The Quality of Madness: A Life of Marcelo Bielsa

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The best chapter is on the ‘spy gate’ controversy. Here Rich carefully details what actually happened. In 2018, Bielsa sent a young intern to Derby County’s training grounds to spy on Derby’s pre-match training sessions. Once again Bielsa bore the brunt of the controversy, but Rich makes a convincing argument that sending one intern to an opposition training ground doesn’t mean Leeds are guaranteed a victory on match day.

As a man, he demands very high performances of himself and his team, so you have to be alert every second. Every moment matters in every training session - every first touch, every strike, anything that happens is scrutinised and that makes you really aware in every training session. In my opinion, Klopp, Guardiola and Zidane are probably friendlier with the players," he says. "Marcelo Bielsa convinces the player about the system and gives us the tools, but the relationship we have as people needs to be close. He thinks players are machines, but we are humans as well."In Argentina, football teams are always looking in every slum, in every park, in every playground, hoping to find the next Messi, Maradona or Batistuta. But what Bielsa did, in typical Bielsa style, was to become incredibly meticulous and organised about it," says Argentine football writer Marcela Mora y Araujo. Under Bielsa, match preparation does not finish at the training ground. Lunari and Pardo were sent home with videos of rival teams and asked to present their observations on line-ups, tactics and set-piece routines. During the wedding of Newell's defender Dario Franco, Bielsa took the squad to a room in the hotel to watch their next opponent's previous game. Within seven weeks of pre-season training, Bielsa transformed the group into an entirely new team. They were comfortable on the ball, played one- and two-touch cushions all over the pitch, and never stopped running. It was as if someone had finally found the mains supply at Elland Road, plugging the old ground directly into the Northern Powergrid and sending a surge of voltage pulsing through brains and bones.

Marcelo Bielsa, ‘El Loco’, the Godfather of modern football, arrived as the new manager of Leeds United on 25 June 2018, the same day England thrashed Panama 6-0 at the World Cup in Russia. When Bielsa was announced as the new manager of Leeds, his appointment was met with fascination. How could a manager known as much for his eccentricity as his fast-paced, frenetic style of football, possibly succeed as this then unfashionable club, not least a club which is proud of its ‘northern’ English identity. Bielsa hails from Rosario, capital of the Argentine province of Santa Fe, the middle child in a high-achieving family of politicians, lawyers and diplomats. Bielsa is a meticulous, obsessive and enigmatic manager who carries a mythology with him. He is one of football's most intriguing personalities - and he has just arrived in the English Premier League. Marcelo Bielsa is a highly respected coach and is famous for his innovative playing style, tactics and formations. He has had a massive influence on football across the world and on other top coaches, such as Pep Guardiola, Mauricio Pochettino, Jorge Sampaoli and Gerardo Martino. The aim of the book is to use the innovative tactics of Marcelo Bielsa to provide a complete guide of how to build up play effectively against high pressing teams. The effect that he has had on Leeds United, and on the city’s environs has been extraordinary. He has transformed a team floundering in mid table mediocrity in the Championship to Premiership heavyweights and fired the imagination of a whole region.

I think he feels empowered by the incredible love he has generated at Leeds," says Mora y Araujo. "But I think the pressure of the Premier League, with its circus of money and power, is quite unlike anything he has experienced. Anything could happen." Pushing young players to their physical and mental limits has been a theme throughout Bielsa's career. At Leeds, players compete in 'murderball', a high-intensity 11-a-side match where the ball never goes out of play.

Pardo believes Bielsa's aloofness towards players may explain a modest trophy haul of three Argentine league championships, one Olympic gold medal and the Championship title with Leeds. Some players, says the Mexican, need their manager to show them some love. Regardless of the writing style, the actual content is mostly made up of either explanations of basic tactical concepts, and 'rules' for playing football which fail to take the opposition into account. The substance of these could fit into a leaflet. The rest is made up of session plans that don't seem to be appropriate for any team I can possibly imagine. If you don't know the level, the individuals, and the opposition, you can't prescribe a meaningful program. It wasn't long before Lunari was being subjected to the arduous training methods that have become another Bielsa trademark. It's Bielsa's rigidity that works against him and after the first season we all thought: 'There goes Bielsa again, almost but not quite,'" says Mora y Araujo. "But now he has done it, and I think that's incredibly redeeming for him personally and for the club." Discussing a football manager in such reverential terms might seem hyperbolic. However, what Bielsa has done for the club and the city in many ways transcends sport. He is a man who sees the corporate, avaricious, sportswashing modern game for what it is, yet managed to navigate his way through it all and still hold on to his principles: decency, humility and an unwavering work ethic.

After missing out on promotion during a season derailed by the 'Spygate' scandal , they maintained focus through the Covid-19 shutdown and secured their Premier League status with two games to spare, sweeping aside most opponents with their possession-based style. I am not willing to do it. I think that it would not be healthy, neither for him nor for me, to work together. I prefer to continue admiring and appreciating his football but from the outside." Leeds are returning to the Premier League for the first time since their relegation from England's top flight in May 2004 I don't have the intensity you need to be by his side," says Lunari. "I am passionate about football, but I am not thinking about the game 24 hours a day, and I believe that to be working next to him, one needs to have a special type of dedication. It was a huge change for us 15- or 16-year-old boys who were used to playing mostly for fun," says Lunari. "We were used to training for an hour and a half, but with Marcelo we trained for three hours with a level of concentration and physical intensity that we were not used to. So he and his fellow youth team coach Jorge Griffa divided the country into 70 territories, driving thousands of miles in Bielsa's little Fiat. If they liked a player, they would go and see them, no matter what time it was.