Why You Should Hate Marcelo Bielsa
Non-Leeds fans, here’s a challenge for you: go find your nearest Leeds supporter and tell them you don’t like Marcelo Bielsa. I’ll sit here and wait a few minutes.
If you’re still able to read at this point, I’ll continue. Telling a Leeds fan (or a Newell’s fan, or a Chilean, for that matter) that you dislike Marcelo Bielsa is just about on par with telling a member of the Swiss Guard that you think the Pope needs taking down a few pegs, or loudly revealing your admiration for Hillary Clinton in the midst of a NASCAR crowd. You’re essentially announcing that you hate every Leeds fan’s collective grandfather, and that — simply put — won’t fly in West Yorkshire. Even Huddersfield fans now have to begrudgingly thank him for sending them his protégé, like Claude Heater offering a dying Charlton Heston water as he’s marched to the slave galleys in Ben Hur.
And why shouldn’t we defend him with such ferocity? This is the nicest man in football: a staunch socialist who believes that football is a sport purely for the fans, dedicated to delivering the most entertaining and exciting brand imaginable, crushed by every defeat — not for his own reputation — but because he feels that he has let down the working men and women who pay to attend the games. A coach who, in the two seasons he has been in the English game, has never once blamed a referee for a defeat, or seeked to push attention from a poor performance onto the opposition or his own players. This is the man who hands out sweets to the kids that wait to see the team arrive on matchdays, most likely from the shop he lives above in Wetherby, uninterested in a flashy house or car (having raffled off the one given to him by the club in his first season), and jumps out to meet young, disabled fans for a hug and some kind words. This is the man who paid millions out of his own pocket for a new training complex at his first club, and for the fine received after his current club were charged by the authorities despite breaking no laws of the game. To call him a man of principles is to understate him entirely, and to praise him for any of these actions would embarrass him. To him, they weren’t actions worthy of praise, or decisions that ever had to be deliberated; they were simply born from what he believed was the right thing to do.
And yet, despite this well-documented (though never self-publicised) magnamity and humility, there are those in the world of football that seem, somehow, to dislike this man. In the wake of ‘Spygate’ (a ridiculous, tabloid-esque media storm dreamt up by the very worst that sports journalism has to offer) in particular, a small crowd of proper football men lined up to take shots at Bielsa, knowing full well he would never respond, in a cavalcade of hypocrisy, hysteria, and straight up xenophobia, leaving a foul taste in many mouths that has never fully faded. In the hope it will prove somewhat cathartic, I want to explore where this hatred for Marcelo Bielsa comes from, and how anyone could ever bring themselves to attack him in the way the British media did in 2019.
He’s Overrated
If certain buzzwords were to be aligned with certain eras of football, then the last few years would undoubtedly be aligned with some variation of the word “fraud”. Any high profile manager who drops points against a weaker side, loses a crunch game against title rivals, or leaves a competition without lifting the trophy is met with the same tidal wave of condemnation from the gleeful masses of awaiting opposition fans, ready to call out said coach with that simple, yet loaded, adjective. Guardiola, Mourinho, Klopp — no one is safe from the accusation. No matter how many games you win, no matter how many titles you lift, the second you fail, you’re a fraud. And there’s nothing you can do about it. One could argue the phenomenon is a result of our absolutist sports media: individuals are either game-changing innovators, or dinosaurs being left behind by the modern world. There is no middle ground from sports networks that need your viewing figures. One week, Pep is the saviour of the modern game, protecting the future of English football for generations to come, the next he’s a cheque-book coach with no ability to develop players. It’s no wonder that, with such wild opinions thrown around for our digestion, fans tend to get a bit judgemental regarding the god-like status afforded to some of the game’s bigger personalities. Consider then, when it comes to Marcelo Bielsa, that “god-like” doesn’t really cover it.
In certain parts of Argentina, Spain, France, and pretty much the entirety of Chile and West Yorkshire, Bielsa is held in the kind of regard usually reserved for the big beardy bloke in the sky himself. Before his arrival in Leeds, he had transformed the fortunes of Newell’s in his native Rosario, taken Athletic Bilbao within touching distance of European glory, and put Chile on the map of international football, all the while reinventing and challenging what were generally perceived to be the limitations of attacking football. For this, and for his ridiculously modest response to his successes, he has been lauded by both fans and by some of the biggest names in the game — looked to as a wandering guru, happy to impart wisdom to those who seek it from him. It’s no surprise, given the tribalism inherent in football, that there are those who seek to challenge this view. Those, like the countless twitter accounts ready to stampede over the full-time announcement of a team’s loss, ready and waiting to call Bielsa a fraud at any given opportunity. Jose Sulantay is one such man — a one-time Chilean U20s coach who publicly claimed that there was no evidence to suggest Bielsa had affected Chile in a way that justified the praise he received, and drew specific focus to his lack of tangible success outside of Argentina: “he has never won anything abroad” — views that were endorsed by Chilean midfielder (and mid-2000s pop-punk haircut sporter) Arturo Vidal, despite Vidal’s international career starting and flourishing under Bielsa himself.
