Brentford 1-2 Leeds United: The humbling - The Square Ball 23/5/22

ON OUR KNEES

Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman

Way back in August, when Leeds United started their season by losing 5-1 at Old Trafford but things still felt only temporarily bad, I put my faith in Luke Ayling’s grim expression in his aftermath interview. We’d seen it before, when promotion was on the brink at Nottingham Forest, and it had saved us then. I hoped we would let Luke Ayling’s frown, once more, be a turning point.

The set jaw, the glowering eyes, the bristling injustice operating like static on a manbun; it got Leeds to safety in the end, but it wasn’t being worn by Billy boy. Something about Leeds United’s ascension was forged in Yeovil, and Chesterfield, and Northampton, the austere origins of Ayling, Liam Cooper and Stuart Dallas driving them up and away from a world they wanted to leave behind. In common with them, in the end, was Raphinha, using whatever got him from Porto Alegre to Yorkshire to make sure that, if and when it gets him to Barcelona, it’s only at Burnley’s expense. He also never gave into manbun pressure and he’s a better dancer, so it all worked out very well.

I think too much is made of legacies in modern football, as transient players get dipped in bronze so the game can build a fake heritage with which to sell itself more lavishly. Brentford’s manager Thomas Frank offered a ludicrous example this week, suggesting that in a couple of seasons they might build a statue to Christian Eriksen. I’d set the bar higher than scoring the one goal he has so far, but let’s see what Eriksen does for Brentford next season. I had, though, started wondering lately what we will make of Raphinha after he goes. He’s probably the best player Leeds have had for twenty years, although for impact at their level, I’d talk about Robert Snodgrass and Pablo Hernandez, too. And they both put promotions on their record, while a few weeks ago Raphinha looked set to drift away without anything to show for his skills but the dazzle. Would he mean anything more to us, in the end, than a wondrous two season distraction, our first viral nutmegger of souls?

Then the last week happened, and while it’s not just about him, he was the best of it. The Peacocks, in the end, performed about as expected: 17th place, 38 points, a run-in of absolute kickings — Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea — followed by solid results against teams they could aim to beat. Not two wins, but enough; and signs against Brighton and Brentford that with more shoving on Southampton and Crystal Palace the relegation risk might not have gone to the final day. For most of May Raphinha looked frustrated and forlorn, shoved to right wing-back to face teams who, in the Champions League next season, he can expect to be outfoxing with his skills helped by the standards around him. But when the situation changed for the last two games Raphinha changed with it. Against Brighton and against Brentford, whether it was playmaking, taking shots, winning penalties, taking penalties, taking corners or even taking long throws, he was there to do it all. He could have given up, but like the class of 2020 that he took to so well, he concentrated instead on giving everything he had. It might be significant that, in the post-match changing room photos, it looked like sixteen-year-old Archie Gray had the peg next to Raphinha. In Archie’s position, I would be absolutely terrified just sitting next to this incredible, intense player. That’s probably why he’s doing it.

The contrast with the game Burnley played at home to Newcastle says a lot to United’s credit. Nathan Collins shook an inexplicable fist at a passing ball, giving away a penalty that gave Newcastle the lead. Our old pal Charlie Taylor, dawdling behind Callum Wilson, visibly froze when he saw the cross coming from which Wilson made it 2-0. I’ve only seen highlights of the game, but Match of the Day rushed past a first half that, from the stats, looks shocking from Burnley’s point of view. Two shots, both from Dwight McNeil, both in the last few minutes before the break, both from thirty yards out down the throat of the goalie. One corner. They completed two passes into Newcastle’s penalty area. They livened up in the second half, pulled a goal back, and Wout Weghorst put a low cross wide that he should have buried. But on the biggest day, Burnley failed.

In the early stages against Brentford nerves were a visible problem for Leeds, but they solved them. Under the most pressure because, compared to Burnley at kick-off, they were least able to help themselves, Leeds played some of their best stuff for a while, Jackie Harrison spinning a pass through that Joe Gelhardt buried; he was offside, but the confidence gained from putting the ball in the net helped anyway. It didn’t last: the longer Leeds played, the more doubtful they looked, but early in the second half Brentford’s goalie David Raya panicked, passed to Raphinha, then fouled him. It was the worst and best moment for Raphinha’s stuttering penalty technique, and I hated it while loving the result, the ball big and plumb in the net’s empty top corner.

