Javi Gracia’s first days as Leeds head coach: Work permit delay, little sleep, quiet confidence - The Athletic 24/2/23
By Phil Hay
In the 24 hours before today’s press conference at Thorp
Arch, nobody could say who exactly would be talking at it, primarily because
Leeds United were not sure. It was only with 15 minutes to go that the club
were able to send Javi Gracia to meet with journalists, their new head coach
let loose by a successful work-permit application.
The outcome of his application had been in no doubt since
Leeds announced on Tuesday that Gracia was taking the job. He did not qualify
for a visa automatically under post-Brexit rules but he had a coaching
background at Watford, Valencia and Malaga and an exceptions panel waved him
through without obstruction. Leeds had been here before with Marcelo Bielsa,
back in 2018. Bielsa fell short of England’s points-based benchmark but no
panel in their right mind was going to tell him that he lacked the credentials
to come and work here.
In Gracia’s case, the worry was logistics and the speed at
which the completed paperwork was likely to arrive. It took until this morning
for the process to gain the full satisfaction of the Football Association and
the Home Office, a final visa meeting allowing Gracia to take training and
fulfil media duties. But as he fielded questions, it was obvious that his head
had been in the job for days. “I think we’re prepared,” he said. “The team know
perfectly what we’re going to do tomorrow.”
The team had to know what they were doing tomorrow because
tomorrow, Southampton at home and football in Blood Bowl form, is a game that
has to go to plan. Gracia understood as much when, late last Sunday, he was
asked to pitch to the Elland Road board for the head coach’s job at Leeds. Part
of that presentation included an overview of how Southampton play, of how they
could be beaten. “We know it’s a crucial game,” Gracia said, and there was no
bigger nightmare for the club than the thought of his work permit materialising
too late for him to lead the fixture from the dug-out.
🎙 Javi Gracia sits down with the media for his first press conference as #LUFC head coach https://t.co/MrKxBX8LIJ
— Leeds United (@LUFC) February 24, 2023
Gracia came to England on Monday night with two assistants
who have joined his staff, the former Sheffield Wednesday player Zigor Aranalde
and Mikel Antia, once in tow with Rafa Benitez at Newcastle United. Juan Jose
Solla, a fitness specialist, flew in to link up with them on Thursday,
completing a backroom team that includes erstwhile caretaker Michael Skubala,
promoted from the Under-21s. As he waited for his visa, Gracia was permitted to
meet with club employees such as Skubala and map out the game in front of them,
but he was not allowed to get his feet on the grass or formally begin work
while the work permit was pending. For all that, he made himself sound like a
manager who had the training ground around him in order.
Leeds arranged for Eddie Gray and Jermaine Beckford to be
waiting for Gracia at Thorp Arch, two figures from bygone eras who could tell
him about the club and, perhaps more usefully here and now, tell him what
Elland Road might be like tomorrow. Gracia’s first game is 19th versus 20th in
the Premier League, in need of no starker description. Elland Road knows how to
fight into those circumstances, how to bring the fire in Leeds’ favour, and
Gracia will look for that heat but there is a volatile backdrop to the fixture
too, fraying patience in the stands with relegation knocking on the door for a
second time in two years. Leeds, over two decades, became familiar with crisis
but it is hard to think of many coaches whose initial match was more
nuclear-charged.
Dressed in a beige club zip-up, his manner at today’s press
conference was as people tend to describe him. There were polite helloes, a
gentle delivery in his answers and a softness which explained why he has no
reputation as a purveyor of the hairdryer. He was on a different wavelength to
Jesse Marsch too, minus any showmanship, but players who have seen Gracia
operate first-hand in the past say the softness of his voice is a display of
confidence; that Gracia has a non-confrontational tone because he feels that he
knows what he is talking about and can run a tight ship, an image Leeds could
do with projecting.
— Leeds United (@LUFC) February 24, 2023
It was put to him at one stage that he was a disciplinarian,
or so the story went at Watford. Early in his reign there, he introduced a
strident fines system to get the dressing room in order, encouraging the squad
to toe the line. “That’s not true,” he said, laughing at the disciplinarian
reference. “I try only to do the right things. When I find a way I think is the
best way to do it, I do that. I spoke with the players (at Watford), explained
what I was seeing and that it was important to do something — in this case,
rules.”
Fair enough. But players will talk about Gracia’s firm side
and the boundaries he sets, and Leeds expect him to keep everyone close at
Thorp Arch, to limit first-team access to a small and trusted circle. It would
be twee to describe Gracia as meticulous because very few people get anywhere
in coaching these days without being just that, but he is part of that
intensely devoted herd. “The last days have been really busy,” he said.
“Sleeping two or three hours, preparing a lot of things.” He has been in a
hotel all week but it might be no bad thing that one of the items Bielsa wanted
to be installed at Thorp Arch was a bed in the manager’s office.
The turnaround to Southampton did not seem to bother him.
Nor did the “flexible contract” given to him by Leeds which, realistically,
means an initial stint to the end of this season and then future decisions made
on the basis of where Leeds are then. But, in one respect, Gracia sounded like
Marsch: in saying that in his view, the club were a result away from turning
the corner; that one result “would change the dynamic because the rest of the
things the players are doing really well”. There is, clearly, a psychological
aspect to fighting relegation too and an immediate need to manage pressure.
“It’s important,” Gracia said, “but the players are well. I think they’re
confident we will achieve our objective.”
That objective — the main basis of discussions between
Gracia and the board last weekend — is simple but not so simple. The club have
to stay up, that much was spelt out to him, but he has to find that resistance
in a side who have not been in form for a long time; if truth be told, a team
who were never truly in a sustained period of good form under Marsch. They have
won four of 23 league games this season. They have 19 points. Statistically and
visually, they are in horrible danger of slipping away. Most head coaches have
it in them to strike the right tone the first time they speak but there is no
honeymoon period on offer to Gracia. It is straight into the trenches tomorrow,
with no margin for error and the silent hope that, irrespective of his ability,
the damage has not already been done.
Gracia accepted his time in the job would depend on where
Leeds lie when the music stopped in May. “I don’t want to be here because I
have a contract,” he said. “(I wouldn’t want) the club to have a difficult
situation where they have a coach they don’t want. It’s better to be focused on
the next game and finish the season with the objective.” If he does that and
does it well by hoisting the club out of the soup, he can count on Leeds
renewing their faith in him.