It isn’t just Sulantay and Vidal, however. This is a criticism of Bielsa that has been heard throughout his career — that for all the praise and adulation, for all the players who credit him with transforming their careers, he simply doesn’t win enough silverware to be worthy of such acclaim. His Argentina team failed to produce on the big stage, his Bilbao side fell away at the crucial moments, Marseille shot out of the traps but ran out of steam, and his first season with Leeds ended much the same. There’s no denying the fact (especially since the man himself will attest to it) and it’s not an unfair criticism to level against a manager who is perceived to be so important within the game, but ask any disciple of Bielsa what they think of his meagre trophy haul and you’ll get the same answer — it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because, with Bielsa, it’s not just about physical success; it’s about the mentality and respect that he brings to a club and the community that surrounds it. The idea that, above everything else, the team has to focus on playing the game the right way, no matter what the other side does, and never compromise despite what others might say. It doesn’t matter because, even though you may have to take a loss to heart as a fan, you know that Bielsa feels it too. You know he hurts as much as any supporter because you see it in his face and in his demeanor, sinking to the the ground against the wall of the tunnel, and you know it was never through a lack of effort or desire. It doesn’t matter because, ultimately, you’d rather have Bielsa in charge than a trophy in the cabinet — and, if you’re a Leeds fan, you get the rather wonderful situation of having both of those things simultaneously.
He’s A Cheat
We’ve plumbed the depths of understandable, but flawed, criticism, and now plunge even deeper into the realms of rage-inducing lunacy. 2019’s Spygate fiasco was, without a doubt, the most ridiculous period of time in Leeds United history since Massimo Cellino’s taxi was chased around Elland Road, or perhaps the mini-Diouf incident of 2013…
After admitting to sending a member of staff to watch Derby County (and a few others) train from a public footpath, Bielsa became the focus of a nation-wide slander-campaign, spearheaded by plasticine Sky Sports and Talksport presenter, Jim White, who just so happens to be personally close to Derby County owner and stadium realtor, Mel Morris. With a wonderfully hashtaggable title, the anti-Leeds-and-Bielsa express was ready to pull out of the station, a plethora of pundits prepared to jump on board, and White manning the controls. While very careful not to explicitly call Bielsa a cheat, knowing those words would easily come back to bite them, ex-pros like Dean Saunders and Martin Keown did everything but — throwing out terms like “low” and “embarrassing”, with Keown even managing to call the practice of watching another team train “cheating” before stammering his way through a vague justification of his words.
Now, it would be easy to sit here and explain for a second time that no rules were broken by either Bielsa or Leeds, and that the story of a Leeds “spy” being found on his hands and knees with a pair of bolt cutters by the training ground was a lie propagated and never discredited by Frank Lampard (to this day). It would also be easy to point out the lunacy of fining the club £200,000 for a breach of a (literally) unwritten “ethical code”, while others were fined paltry amounts in comparison for incidents of racism within their organisation. It would be easy to point out that, in the previous decade, Chelsea manager Andre Villas Boas was praised by the very same media that attacked Bielsa for his dossiers on opposition teams, a process which involved him sneaking into training grounds in disguise to watch them train in order to report back to Jose Mourinho, coach of the disgusted and morally offended Frank Lampard, who subsequently and conveniently denied any knowledge of his own manager’s “spying”.
In fact, so furious was Lampard over this perceived demolition of the done thing, and so offended was he by Bielsa’s betrayal of his apparent code of conduct, that he refused to cede any ground even after Bielsa gave his now-infamous press conference, in which he explained clearly why (even though the “spying” had indeed taken place) none of the information ascertained on any of the Championship clubs affected was really required, as Bielsa and his team had about as much data on Lampard’s Derby — and every other team in existence — as is necessary to either launch a SpaceX rocket to the moon, or to calculate what in God’s name is going on with Elon Musk at any given point in his existence.
