Kalvin Phillips is The Sound of Leeds United at Home - The Square Ball 13/8/21

MEKKING ME LAUGH!

Written by Rob Conlon

First there was Raphinha, every part The Peacocks’ peacock, mercilessly taking the piss out of fellow Brazilian native Rodrigo whenever he failed to match Rapha’s Copacabana cool. At the other end of the spectrum were squad dads Liam Cooper, Stuart Dallas and Luke Ayling, bashfully trying to do their best. Ayling dutifully pulled out the air guitar, struggling to free his mane as if wrestling with a tie wrapped around his head on a wedding dancefloor. That trio’s performances left one question unanswered, what was tearaway uncle Mateusz Klich getting up to that they couldn’t show?

His Leeds United teammates were going through a range of emotions in front of the cameras for the club’s media day. Junior Firpo was carefully performing kick-ups with the concentration of a former Barcelona player who has seen that go wrong a surprising number of times. Diego Llorente was appearing out of nowhere to awkwardly cross his arms over his chest while making V signs, like that friend whose entire concept of music comes from the only two CDs in their car, Imagine Dragons and DMX. It’s hard to tell whether Llorente knows what he’s doing at times, but whatever it is, he always does it with supreme self-assuredness.

Around the same time, Marcelo Bielsa was cutting a very different vibe, bringing an end to his usual summer of silence by appearing in a couple of clips from a rare one-to-one interview with DAZN. Bielsa doesn’t like these situations, but he didn’t disappoint when cutting through the homogenisation of modern football.

“How are we going to be happy in my city Rosario when we see a boy in a Real Madrid shirt?” he asked. “Or if you go to Africa and see a boy in a Bayern Munich shirt? The love [for football] has to start with your own, with your place, with who you are and what’s at hand. There are five or ten global clubs, but who is going to pay attention to your own?”

Those words brought me back to Leeds’ media day and the star of the show, Kalvin Phillips. Bielsa has a unique relationship with Phillips, dating back to taking over at Leeds and identifying the inconsistent box-to-box midfielder as the player to build his team around. On the night promotion was confirmed, the tough love of those first-half substitutions was forgotten now Bielsa was shouting “THE BEST” right into the face of a speechless Phillips, who could only respond by going back in for a bearhug that was two years in the making.

The more wide-eyed Phillips has become in the famous company he is now keeping, only a pen and napkin away from asking for Kane’s autograph at England mealtimes, the more Bielsa seems to vicariously enjoy his player’s success. When Phillips was first called up, Bielsa presented him with one of his old Newell’s shirts, adding a note of congratulations to his family. Phillips returned the favour by giving Bielsa his first England shirt. It is the reward for making Phillips his “personal project”. When Bielsa hosts one-to-one meetings with each of his players on the eve of a game, Phillips is one of the few he will speak to more than once, loading him up with as much information and advice as possible to ensure he succeeds.

Phillips’ talents and resilience have taken him a long way beyond Wortley, but if Bielsa’s love for football has to start “with your own, with your place, with who you are and what’s at hand”, then where better to look for that at Leeds than with the local lad who, on media day, still can’t say out loud for the cameras that you can watch his hometown club playing in the Premier League live on TV, without nervously giggling?

The final of the European Championships for his country was fine. Ask him to pose in front of a camera and Phillips is again a complete natural. When Kalvin Phillips is fulfilling the broadcast contract, frowning into the lens, you wonder if all he’s done in the last year has changed him. Until he starts tripping over his words, asking earnestly if he should take his retainer out, and until the giggles take over, with their heart-warming Leeds sound. “Stop mekking me laugh, you!”