The Quality of Madness: A Life of Marcelo Bielsa

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After the game, Marcelo approached my dad and asked him to enlist me to play at Newell's," says Lunari. The effect that he has had on Leeds United, and on the city’s environs has been extraordinary. He has transformed a team floundering in mid table mediocrity in the Championship to Premiership heavyweights and fired the imagination of a whole region. When Pochettino was 12 years old, Bielsa turned up at his family home at 2am and told his mother he was very interested in signing him up. The mother walked him to the bedroom but Pochettino was asleep. Bielsa said: 'Don't worry, I don't need to talk to him, I just need to see his legs.'" When Leeds bet on Bielsa two summers ago, they knew all about the work ethic, the intensity, the eccentricities but nothing truly prepares you for the reality of the Argentinian known as El Loco. Has he been demanding to a point that has sometimes led to exasperation? Yes. Has he been precisely what Leeds have needed? Absolutely. It wasn't long before Lunari was being subjected to the arduous training methods that have become another Bielsa trademark.

Bielsa is a meticulous, obsessive and enigmatic manager who carries a mythology with him. He is one of football's most intriguing personalities - and he has just arrived in the English Premier League. Throughout his 30 years as a manager, Bielsa's methods have helped players scale new heights. Leeds fans have delighted in the dramatic improvements of players such as Mateusz Klich, captain Liam Cooper and Kalvin Phillips, who made his England debut in Denmark on Tuesday. Marcelo Alberto Bielsa Caldera was born in Rosario, Argentina, in 1958. After a moderately successful playing career for his hometown club Newell’s Old Boys, he retired at 25 to study coaching – by 1992 he returned to Newell’s as manager. Within a year he had transformed the fortunes of the club, becoming champions of Argentina in that first year. It was a huge change for us 15- or 16-year-old boys who were used to playing mostly for fun," says Lunari. "We were used to training for an hour and a half, but with Marcelo we trained for three hours with a level of concentration and physical intensity that we were not used to.I don't have the intensity you need to be by his side," says Lunari. "I am passionate about football, but I am not thinking about the game 24 hours a day, and I believe that to be working next to him, one needs to have a special type of dedication. The book is a great read about a true sporting impresario and football fans and general readers alike will love it.

As his exciting Leeds United team prepare to take on the Premier League, it makes for a revealing portrait of a fascinating but flawed character who is embarking on a tantalising new chapter in his career. Marcelo Bielsa, ‘El Loco’, the Godfather of modern football, arrived as the new manager of Leeds United on 25 June 2018, the same day England thrashed Panama 6-0 at the World Cup in Russia. When Bielsa was announced as the new manager of Leeds, his appointment was met with fascination. How could a manager known as much for his eccentricity as his fast-paced, frenetic style of football, possibly succeed as this then unfashionable club, not least a club which is proud of its ‘northern’ English identity. Despite briefly making the first team at Newell's as a player himself, he soon realised that his physical limitations but agile mind made him more suited to coaching. He quit playing at the age of 25 and after a spell in charge of the University of Buenos Aires team he took over the youth academy at Newell's, developing a forensic approach to scouting players that serves him to this day.Sometimes, a dozen or so will turn up at the team hotel, where they can be seen poring over laptops in reception, and some of Bielsa’s extensive support staff at Leeds have cut their teeth in this way. If they impress, they can be invited into the inner circle. In my opinion, Klopp, Guardiola and Zidane are probably friendlier with the players," he says. "Marcelo Bielsa convinces the player about the system and gives us the tools, but the relationship we have as people needs to be close. He thinks players are machines, but we are humans as well." The best chapter is on the ‘spy gate’ controversy. Here Rich carefully details what actually happened. In 2018, Bielsa sent a young intern to Derby County’s training grounds to spy on Derby’s pre-match training sessions. Once again Bielsa bore the brunt of the controversy, but Rich makes a convincing argument that sending one intern to an opposition training ground doesn’t mean Leeds are guaranteed a victory on match day. Within seven weeks of pre-season training, Bielsa transformed the group into an entirely new team. They were comfortable on the ball, played one- and two-touch cushions all over the pitch, and never stopped running. It was as if someone had finally found the mains supply at Elland Road, plugging the old ground directly into the Northern Powergrid and sending a surge of voltage pulsing through brains and bones. After missing out on promotion during a season derailed by the 'Spygate' scandal , they maintained focus through the Covid-19 shutdown and secured their Premier League status with two games to spare, sweeping aside most opponents with their possession-based style.