Will EL LOCO really be the man to end CRAZY days at Leeds?
Guardiola calls him the world’s best coach, and Bielsa may need to be to revive Championship’s sleeping giant
AN embarrassing mess first half, pinging the ball around like Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles in the second. Any Leeds United fan who watched their team trail 3-0 at Oxford last Tuesday and fight back before losing 4-3 is fully braced for the rollercoaster ride under Marcelo Bielsa.
Leeds have gone through 15 managers — including two in caretaker charge — since losing their Premier League status in 2004 but none like Bielsa, the most colourful and renowned coach in the Championship, whose side kick off against Stoke City on Sunday.
The 63-year-old Argentine is a visionary credited with pioneering pressing football and 3-4-3. He took Argentina and Chile to World Cups, beat Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford with Athletic Bilbao and has been a major influence on Pep Guardiola, Diego Simeone and Mauricio Pochettino.
On the downside, he is known as El Loco (crazy person) because of his obsessive intensity, once threatened supporters with a hand grenade and has a recent history of career instability. His previous job at Lille lasted 13 matches; before that he left Lazio after two days. Putting South America’s most passionate coach in charge of English football’s perennial sleeping giant is the brainchild of Leeds owner Andrea Radrizzani. It is a potent mix and revived interest in a club tranquillised by previous incumbents Dave Hockaday, Neil Redfearn and Paul Heckingbottom.
‘All eyes in the Championship are on Leeds again and that’s the way it should be,’ says Eddie Gray, who was part of the great Don Revie side of the Sixties and Seventies. ‘There is a huge buzz in the city. When you hire a manager with Bielsa’s reputation, expectation levels rise. It doesn’t matter he’s not worked in England. Football around the world is played with the same thing — a ball. It’s knowledge that counts and getting the players to buy in.’
Leeds players already know what Bielsa is about. They started preseason with three hard training sessions a day, from the gymnasium at nine in the morning until seven at night.
Instead of sneaking off home in the afternoon, the whole squad have had to stay in a nearby hotel for two hours’ rest before their final workout.
The demands will not surprise Spurs manager Pochettino, who was discovered by Bielsa at Newell’s Old Boys in Argentina and later played for him at Espanyol, where he made the mistake of asking on a scorchingly hot day when a training session would finish.
‘At the end, a furious Bielsa called me over and says ‘that’s the last thing I expected from you. It confirmed to me just what you’ve become’.
‘He laid into me and I cried. I went home in tears because I felt so embarrassed. Everything he said was right,’ wrote Pochettino in a biography which was published last season.
Gray, who has seen Leeds slide from one financial, ownership or managerial disaster to another for more than a decade, welcomes a strong boss at his club.
‘Every club needs discipline and Bielsa at his level will provide that,’
he says. ‘You won’t have a more disciplined club than Manchester City and they won the league. Alex Ferguson was disciplined. It comes from the manager.’
The biggest conundrum is whether a Leeds team who finished 13th last season are good enough to take on board Bielsa’s tactics and high-energy football.
They have won only two games in pre-season, against Forest Green and another crazy 4-3 against nonLeague Guiseley, ahead of today’s final warm-up with Las Palmas.
After early setbacks in the transfer window, Bielsa yesterday signed Wolves wing-back Barry Douglas so he can play a three-at-the-back formation. Leeds have also agreed a fee of £6.75million for Middlesbrough striker Patrick Bamford after talks with Derby over a move for Matej Vydra stalled.
Bielsa’s reputation persuaded Chelsea to send two former FA Youth Cup winners to Elland Road on loan, goalkeeper Jamal Blackman and midfielder Lewis Baker.
‘I had great managers at Chelsea like Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho and everyone there talked about Bielsa and the amazing work he’s done,’ says Blackman, who will be urged to play out from the back.
‘Jordan Pickford showed at the World Cup it’s important for goalkeepers to have the confidence to use both feet. It helps having a manager that backs you, and allows you to make a mistake.’
Baker, who had an unhappy time under Bielsa’s tactical opposite Tony Pulis at Middlesbrough last season, vows: ‘By the time the first game comes against Stoke, we will be ready for it. What makes the top managers stand out is the way they approach games, down to the smallest details. I saw it at Chelsea, too.’
Bielsa has an interpreter but speaks better English than he will give away on camera. His style is to give players clear instructions like a teacher, rather than by ranting.
In his first game, at Forest Green, he asked midfielder Jamie Shackleton to try out as a wing-back. To help the 18-year-old, Bielsa dispatched a coach to the far side of the pitch to encourage and advise.
Insiders say Bielsa has been active alongside sporting director Victor Orta in assessing what Leeds need next in terms of ins and outs.
He is well known for being able to make quick judgments on whether players can fit in with his philosophy. He hired Pochettino as a schoolboy after watching him for only five minutes in a trial game.
‘I never asked him what he saw but I think I understand now,’ Pochettino said. ‘It is a question of attitude and energy. A guy like Bielsa, who was ahead of his time, could see the lot in five minutes.’
Guardiola has hailed Bielsa as ‘the best coach in the world’ because of his influence on the game. Top stars such as Alexis Sanchez and his 2002 World Cup player Simeone have learnt under him.
The major concern is whether it is too late in life for Bielsa to transfer his genius, as Guardiola has done, or whether he will end up like Fabio Capello, who came to England past his prime.
Listening to former Bilbao player Ander Herrera, it is also uncertain whether the physical demands Bielsa makes will be too much over a 46-game season.
Herrera, who helped Bilbao reach the 2012 Europa League final under Bielsa before eventually joining Manchester United, revealed on a recent podcast: ‘In the last few months, we couldn’t even move.
‘We were physically finished and lost two cup finals. We used to always play with the same team and finally our legs said “stop”.’
Leeds is a graveyard for managers. None has lasted more than a year since Brian McDermott in 2014. Bielsa is different, special. Whether he can buck the trend by bringing the glory days back to Elland Road is one of the stories of the season.
As Gray puts it: ‘We are aware of Bielsa’s record and credit to the owner for getting someone of such a high level. But ultimately only two statistics count in football: how many goals you score, and how many you concede. The proof of the pudding is results.’