A lot, and by that I mean bucket loads, has been said and written about Bielsa and Leeds United over the past week. When Frank Lampard decided it was a brilliant idea to go public about the fact that a Leeds scout had been spotted outside their training ground observing them, he opened up an opportunity which Bielsa gratefully accepted. “Opportunity, you say? I’ll explain.” I’ll start with what led to Bielsa calling an unannounced press conference, and how he then utilised this to his advantage. Lampard’s indignation and “moral outrage” when he discovered that Bielsa had been watching one of his training sessions, showed us the measure of young Frank. In truth, if he actually had something about him and had the instincts of a manager, he would have approached the entire “incident” completely differently, realising he was in the company of greatness. For starters, when Bielsa called him personally to admit he had sent a scout, and to explain why he did it, Frank should simply have accepted Beilsa’s explanation and left it there rather than then take it to the media. It showed us right there and then who the bigger man is in all this. Frank thought he could use the “incident” to discredit Bielsa before the game against Leeds and so gain some sort of advantage, but the hammering his team took told a different story. Next, Frank should have asked Bielsa if he could share his findings on Derby County with him so that Frank could compare notes. Then, as an added favour, Frank should have requested an invitation to watch a Leeds training session with Bielsa so that he could learn from the master. I have no doubt that the humble Bielsa would have granted Frank’s wishes, and maybe, just maybe, Frank would have been able to develop a relationship with one of the greatest coaches. Bielsa could even have become a mentor to Lampard. But no, Frank had to make it all about him, revealing his immaturity as a man and his lack of understanding as a manager. He will soon learn that being a manager isn’t about falling back on your experiences as a player in Mourinho’s training sessions, but it’s about your instincts and abilities as a leader of men, and how you go about getting the best out of your resources every single game. A point that underlines this for me is young Max Lowe, the Derby full-back who spent his evening at Elland Road staring at teenager Jack Clarke’s number. Lowe had returned from a loan spell at Aberdeen, and it seemed he would have an opportunity to play in Frank Lampard’s Derby County and learn from the “legend”. No, not happening. After being dragged around Elland Road all night by Clarke, Lowe was promptly loaned back to Aberdeen by Fabulous Frank. Why? Because Lampard wants players who are “the finished article”, or scary younger talents who can go out and perform from the off. This exposes him even further for me. He is showing that he isn’t a really a manager, that he needs ready-to-go players. Frank doesn’t want to spend time developing young talent. Instead of loaning Lowe back to Aberdeen, he should have taken him aside and told him he believed in him, that the Leeds debacle was down to the entire team being dominated. He should have told Lowe that he trusted him and that he would work with him to make him even better than he already was. This would have given him a talented young lad, all fired up to walk through walls for the team, and it would have shown the squad that they had an understanding gaffer who cared about each and every one of them. “Instant Success Frank” failed his young charge miserably instead. To try and hold Lampard up next to Bielsa is like doing a paint-by-numbers drawing of clouds and trying to align it to Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”. So when Lampard tried to continue to “best” Bielsa with his puerile comment to the media at his St. Mary’s post-match presser that “We also do analysis,” he failed miserably to elevate his status to the level of Bielsa’s. I think his revelation of “watching 15 hours of video footage” only further fuelled the content in Bielsa’s amazing masterclass of a press conference. In showing the world how he approaches management, Bielsa not only showed us how meticulous he is, he also showed us his infinite passion for his job. He underlined his responsibility to his employers to give his all, every minute of every day. He underlined to his players and his staff his commitment to leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of improving each and every one of them. He underlined his desire to put an attractive, successful team on the field for the fans to enjoy and love. He showed Frank Lampard, the washed up ex-pro pundits, the hacks in the media and all the pretend managers what it meant to be a proper football manager. We caught a glimpse as to why Bielsa is revered by so many around the world, why Newell’s named their stadium after him, why he is still revered at Bilbao and why Chileans would have him as their country’s President in a heartbeat. Those who sought to call him a cheat who needed to use underhanded tactics to try and win were proved to be nothing more than ignorant, moralistic fools. Now to “turning accusations into opportunity”. Bielsa had clearly decided that Frank needed to be taught