sleeping giant, the biggest oneclub city in Britain. Imagine what he could make them if he was successful. He could make them Newcastle. A big club, with big support, that’s about a £200million investment short of winning the League.

Leeds had a moment under David O’Leary but their last title was before the Premier League was founded. Bielsa may be the biggest influence on Guardiola, but the old man would have to be nothing less than a genius to significantly challenge Manchester City in their current state; and that is presuming he goes one better than the last 20 Leeds managers — including caretakers and Neil Redfearn three times — by winning Premier League promotion.

Nevertheless, he’s here and that says something. It says something that Frank Lampard starts next season as a Championship manager, too. On the face of it, they have little in common.

Bielsa the guru, Lampard the complete novice. Yet his arrival at Derby next season was another landmark appointment for the league. Modern Premier League legends do not mess around in inferior competitions. They sit in television studios and watch others sweat. Jamie Carragher, Gary Neville, Alan Shearer, Paul Scholes, all appeared to have management ambitions once. None persevered, or tested the water. Lampard’s decision to throw in his lot with Derby feels like a career move from another time; when young coaches were given more than a matter of months to find their feet; when former professionals, even the very best ones, actually needed to work when their playing careers ended.

Recruiting Lamp- ard was quite a coup for Derby, but it is a huge coup for the Championship as well. Suddenly, it does not seem so remote that a player such as John Terry or Wayne Rooney might one day give it a go at, say, Sheffield Wednesday.

If Lampard is successful next season — or at least is given the time to succeed — it changes the perception of the Championship as a proving ground. It creates a new culture as surely as Bielsa hopes to at Elland Road.

So what makes the Argentine’s arrival so important? He is to modern coaching what Lee Strasberg was to acting. Strasberg — Hyman Roth in The Godfather

Part II — was one of the founders of the method school and, as such, an influence on the finest young actors of his generation.

The stars of that film, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, all sat at his feet. Bielsa commands similar respect, except his proteges are Guardiola, Diego Simeone and Mauricio Pochettino. Guardiola as good as studied under Bielsa before becoming a coach in 2006.

‘My admiration for him is huge,’ said Guardiola recently. ‘ He makes the players much, much better and helped me a lot with his advice.’ Bielsa (left) has been called a cult manager, perhaps the way Dave Sexton once was in

this country — influencing a generation of england managers including Bobby robson, Terry Venables and Glenn hoddle.

Of course, Bielsa may be too radical for Leeds, he may not be the right fit. he won’t have experienced much like the Championship, and Leeds’ players won’t have experienced too much like him. If recent years are any indication, with the consistency of thought displayed by owner radrizzani, by Christmas he could have been replaced by a bloke who has done a good job at Scunthorpe.

Yet he’s here now, and that is a fine reflection not just on Leeds, but on the Championship as a competition and english football as a whole.

It might be argued that Benitez also managed one league down with Newcastle — but he didn’t join a Championship club. Newcastle were in the Premier League when he was recruited, and he couldn’t keep them up. Staying put is very different from the leap of faith Bielsa has made. Imagine if he gets them up. It would change everything about the perception of england’s second tier.

Potentially, this is a fork in the road.