For a man nicknamed El Loco (“the mad man”) and with little silverware in his long managerial career, Marcelo Bielsa is an unlikely hero to a younger generation of coaches such as Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino.
However, hordes of Leeds United fans are now treating him with similar reverence after he guided one of English soccer’s sleeping giants back to the Premier League after a 16-year wait.
The Leeds bust that followed a boom time of big spending and a UEFA Champions League semi-final at the turn of the century lasted far longer than anticipated.
Photo: Action Images via Reuters
Leeds last played in the English top-flight in May 2004.
A further relegation and three years in the third tier followed before a decade stuck in the mud of the grueling 46-game per season Championship.
There was plenty of heartbreak along the way, but perhaps none more so than in Bielsa’s eventful first season at Elland Road.
After being caught sending a spy to Derby’s training ground last year, Bielsa revealed the exhaustive scouting that he does of every opponent he has ever faced amid accusations of underhand tactics.
“I think he is the best-prepared manager I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Guardiola, who went to visit Bielsa in Argentina before setting out as a coach at Barcelona.
A FIFA Fair Play Award also came El Loco’s way last season for allowing Aston Villa to equalize after Leeds had scored with a Villa player down injured.
However, that was the only trophy Leeds won as, in keeping with Bielsa’s sides of the past, they faltered down the home straight, with many pointing to the physical demands that he puts on his players.
Bielsa made his name winning three league titles in Argentina with Newell’s Old Boys and Velez Sarsfield, where the season was divided into two leagues of 19 games.
“If they had been 38-game seasons I don’t know if the players physically and mentally could stand another 19 games,” Ricardo Lunari, another former Bielsa player to later become a coach, told Sky Sports.
At Athletic Bilbao, Bielsa reached the Europa League and Copa del Rey finals in the 2011-2012 season, and at Olympique de Marseille, he led Ligue 1 at the halfway stage in the 2014-2015 season — his sides were admired, but ended up empty-handed as their energy ran out.
Last season, Derby County and their manager Frank Lampard had the last laugh, beating Leeds 4-3 on aggregate in the playoff semi-finals, prolonging their agonizing wait to return to the Premier League.
Many expected Bielsa to walk, but in his second season, he has managed to leave a legacy similar to that which he left at Newell’s — where the club’s stadium bears his name — and with the Chilean national team, whom he led to a first World Cup in 12 years.
The coronavirus might have delayed Leeds’ title party, but it might also have played its part in getting them over the line.
The three-month break meant that there was no burnout down the stretch this time as Leeds have lost just one of their seven matches since the restart.
Born into a bourgeois family in Argentina, there are few airs and graces with Bielsa, despite a reported ￡3 million (US$3.8 million) annual salary. He lives in a one-bedroom flat in the market town of Wetherby, so he can walk to the club’s Thorpe Arch training base. He is regularly photographed with locals in coffee shops and supermarkets.
“For me, he’s a person I will always admire,” said former Tottenham boss Pochettino, whom Bielsa recruited for Newell’s as a 13-year-old. “He’s a genius. A person with charisma and a personality very different from us normal coaches — and that’s what makes him special.”
Next season, Guardiola is to get the chance to go head-to-head with the man he calls the “best coach in the world,” despite the Manchester City boss being the one with a stunning array of titles to his name.
“To be loved is this biggest title, bigger than the Champions League or Premier League or whatever. To be loved is the most important thing and I think Marcelo has that more than any other manager in the world,” Guardiola said. “I know how he is still loved in Bilbao. I know he’s an icon in Chile.”
Now, Bielsa is also a legend in Leeds.
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