Bielsa and Everton were a terrible fit
He would have taken them down
IN ThE days before Marcelo Bielsa joined Leeds United the club’s sporting director Victor Orta gathered a group of players together and warned them a whirlwind was about to blow through their football club.
They were about to experience a style of management and coaching the like of which they had not seen before.
Orta wasn’t wrong. Bielsa, the great Argentine from whom coaches such as Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino have taken so much, transformed Leeds on the back of ferocious training intensity, micromanaged tactical plans and a type of man management that was at times closer to sergeant major than it was football coach.
Bielsa took Leeds back into the Premier League for the first time in 16 years. For one season there, Leeds flourished and during his time in England the 67- year- old established himself as one of Elland Road’s most transformative coaches. In the city they still talk of him reverentially and that is quite right. But Bielsa would have been a terrible fit for the modern Everton. The chances are, had he accepted the job last week, he would have taken them down.
Bielsa joined Leeds in the June of 2018. Leeds had finished the previous Championship season in 13th.
The squad he inherited was desperate for success. Players such as a young Kalvin Phillips and other gifted but under-achieving footballers such as Jack harrison, Luke Ayling, Stuart Dallas, Liam Cooper and Patrick Bamford would have done almost anything to play Premier League football.
And, so, to Bielsa they gave everything they had. The Leeds players committed themselves to thrice- daily training sessions. They slept between sessions in the rudimentary dormitory he had built — described by one source as having all the comfort of a field hospital.
They endured the lack of one-on-one communication from Bielsa, the lack of praise. They stopped eating out at night because they knew they would be weighed every single morning before training, without fail. They gave Bielsa their lives and in return the South American — after one play- of f disappointment in season one — gave them their dream.
But this would not have worked at Everton. had he taken the job on Merseyside, Bielsa would have found himself with neither of the two fundamentals he was granted at Leeds: time and total and utter devotion and malleability.
That is not to imply criticism of the current Everton squad. It is just that they are Premier League players and, for better or for worse, that makes them different. All players will adjust to new coaching, a new voice. Often it is welcomed. But Bielsa pretty much asks footballers to become new people overnight. To live, think and play in an almost slavish fashion. On Merseyside he would have had about five days to implement that process, not to mention the ultra-aggressive, high-risk pressing football he has played everywhere he has been.
Everton play Premier League leaders Arsenal at home on Saturday. Then it is Liverpool away. Do you see now where I am going with this?
Bielsa turned Everton down for the right reasons. Forty years of coaching brings a certain amount of self-awareness and Bielsa knew his methods had no chance of transforming Everton overnight. he is not that kind of instant impact manager. The Everton back four that played at West ham eight days ago had a combined age of 121. For some dogs (of war) it is just too late to learn new tricks.
Leeds and Marcelo Bielsa between 2018 and 2021 represented the perfect storm. The right man at the right time. At Everton, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that would have been replicated.