General Premier League Thread 2020-21 - Mod Notes in 1st post. [Updated 17/12/20]

RugbyLover123 wrote: »

Why is Marcelo Bielsa thought of so highly? As far as I can see, bar a successful stint with Chile, he is no more then a journeyman manager. Failed to make it out of the WC group with a decent enough Argentina team. Didn’t set the world a light at Athletic Bilbao, threw a strop at Marseilles, Lazio and Lille.

It's hard to explain the Bielsa-Leeds United fusion in a few sentences. It transcends the usual "manager arrives, changes tactics, signs players" routine. It's more "dormant giant finds character big enough to change it from the cleaning staff up, club completely moulds itself around his philosophy".

He is a manager who landed into a team of midtable Championship players and transformed everything. Not just by coaching them as individuals to the point where Kalvin Phillips started for England, and average players like Stuart Dallas developed beyond all recognition. But he introduced a style that has analysts drooling, crushing opponents with staggering possession stats. There are essays written about Leeds tactics and the way he extracts everything out of players to commit to his theories, I can't hope to summarise them.

But it's so much more than that, it transcends football. As Patrick Bamford said, he doesn't want to mould better players, he wants to mould better people. His first act was to send the players out collecting litter for hours so they would understand what supporters do to buy a ticket to watch them play. He walks around the training facilities looking for dust, because he believes perfection starts at that level. Conversely, far from treating cleaning staff as servile to the players, Leeds were the first club where players took a pay cut to ensure cleaners didn't get laid off, because he sees them as being crucial to his project. Pundits say he's like nothing they've ever seen before, humble, modest, happy to spend hours analysing tactics with them.

Now, it could have been up there with the biggest car crash ever in management, the most idiosyncratic manager taking over a club that has lurched from one disaster to another. There was a very small chance it would work out well. It has far exceeded anything Leeds fans hoped for. Bielsa is revered in Yorkshire, not just as some successful manager, but as a person who is doing everything the right way. Obviously no Leeds fan realistically expects anything other than a loss tomorrow...but as long as Bielsa is on the sideline they'll know anything is possible...