We All Knew Bielsa Was Staying But It’s Still a Relief That Bielsa is Actually Staying - The Square Ball 12/8/21

RESOLVED

Written by Moscowhite • Daniel Chapman

There they were again, the two of them, I’m so glad. Marcelo Bielsa, suppressing his fury that media duties are back already, in a new white training t-shirt, fidgeting to get back to work; Andres Clavijo, the man who makes the legislator legible if not always comprehensible, by Bielsa’s side with his hands in lap like he’s waiting for Sunday School to start. What a pleasure to see them again after all these weeks of silence when anything could have been happening.

“Good afternoon everybody, the contract situation is one which has already been resolved.”

And what words to begin with! (You can see them being spoken on video on LUTV or read them in a transcript at Leeds Live). There’s more, be patient, let the follow-up question be asked, the answer spoken, and translated:

“It’s a subject that’s resolved.”

Well, that’s good enough for me, and I expect it’s good enough for you, dear reader, because we knew it all along — there were no doubts, no expectations of drama, nothing to say it wouldn’t turn out this way, not even a trip home to Argentina to worry us, Bielsa has been working at Thorp Arch all the summer long, and when he wasn’t working he was domiciled a matter of steps away, and the one time he ventured beyond Yorkshire, to Scotland, he was quickly located and photographed by fans. We knew he was here, we knew he was preparing for the new season, we knew that two days before the first game kicks off he’d shrug and say, “It’s a subject that’s resolved.”

It’s still a relief to hear him say it, though. Although this is less good news:

“One year is habitual.”

Same again next summer, then? Great. But if this is how it is, it’s how it is. It’s odd to look back to how I cared less about Massimo Cellino picking between watermelons every six weeks than about the almost certainly continuing work of the staunchest coach in the Premier League. Something Bielsa seems to be aware of, but we’ll come to that. I just wish he was aware of how large that word ‘almost’ looms in our nightmares while his contract is awaiting his pen.

Marcelo started off quite terse with his short answers, as if his mind was still on diagrams of Harry Maguire’s head he’d been studying in his office, but once he was asked about the work that has been done around him at Leeds United this summer he warmed up to his theme. And that theme seemed to be expressing his gratitude to the club hierarchy, after spending all summer torturing every detail of his contract until the football club was to his liking:

“From my point of view this is an extraordinary club. It’s not often you have a club which designates so much volume of investment to the improvement of the training. In this sense, Leeds have made a significant contribution economically for the tools to prepare the players. They are the ideal [tools].

“Everything we need in this area, the club has resolved it with a very high investment. Whether it be the pitches, the facilities, the technology, commodities for the work of the players. And in this sense I am very astounded by the conduct of the club.”

Dare I suggest that it’s less astounding when you think about how if ‘the pitches, the facilities, the technology, commodities for the work’ weren’t invested in to such a Bielsist extent, then the price the club would have paid — i.e. Bielsa heading out in search of more obliging employers, leaving this lot to face up to thousands of angry supporters — would have been much higher than the cost of putting in a spot of undersoil heating at Thorp Arch. But I’m sure they can all look back on it now and laugh.

Bielsa gave a brief — for him — rundown of the construction he decreed:

“The focus was on some details that weren’t resolved. Free spaces that previously couldn’t be used have been made into spaces that can be used, with grass. One pitch has undersoil heating, so that in the winter there aren’t any problems with regards to training due to snow and the weather. The facilities have been improved so that that can happen for two further pitches in future…”

— and a big well-done to whoever deferred paying for having those pitches heated until some future off-season —

“…and there’s a path created for the machinery that does the work around the pitches, so that it doesn’t damage the pitches. Then after that, there was a lot more minor details, that [create] options for work to be better. All of this [has been] done with a lot of professionalism. The director of the club and those in charge of the construction have been impeccable in their work.”

They’ve probably heard the story about Bielsa reporting himself to the police after fighting with less than impeccable builders in Bilbao.

It’s a lot, and Bielsa is always a lot whether he’s finding new patches of land to put grass down or measuring all the plug sockets with his set square, but isn’t it better than when Steve Evans was staring at the mould-encrusted floor of an empty and stinking swimming pool, while praising Massimo Cellino for doing a great job by not caving into Sam Byram’s ‘demands’ not to have his wages cut?

And at least Marcelo does eventually say thank you, now the work has been done and the contract is not just resolved but, the club confirmed a few hours after his press conference, signed. His happiness about signing Junior Firpo and Kristoffer Klaesson was a chance to praise the club for, well, everything:

“[I am] Very happy. They’re very well thought-out decisions, very revised, very analysed, and we think all the conditions are there for them to have a good time at Leeds.

