4 2GS Saturday September 12 2020 | the timesIrek Jasutowicz, a
Polish artist, puts
the finishing
touches to his mural
dedicated to Bielsa
in Leeds while,
bottom right, a
woman drapes a
flag from an
upstairs window.
Above right, Bielsa’s
Leeds players
overcome Fulham
in June after
Patrick Bamford
opens the scoringSport Football
“So you think you can come here and
change my life/Your coaching makes
me love you much more than my wife.”
Bielsa Rhapsody
Up in Hyde Park, Leeds, a former
Polish soldier has a spray can in his
hand and is putting the finishing
touches to a giant mural of Marcelo
Bielsa on a red-brick building. The
window on the subject’s left cheek is
about as close as anyone has come to
seeing into his mind. In Santiago,
Chile, an esteemed poet has written
‘50 Reasons’ why he loves this
maverick manager. No 41: “Because
the only one concerned about
demystifying his image is himself.”
The paint is wet but the tears have
dried.
Leeds United have had two
significant past promotions. The first
under Don Revie in 1964 ushered in
the big time – two titles, one FA Cup,
European robbery, purple tracksuits,
the Paris riot, Dirty Leeds, repeat to
fade. The second in 1990 led to the
last champions of the First Division in
- There was a flurry of
Millennium hope and the 2001
Champions League semi-final and
then nothing. John Charles, the old
club legend, once toured the Italian
Riviera singing “Sixteen Tons” and 16
years out of the top flight have
weighed heavily on the beleaguered,
lower-league fans.
The pain of the yearning is shown
by sales of 10,000 copies of the 226-
page promotion edition of The Square
Ball fanzine, which also does clothes
and beer. It lists the 264 players and
16 managers the club has had since
relegation. It ends with God.
Eddie Gray thought he had seen it
all after almost 20 years as a player
and two stints as manager. When he
accepted a £5,000 pay rise to become
player-manager in 1982 the club was
threatened with closure owing to
hooliganism. “I think we should do
well in the Premier League,” he says.
“He’s [Bielsa] improved the players
and he’s improved the unit. He is
obsessed with football. It’s his life.
“It’s a hard regime and there’s a lot
of detail for the players, but I look
back to how Don [Revie’s] team came
up from the old Second Division and
things happened very quickly. In the
way they work you can see physical
similarities with Don’s team, but he is
very much his own man.”
Hence, it took until the eve of the
season for the club to say that Bielsa,
65, had agreed a new one-year deal. “I
will be working at Leeds United next
season,” he said in a stilted Zoom
From poets
to painters,
Bielsa effect
grips Leeds
press conference on Thursday.
History tells us he will walk out
whenever he likes, but what happens
after can wait.
“Anfield is only Anfield when it is
full,” Bielsa continued. Asked if he
was a fan of Jürgen Klopp’s old heavy
metal football, he said: “I don’t know
much about music.” He doesn’t do
predictions. A radio weather report
cut in for further bemusement,
leaving the most illuminating remark
as: “I’m worried when I’m not scared
or nervous.” Had he changed
perceptions of Leeds? “I don’t know
what people thought about Leeds
before and I don’t know what they
think now.”
Leeds have lost Ben White, the
stellar centre half who has been called
back from his loan by parent club
Brighton & Hove Albion, replaced
him with Robin Koch, a German
international from Freiberg, andgained a Spain international striker in
Rodrigo. Signings and stats are
routine rites in modern football but
the most war-weary Leeds fans are
now seeing beyond results.
Two years ago, Felipe Cussen, a
visiting poet from Santiago
University, excused himself from a
recital in an old art-deco brewery in
West Yorkshire and returned in a full
Leeds kit. He then told the audience
how lucky they were to have Bielsa in
their city.
Cussen researches experimental
literature and mysticism, and recalls
Bielsa saying how a win produces “a
sense of effervescence that generates
happiness” that is replaced by
“emptiness and indescribable
loneliness” after five minutes.
“I could talk about Bielsa all day,”
he says. “He does not speak like a
poet but he has the same problem of
trying to find words to say something
very difficult. He talks a lot about
beauty in football. You can be
effective or romantic and it is very
clear he is the second of those.”
Emma Jones, the presenter on
LUTV, agrees with that summary.
“Bielsa is a mystical figure,” she says.
“I don’t think he craves the limelight
or cares about his public image and
that’s something I admire.”
His political leanings have also
brought him closer to people. Cussentalks of a famous handshake snub to a
pro-right Chilean president and then
his friendship with the first female
president of Chile, who was a
socialist. “Now his brother is the
Argentinian ambassador in Chile and
I think he only got the job because of
Marcelo,” he says. “They thought, ‘We
will send them another Bielsa.’ ”
Micky P Kerr is a singer and
comedian who had a dream. Then he
woke up and wrote Bielsa Rhapsody
for his Phats Chants podcast, a Queen
parody that went viral. He followed it
up with Bucketman and Don’t Look
Back in Anger. “Bielsa says there are
three variations on success,” he says.
“One is winning titles. Another is
getting money. The third one does
not get talked about much and is the
emotional one, the connection with
fans. I don’t think any club is getting
that like we are right now.
“There is a cultural revolution onCity paying homage to manager who led
club back to top flight but now is the test of
his mystical powers, says Rick Broadbent
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