Dirty Leeds to Flirty Leeds: Bielsa’s transformation continues apace

There is a section in Tim Rich's engrossing recent biography of Marcelo Bielsa, The Quality of Madness, where the former Barcelona manager Gerardo Martino – also a former player under Bielsa in Argentina – addresses an idea in the book's title that the current Leeds United manager/guru/saviour is, well, a bit mad. Hence Bielsa's long-standing nickname, El Loco.

Martino obviously knows about the nickname and its implication. But he had seen not just Bielsa from the inside, Martino also knew professional football from there and he makes the valid point that Bielsa is known as El Loco – “because the thinkers in football are usually called ‘El Loco.’”

It is a rebuke to the attitude which has often prevailed in football that sweat and tears are more than enough. There was a time not so long ago, and it probably happens still, when anyone expressing vaguely thoughtful or novel ideas about the game was dismissed as “a teacher”.

Making footballers reflect on who they are as players and teammates is one thing, but to change them as people is another

Today that term has gone, if not 180 degrees, then close to it and Bielsa has played a significant role in validating intellectual analysis.

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In Rich's book, he describes Pep Guardiola travelling from Mexico, where he was ending his playing career, to a village in Argentina. There, out of work, Bielsa was resting. It takes a special man to inspire such a trip and that is what Guardiola calls Bielsa. He did so again when Leeds won promotion to the Premier League in July after 16 years (and 15 managers) away. "He's an incredible person, so special," Guardiola said.

Tactical appreciation

Guardiola then explained why and it sounded like more than a tactical appreciation – “winning titles helps to have a job next season but at the end of your life, what you remember is not the titles you have won, what you remember is the memories you have and whether the manager taught you a lot. What we remember are the experiences and the memories, the players you have had, the managers you have had. Marcelo is at the top of the list. Absolutely at the top of the list.”

It was an echo of Martino's comment that Bielsa has "left a footprint wherever he has been" and the high-tempo creativity Bielsa has instilled in his teams could be seen in Barcelona's six-second pressing approach under Guardiola. Bielsa has been a major influence on Guardiola's style. It is just one of the reasons why there will be so much interest in Leeds versus Manchester City at Elland Road today.

Ministers feel uncomfortable because the Establishment always likes football to stay in its place

But it is more than that. The Leeds captain Liam Cooper spoke this week about Bielsa and had he been listening, Guardiola would have been nodding along. Cooper made his Hull City debut at 16; he is now 29 and says: "I wish I'd met Marcelo a lot earlier in my career. He is unbelievable for me, not just as a player but as a person as well . . . he's changed me and how I carry myself. I'll always be in debt to him."

Making footballers reflect on who they are as players and teammates is one thing, but to change them as people is another. It is something we hear coaches say they aspire to, but we do not associate many with the level of persuasive charisma attached to Bielsa.

It is beyond coaching. When Bielsa sought out and met the Chilean film director Luis Vera, their discussion included Bielsa's hope that he would have taken the same path had he not gone into football. "Marcelo represents a romantic ethic," Vera said. "He is more than a football manager."

Mystery and intrigue

Bielsa makes mistakes of course, everyone does. But it is this sense of purpose, of framework and thought which attracts us to him, as well as his uncommon behaviours. A self-imposed language barrier and distance creates mystery and intrigue – and murals on the blood red bricks of inner city Leeds. Rich compares Bielsa to the Velvet Underground in terms of influence, if not hit singles.

We are in the midst of this and enjoying it, these 4-3 mini-epics against Liverpool and Fulham. To neutrals, Dirty Leeds have become Flirty Leeds. But the core work ethic can never be forgotten. Leeds United are transformed – and that word does not seem too large at the minute – because of Bielsa's training ground sessions and thinking.

It takes you back to Liam Brady and his comment from Italy in 1984: "Thinkers are the deadliest men"; and before that to the beautiful Guardian writer Donny Davies' remark about the great Belfast defender Bill McCracken, originator of the offside trap: "In short he made them [contemporaries] think, and that has never been a popular mission."

At a time when we are supposedly no longer interested in experts, it is refreshing to have one arrive who is so unapologetically smart, popular and not loco. Even if it all goes wrong at Leeds, Marcelo Biesla will have made us think why.

Rashford accomplashing more than the Establishment

There was a short, powerful and deflating headline on the back page of the Daily Mail edition on sale in northern England last Saturday. 'Poverty Blow For Marcus', it said.

This, as you can imagine, did not refer to Marcus Rashford's sudden unemployment at Manchester United and his subsequent lack of cash. No, the headline and article concerned Rashford's fear that his message about child poverty was not receiving the desired hearing from the British government.

That a 22 year-old footballer has felt it necessary to lead a campaign against something so grim has somehow been taken for granted – both his leadership and the poverty.

Rashford even gets stick for it, for thinking about others less blessed than himself, for taking time to do something about it.

Ministers feel uncomfortable about this because the Establishment always likes football to stay in its place. Occasionally the game and the players deserve a poor reputation – neither Phil Foden nor Mason Greenwood emerged well from England's trip to Iceland and it was dismaying that some wealthy clubs enrolled on the taxpayer-funded furlough scheme when the pandemic first hit.

On April 7th this provoked a condescending editorial in the Times (London) about players and their priorities. Yet by mid-June, there had been a change. The country had missed football and the same paper was welcoming it back saying it would “raise national morale”.

It has and it does. Even as a reduced spectacle, there has still been plenty to enjoy – Leeds, Everton, Brighton. There have also been footballers such as Rashford or Ben Mee or Dominic Calvert-Lewin to admire.

These strike you as more accomplished young men than the older but not wiser oafs pretending to govern.