“It’s another segment of this club that functions with a very high professionalism. For a long time I’ve been working in professional football now, and very few times have I seen, ever, very well looked-after work like it is here, to decide when we decide to sign a player.”

The praise went retrospective here, about how good transfer windows past made this summer a two-transfer breeze.

“That means the players the club counts on [already], the club considers them sufficient and adequate, and that there is a very prolific and fertile contribution from the academy … They [the academy] always have responses to the needs that present themselves to us throughout our season.

“In terms of the organisation, I consider that Leeds is an example [of the best] and I focus the responsibility in Victor Orta, who is the one who structures the arrival of players, and the director of the academy, and staff of the Under-23s, who give nutrients to the first-team — and the president, the owner of the club, who makes investments that he could easily ignore.”

Well, again, you say he could easily ignore making those investments, but I’d imagine that’s easier said than done when Marcelo actual Bielsa hasn’t signed his contract and is demanding a new path for the Thorp Arch lawnmowers. But credit where it’s due! Although of course there’s more to be done, because while it’s nice to sign a Firpo, what if we could sign players costing a lot more?

“I think that the most important coaches [in] world football would value what this club [has] in terms of organisation, structure and the public. Obviously I don’t ignore that there’s another step to be able to [afford to sign] these players who triple in value, that Leeds can obtain. And I understand that this type of power, we have to consider it and take [it] into account, because I insist that the powerful clubs are not there for no reason.”

— and, if I’m understanding Bielsa correctly here, Leeds should be a powerful club for the same reasons as they are. Bielsa talked a bit about the progression of the team:

“…the development of a style of play is not the only aspect that allows the growth of a team. [You also] have to maintain the enthusiasm, the ambition and desire to grow, [and] take on board the expectations that have been generated from the public.”

And when I mentioned above about Bielsa’s understanding of our progress from melon farm to football power, this is what I meant:

“There’s a very special moment in the development of a team, when [the fans’] recognition of what happened before disappears, and the demand for what’s next increases.”

And that moment is, perhaps, not yet? Or it depends on how much of the Championship, League One and the Championship again you endured? Because, as this blog post shows, it can still be hard to talk about anything Leeds United do now without thinking of drained pools, draining Cellino, sump Steve Evans. The recognition is there whenever I close my eyes and see us 4-0 down at half-time in Brighton. It is fading, though, disappearing as Bielsa suggests it will as the team develops, and for younger or newer fans it was never in their thoughts in the first place, so by adding their voices those upward demands — Europe, £50m transfers, trophies — are becoming more dominant.

With a training ground to match, and a stadium full of — hmm, do I dare say positivity? We’ve only had a few fans inside Elland Road since promotion, and they were consumed by sadness as they waved goodbye to past heroes Pablo Hernandez and Gaetano Berardi. We’ll have no choice but to reprise the sadness at the Everton fixture, remembering all the players and friends we’ve lost since we were last all at home. This season is, really, Leeds United’s first Premier League season for real, and Bielsa is glad about supporters being back in the stadium. They are different from casual Premier League television viewers because they feed the passions, not the bank acccount:

“That segment of the public, in football, is irreplaceable. You can find people anywhere in the world who want to see a Premier League game. But there aren’t five million people who suffer when Leeds lose or get excited beyond belief. The heart of football is the genuine fans of Leeds United. And the spectators [from] the [wider] world are what sustains the business. But those who suffer, or get excited beyond belief for the results, [they are] what football is.”

And what is Marcelo Bielsa, at Leeds United? He was asked about the club’s place in his heart now; second at best to Newell’s Old Boys, of course, but…?

“There are answers I would like to give when I no longer work here. But [while] working inside the institution, you run the risk that the answers are demagogue [he means making noise to attract attention] and they are interpreted as [trying to be] capturing the sympathy of the fans [imagine everything Steve Evans ever said or did at Leeds, that’s what Bielsa is saying he doesn’t want to do]. I think that when you stop belonging to an institution, that’s the moment to refer yourself to the feelings that have led you to this place.”

I very much want to hear Marcelo Bielsa talk about the feelings that have led him to this place, a word I’m interpreting emotionally as well as geographically. But I don’t want him to stop belonging to our institution. Ever. So it’s going to stay confusing, isn’t it? Even though deep down we’re sure. And hopefully everything will be like that for a very long time.