On Tuesday night, one of the most revered tactical thinkers in the game Marcelo Bielsa grabbed his first win as the new manager of Championship side Leeds United, a 2-1 victory over Forest Green.
Forest Green 1 – 2 Leeds United
The game was played on New Lawn, a stadium with a capacity of slightly over 5.000. It was half-full and nearly a third of the visitors were Leeds fans. Kemar Roofe and Luke Ayling were the goalscorers, as The Peacocks already showed signs of the recognizable high-press, aggressive football that Marcelo Bielsa is renowned for. He also re-affirmed his reputation as one of the most demanding coaches in the world by not using his substitutions and playing every single team member for the full 90 minutes, even though it was just a pre-season friendly.
Forest Green pulled one goal back before half-time, but with no goals during the second period, the result retained its 2-1 status quo. With Bielsa at the helm, hopes will be high for the team which finished 13th last season and is still trying to climb back to the Premier League after the financial problems which led to the club’s demotion in 2004.
Marcelo Bielsa
Marcelo Bielsa took over Leeds United in June. The Championship club is the Argentinian’s latest managerial challenge. He spent last season in Lille. Before that, he was involved in quite a bit of controversy as he resigned after two days in charge of Olympique Marseille and one day in charge of Lazio. In general, he is one of the most controversial figures in the football world, but at the same time, he’s admired by everyone. Pep Guardiola, Mauricio Pochettino, Jorge Sampaoli, Diego Simeone, Gerardo “Tata” Martino and Eduardo Berizzo all cite Bielsa as a major influence on their style of management. Guardiola’s style, in particular, is very similar to the one Bielsa applies.
His intensive, militaristic methods in training can be exhausting, yet players respond to his charisma and vision.
“He knows everything to the smallest detail. I glanced at his training schedules; there are hundreds of them and every one featured games he analysed. He taught us a vibrant, real type of football.” – Andre-Pierre Gignac
Bielsa dictates a chaotic, aggressive football games and tries to achieve it through a combination of a tireless work-rate and intelligent positioning. Even though he hasn’t prospered in every place he’s been, the reason why he is so revered in the coaching circles is his bold, daring and revolutionary ideas. He was the first one to successfully employ the 3-3-1-3 tactical system. His teams always press high up the pitch, run a lot and play attacking football. Bielsa tasks the players with scouting the opposition and asks them to present their reports in front of the squad and he is famous for his obsessive use of videos.
“He made me devour videos like never before,”
“To begin with he put me in front of the videos and I’d fall asleep. But he was happy! I was shocked.
“After a while I stopped sleeping and told myself ‘go on, I’ll watch two minutes of this thing after all.’
“After that he talked to me, I talked to him and we’d go over moves together. He told me, ‘see, that’s why I let you sleep. You slept, you slept, you slept but the day you decided to watch you got interested on your own. If I’d pushed you to watch you wouldn’t have been interested’… Marcelo is just too good.” – Manchester City left-back Benjamin Mendy
