Unseen Leeds United interaction vs Norwich City that demonstrates 'genuine' play-off final superpower — YEP 17/5/24

By Joe Donnohue

Leeds United’s impromptu team huddle on the pitch following their 4-0 play-off semi-final victory over Norwich City demonstrated the genuine camaraderie amongst Daniel Farke’s group.

Leeds will pull on every available lever next weekend when they take to the field against their play-off final opposition, putting everything on the line for the last attainable slot in next season’s Premier League.

Injuries permitting, United are likely to name an identical starting lineup at Wembley Stadium to the one which dismantled the Canaries at Elland Road on Thursday evening. In what was the team’s most important game of the season, the Whites produced arguably their finest display, to a man.

At the back, Illan Meslier put middling 2023/24 form behind him to produce a game-defining save from Josh Sargent during the first half, while Archie Gray returned to his secondary position as the team’s right-back. On account of his mature and composed performance, he will likely head into the play-off final as Daniel Farke’s first choice in that role, at the tender age of 18.

At 27 years old, Junior Firpo was remarkably the second-oldest member of Leeds’ starting XI on the night and played with the sort of resolute defensive nous, coupled with overlapping attacking threat, one might expect of a former Barcelona full-back.

Ethan Ampadu and Joe Rodon imposed themselves upon Sargent and strike partner Ashley Barnes effectively and assertively while Ilia Gruev and Glen Kamara gave mercurial Brazilian playmaker Gabriel Sara barely a sniff. Supporting forwards Crysencio Summerville, Georginio Rutter and Willy Gnonto, who have demonstrated on several occasions this season their top-line talents, tied Canaries’ wings behind their backs.

Returning to the starting lineup, Joel Piroe demonstrated prowess as a line-stretching, all-action No. 9, to complete Leeds’ one-to-eleven of being there with a top performance when it really counts, albeit at the second time of asking.

At full-time, the group led by club captain Liam Cooper came together in the centre circle. Above the din of Elland Road’s PA system blaring ‘I Predict a Riot’, Cooper made his message clear: ‘One more.’

Stood front and centre, perhaps caught up in the occasion of it all was Gray, gee-ing up his teammates on the periphery of the huddle. Skipper since the turn of the year Ampadu playfully told the youngster to join the outer ring of players but couldn’t be heard over the racket. Summerville stood beside the Welshman did, however, and the pair laughed mischievously, as though chuckling at the sweet anticipation of a younger sibling about to be reprimanded. Daniel James cottoned on, as did Illan Meslier and Pascal Struijk so Ampadu, again in good faith, told the Championship’s Young Player of the Season to vacate the centre of the pack, a little more forcefully the second time.

This time his instruction was heeded, Gray appearing to have been brought back to reality by Ampadu’s wake-up call. Meslier swung a leg in the teen’s direction; they all laughed.

Glimpses of football players’ genuine personalities and human interactions are rare in the modern game. Media disseminated by clubs, as is increasingly the case, can come across stage-managed or at the very least inauthentic and that is through little fault of the players, who remain largely guarded. Sportspeoples’ every move is scrutinised by those not just in traditional media anymore, but YouTubers, armchair reporters and the everyday fan, their thoughts available for the entire world to see on online platforms. Not all of it is positive, much of it really isn’t - and that’s putting things politely.

Take this article for example, assessing the camaraderie of a group of 20-somethings based on an interaction which lasted no more than a few seconds. Hyperbolising an instance which has little bearing on anything? Perhaps, but sometimes a few seconds is all that it takes to gauge a feeling. You cannot tell me the Ipswich Town group, the majority of whom were together in League One, did not find an extra gear this season by drawing on their bond and shared responsibility to one another. Now they have earned the right to call themselves Premier League footballers.

There is a respect within the Leeds squad, for Farke and his staff, but also each other. Take the manager’s handling of Willy Gnonto’s early season transfer request, Charlie Cresswell’s gripe over game-time during the winter or the German’s insistence that the older player is always in the right, even when he is wrong. For such a young group - the second-youngest in the division after Sunderland - their sense of, and appreciation for, hierarchy is astute.

To a man, they have all had to find their roles this season; Ampadu as a leader, Gray as a 50-game-per-season professional footballer, Cooper as player-coach, Summerville the protagonist. None of that will have been easy and none of it was true at the beginning of August.

The jovial nature of Ampadu and Gray’s exchange in the midst of a team huddle showed many things: camaraderie, respect, fondness and familiarity. This Leeds squad is a mish-mash of personalities from different managers, different eras even; some like James who were all but discarded, Summerville and Gray who have had to prove it on the pitch, then Ampadu whose arrival and settling in period has facilitated the most consistent football of his club career.

Stalwarts of past regimes Cooper, Luke Ayling and even the injured Pascal Struijk, have been forced in some cases to accept the evolution of their function to Leeds, but spirit has remained strong throughout.

There were suggestions following the final game of the regular season that Summerville’s body language towards Piroe’s equalising goal against Southampton suggested his buy-in was on the wane. Others speculated the pair may not see eye-to-eye after their mild penalty disagreement against Hull City last month. On Thursday night’s most recent evidence both theories are a load of old tosh.

The spirit is strong at Elland Road and while the players will not have the unmatched din of 36,000 in that most unique of arenas with them at Wembley, there will be a similar number roaring the team on as best they can muster.

It’s all so intangible and all so difficult to reproduce, but to Leeds it is all so real - they just need to harness it one more time.