No, Lampard (along with the bastion of ethical behaviour, Dean Saunders) shrugged off the eye-opening presentation, simply stating “we do analysis too” to the guffawing set of sycophantic journos in attendance at his own weekly presser. To Frank, this was nothing special. It was the kind of data-collection he could do in his sleep — not that he needs it, sleep is for the weak, and Lampard is strong — and Saunders was quick to support him. “What he done yesterday, we all do it. We all do that,” explained the ex-Crawley Town manager, even going so far as to point out that “non-league clubs” would apparently match Bielsa’s level of obsessive stat-collection and video analysis, through the use of “students”, to the apparent confusion of Talksport host and exploding tomato impersonator, Alan Brazil. Quite who Saunders meant by “we” is unclear, as he hasn’t held a managerial position since 2015, but we’ll assume that he and his team of students were producing the same level of research at Chesterfield during his short stint there. It does seem unlucky, given that effort, that Saunders was sacked after 6 months at the club with the team in 16th place and a win rate of 34%, but it must have been because he didn’t spy on training sessions.
Yes, taking our Leeds-tinted glasses off for a second, I’m sure we can all admit that spying on training sessions wasn’t the best look for the club, and was unnecessary on Bielsa’s part, but the furore that surrounded the revelation was horrendously overblown by a group of opportunistic talking heads who knew that discussing Leeds (especially negatively) would provide them with engagement figures they could only dream of on a normal day. Even after Bielsa had fronted up to his actions and presented the run-through of his analytical approach, the circus continued, stoked by a media campaign designed to magnify every miniscule detail and spearheaded by a revolving parade of shouty, make-up clad “journalists” who promised new revelations and criticisms on the hour. And why not? We love a tale of moral downfall — a hero to villain story — even better when it comes from a club the rest of the footballing public are constantly waiting to pull up. Just think of the ratings.
But if you think that calling Bielsa a cheat was the lowest the sports networks could sink, think again.
He’s Foreign
Oh yes. Not only did Marcelo Bielsa dare to shatter the impenetrable code of football decency (an agreement between all clubs to act in honest harmony which was hitherto perfectly observed across the board), all the while having the gall to be a comparatively unsuccessful manager in comparison to the greats who admire him, but he did all this while… and you won’t believe this… while being from a different country. I mean, to think of the nerve to come over here and upset the fine balance that has been forged throughout the history of proper British football, with these foreign ways and underhanded tactics. It’s despicable. England legend and all-round decent bloke Peter Shilton summed it up perfectly on being told by Jim White (what a surprise to see his name again) that Bielsa was Argentinian during an interview on Sky Sports: “Oh is he? That makes it even worse then, doesn’t it?”
Well said, Pete, well said. Because of course that makes it worse. It’s just liberal lefty nonsense to think otherwise — and good on the fine presenters at Sky Sports News for not challenging such a proud, xenophobic statement like one of those socialist, luvvie news networks would do. Our football legends should be able to insult any nationality they want, especially when said legend was outjumped by a diminutive compatriot of Marcelo over 30 years ago. It’s only right that today he’s able to freely associate an experienced and respected coach’s country of birth with the apparent severity of a crime that wasn’t even really a crime, without any fear of reproach. Rule Britannia, No Surrender, God Save The Queen.
Jokes aside: ultimately, and honestly, that unspoken yet obvious xenophobia is where a significant chunk of the criticism levelled at Marcelo Bielsa came from throughout the farce that was the Spygate coverage. After all, what easier target is there for the kind of prehistoric, meat-and-two-veg pundits that we apparently can’t get enough of, than an eccentric foreign coach, who delivers his press-conferences in Spanish and comes with a reputation of being a bit different? Why listen to the words he says, through his translators, when you can simply focus on the fact that he isn’t from here, and, even worse, he doesn’t speak the language. Never mind that he speaks in Spanish because what he says is so carefully considered that speaking in English would risk diluting his message or changing its meaning altogether. Never mind that half the people criticising him can’t speak the language either, or have so little to say that they simply vomit out the same, meaningless drivel every time they sit in front of a camera. Instead, they were given free rein to go after a man that was easy to villainize to the general public, and (more importantly) a man they knew would never respond — not because he was incapable, but because it simply isn’t in his character.
What’s silly about all this bitterness and anger on my part, is that Bielsa has probably long-since forgiven the individuals mentioned here, if he was ever aware of them at all. I’m sure he’s moved on, left those issues in the past, and would tell me to do the same thing if I ever had the chance to bring it up with him, waving away my incredulity with some wonderful parable about humility and forgiveness. And I’ll stand, stunned by the sudden pettiness of my complaints, ashamed by my fixation on the actions of others. In a way, it’s another reminder that I’m not, and will never be, as good a man as the one they chose to attack.
Big thanks to Matt Clarke (Loomstride) and Tom Woodhead for their artwork.