The second half got ready for a big turn after Maxwell Cornet pulled a goal back for Burnley, Brentford went down to ten through injury, and Sergi Canos precisely headed an equaliser. But Leeds withstood as, for a change, it was players on other teams losing their minds. Canos was booked for his celebration, then booked again for a needless foul on Raphinha, his red card overdue from the last time I saw him behaving so stupidly, headbutting Gjanni Alioski’s back and getting away with it on a day Pontus Jansson ended up banned for swearing about the referee on Sky Sports. At first Leeds seemed bewildered to be playing against nine, and Jesse Marsch said afterwards Raphinha was asking him, ‘Do we need to win?’ Marsch told him yes, but the true answer was maybe it depends, because if nothing changed at Turf Moor, a draw was fine. How do you play through those circumstances? With difficulty, but Leeds kept going. We can’t give Raphinha much credit for his stoppage time corner except to say that, under pressure, he stayed on brand as his cross was cleared at the first post; then Jackie Harrison, running onto it, got the pay off for an afternoon of tireless running down the wings by concentrating very hard on volleying very low. A deflection, a goal, a hero made forever.

That is, forever until next season, if his form dips, when all this will be forgotten and his ‘legacy’ will be argued over. Forever only lasts a few minutes in football, as the promotion team of 2020 came close to proving by coming so close to going back down again. Luke Ayling’s stern drive had to be carried on by Raphinha because he’d ended his own season with a senseless tackle; Stuart Dallas was here on crutches, too. Pat Bamford, set up to be the saviour, ended up at home in bed with a bad bout of Covid-19; Liam Cooper and Kalvin Phillips have had to hurry back from long, bad injuries, and do their best. Mateusz Klich, unable to impress Marsch, lost his place to Sam Greenwood, who has never been thought of as a midfield partner for Phillips but was superb; Klich didn’t let it dim his work when he came on or his revelry afterwards, a keen sign of a squad willing to roll with what it’s asked to do. The fuck-ups have been constant, but so has the persistence.

In a season when they’ve often played badly, that one virtue remained, and perhaps saved them in the end. During the last games under Marcelo Bielsa, their coach seemed almost humbled by the extent to which the players were sticking with his ideas, no matter how much the results were hurting them. There was dissent and frustration, but Bielsa seemed amazed there wasn’t more, and that perseverance gave him something to work with. It transferred to Jesse Marsch, who said the players took to his ‘tactical topics’ faster than any group he’d worked with, while again, their efforts ended in absolute kickings. After that grim, hopeless night against Chelsea, though, Leeds found something to play with against Brighton and Brentford by letting Harrison and Raphinha start from their favourite places, the touchlines, and either work to the corner flags or take Marsch’s favoured route inside from there. With Phillips in midfield to find them out wide and Cooper at the back, Leeds ended the season clunky but committed, and able to make the best of what they had.

I don’t know if we ever truly got the best out of Raphinha. He was the great unplanned joy of our first two seasons back at the top, a surprise gift from his agent when Rennes decided to let him go. I feel like Leeds ended up being caught out by just how good Raphinha turned out to be, like a microcosm of not expecting last season’s 9th place. The aim remained to sell him to a club in Europe for a big price, when there was a chance there to attract players around him who could make Leeds that club in Europe. Raphinha has built his career up to now on making people look stupid, whether it was the Brazilian clubs who ignored him and left him to compete for attention among the rejects at the várzea tournaments, the Rennes board who let him go for less than they paid for him, or now the board at Leeds, who despite having him fall into their laps in October 2020, got to May 2022 with a team entirely reliant on their Brazil international winger’s skills and mentality and a coach whose response to questions about width is to say “we know where the goal is and it’s not in the corner”. At Brentford, with so many senior players on the sidelines, we never needed Raphinha more than when he embodied the best of the last few years at Leeds, dragging the club away from the trapdoor. Now the signs are that tactically, economically, Leeds are planning to do without him. Let’s hope that’s the right move, else his legacy might yet become a lament, a fate the whole club avoided this season by leaning on him to the last minute. And let’s remember where he went at full-time, first dancing in the stands with the fans, second walking the pitch on his knees with god. Rennes’ supporters were fuming when they let him go; now, we know why, a fans’ player. This season was a humbling for many people at Leeds, but Raphinha knew what he owed, and to whom, and how to pay us back.