Bielsa’s Bucket: the awesome power behind a Premier League icon - Guardian 8/8/21
Aside from the odd sight the Leeds manager provides, doesn’t sitting and squatting like that for so long hurt?
Hannah Jane Parkinson
You’ll see him prowling the touchlines, the lenses of his
glasses dappled with droplets of water, his tactical brain scanning the angles
of the pitch, then there it is: the squat.
Marcelo Bielsa is known for various eccentricities – his
nickname is El Loco Bielsa, madman Bielsa – but the most visible is surely his
habit of eschewing the dugout seats to get down low on his haunches, hands
clasped between his knees, in the position of a plumber considering the problem
with your washing machine.
The Leeds manager’s unusual positioning has become something
of a trademark, much loved among dedicated Leeds fans but also football fans in
general. It is a big contribution to his cult status in the game.
When did this particular Bielsaism begin? And how, I am
desperate to know, does a man who is 66 years old manage to hold such a posture
for significant periods of time when my knees would crumble to dust in mere
seconds?
Tim Rich, who has written a book on Bielsa (The Quality of
Madness has a photograph of Bielsa in full squat on the cover) believes the
stance began when Bielsa started managing Marseille in 2014. “Before that he
didn’t crouch. He simply did what most managers do and stood by the touchlines
and often got sent to the stands for losing his temper.”
But Marseille’s stadium, the Stade Vélodrome, has a very low
dugout and Bielsa began to sit on an icebox on the sidelines. “You don’t get a
very good view sitting in that dugout, and soon Bielsa was on the icebox,
rather ostentatiously directing his forces.”
There was an unfortunate incident when Bielsa sat down on
his icebox without realising his assistant had used it to park a cup of hot
coffee. Perhaps it was this trauma that led to Bielsa beginning to crouch as
well as perch on something solid.
By the time he arrived at Leeds in 2018, this quirk was
well-established. When not giving his best impression of an unsupported Rodin’s
The Thinker, Bielsa choose to sit on an upturned bucket. The Leeds hierarchy
soon created a custom, cushioned bucket complete with club insignia. Replicas
of this creation even went on sale in the official club shop – for £80. “Bielsa
has made bucket manufacturers in Yorkshire very happy,” says Rich.
Elland Road has a similarly sunken dugout to Marseille’s
ground. Rich reminds me that Alex Ferguson had Old Trafford’s dugouts rebuilt –
the home positioned higher than the away for a slight managerial advantage. Ole
Gunnar Solskjær has taken to sitting at the back of that dugout for a higher
view, as Ferguson did before him.
It seems somewhat strange, then, for Bielsa to ensure he is
not sitting in a low dugout but then to crouch down close enough to smell the
grass. But there may well be additional motivations.
The Argentinian comes from a family of politicians – Rich
likens the clan to the Benn dynasty in the UK – so Bielsa will recognise the
power that props and symbols, overt or otherwise, can have.
Somewhat more prosaically, Bielsa is well known to have
longstanding back problems. He walks rather than drives to the club’s Thorp
Arch training ground, which is supposed to help. It has been mooted that his
crouching eases the strain. Rich also points out that Bielsa used to be prone
to outbursts and has become calmer since he entered the era of the crouch.
I am still extremely impressed, however, that he can
physically manage it. I ask Steve Caulfield, a personal trainer based in
Bromley, London, who has the kind of thighs that could crush watermelons, for
his take. Caulfield says lsa, as a former player, probably developed a sense of
strength, coordination and conditioning from a young age.
Caulfield says: “It looks like Bielsa has excellent hip
flexibility and the low squat is relying on mobility in his hips, knees, back,
and ankles.” He agrees with the back-pain relief theory. “It may well be more
comfortable for him than a seated position on his lower back. There was a lot
of unsatisfactory research in the 1960s and 70s about protecting backs by not
bending down or squatting.
“But children can often be found sitting in this position
for hours while playing; it comes naturally to us. So Bielsa has obviously
ignored that and at 66 years old is still making it look pretty relaxing.”
Despite the fact I topple over within seconds of scrubbing
my bathroom floor, Caulfield says we could all emulate the Bielsa squat. “Even
taking five minutes a day can make sedentary adults improve their flexibility.
A great starting point is to lie on your back and let your knees fall to the
side.
“Over time you can push your knees to the ground, working on
the rotation in your hips. As with all forms of movement, consistency is key.
Bielsa has been doing it for ages – that’s why it’s still comfortable for him.”
I love the idea of young Leeds fans doing the Bielsa squat
in local parks, rather than copying how Patrick Bamford slots the ball home. To
elaborate on the popularity of the squat: the Leeds podcaster Micky P Kerr
recorded and released a song entitled Bucket Man to the tune of Elton John’s
Rocket Man, now enthusiastically sung on the terraces. Then there’s The King of
Elland Road (“with your bucket as your throne”) by fan Paul Wilson. There are
at least three Twitter accounts dedicated to the bucket.
The twin idiosyncrasies of bucket and squat, then, are
confirmed phenomena. They are up there with other managerial hallmarks: Jürgen
Klopp’s transparent spectacles and simian chest-beating or the character marks
of the past such as Alex Ferguson and his penchant for furiously chewing gum
and Arsène Wenger’s sleeping-bag coat (gone but never forgotten).
All of this attention has led to Bielsa being asked about
the squatting, the bucket perching. “It belongs to the folklore you find in
football,” one journalist said.