a little lesson on manning up, and so he did a deep dive into Derby County. He also needed to show the media that they had no right to label him a cheat. He laid bare Derby’s tactics, detailing the minutest pieces of information. “Carson behaves like this when receiving a back pass,” “Wilson does this when taking a corner,” “Mount played four minutes in defence in this game.” It was unbelievable, and the volume of research showed the obsessiveness of Bielsa’s preparation. Over 300 hours of video footage watched on Derby County alone! Really Frank, 15 hours? “We do analysis as well,” pales into insignificance all of a sudden, and makes you question if Frank really believes in what he’s doing at Derby. By revealing all this information, and telling us that he did this level of preparation on every single club Leeds had to face, including pre-season friendlies, Bielsa gained a big psychological advantage. When Bielsa put up slides of specific players and spoke about their performances, strengths and weaknesses in detail, he told every single player still to face Leeds for the remainder of the season that “I know who you are, and I know how to control you.” Imagine being a Stoke player sitting in the dressing room pre-match on Saturday, worrying about what Bielsa may have seen in your game. Sure, there are players who won’t take any notice and shrug this off, but there are also those who will think about it and be affected. It’s human nature. The managers whose teams will be facing Leeds will also be worried. They will now know that Bielsa has a deep understanding as to how they play, and he will have a strong plan in place to defeat them. They will be thinking about how they deal with Leeds, how well prepared the Leeds squad will be against them. If they didn’t respect Bielsa before this masterclass, they definitely should respect him now. If they thought he was simply another foreigner who, to quote Steve Evans, “knows nothing about the Championship or Rotherham on a Tuesday night,” they’ll surely think differently now. As an aside, I still don’t know how Steve Evans and that string of useless “managers” were ever allowed to walk in Don Revie’s footsteps, but at least now Leeds have a world-class manager in place. Besides scaring the bejesus out of all future opponents for the remainder of the season, Bielsa has also given his players a massive confidence boost. They’ll have watched that masterclass and felt safe in the knowledge that what they already knew about their gaffer had just been underlined in thick double-stripes. They will have felt a sense of pride at how their leader had schooled young Frank on the intricacies of preparation. Every player will have nodded in approval, knowing that they were going into every match thoroughly prepared and confident in the information they had been given. There is a reason Leeds United are playing exceptional football this season, playing with a total belief that no cause is lost, and occupying top spot in a very difficult league. Bielsa’s team plays to win, they have a strong belief that they can beat anybody. Bielsa did not apologise for scouting Derby’s training, and he didn’t need to. What he did say was that he was “ashamed to have to show you this,” in reference to his presentation. He wasn’t ashamed about his scouting actions, he was instead ashamed for the idiots who decided to brand him a cheat without understanding him, without understanding football management, and who had no feel for the game. Bielsa loves football, and to call him a cheat is to besmirch the beautiful game in his eyes. Bielsa doesn’t need to cheat, and this was the point he made to the English Football League’s hierarchy in his opening statement. He was, after all, simply trying to help their investigation by being open and honest about his scouting methods. The genius that is Bielsa turned potential adversity into a coaching masterclass, and with it a fantastic bit of psychological mind games. He has galvanised his club, pulled the supporters even closer and made Leeds United a fearsome opponent. Bielsa knows that a united Leeds is a powerful Leeds, and now he has a beast that he can unleash on the Championship for the rest of the season. The way his team set about Frank Lampard’s Derby County and ripped them to shreds was frightening. Derby’s players looked bemused, and they had no idea how to stem the tide. Lampard’s response was to throw on an extra forward at half time, like standing on a dyke with a hole in it and shouting at the sea to stop rolling in. It was a feeble attempt, an attempt that showed he didn’t have a clue about where and how Bielsa was beating him. Bielsa’s masterclass was epic, revealing, and in most cases misunderstood. Sky Sports News’ constant running the headline that “Bielsa admits to spying on every team” showed their desire to discredit Bielsa and Leeds United rather than to actually understand what was going on. The endless stream of “experts” telling us that Bielsa was a cheat and he needs to learn how the English game works proved that there are far too many myopic idiots out there trying to influence football. When Sky actually asked Patrick Van Aanholt, the Crystal Palace player, his opinion on Bielsa, you then realised just how far people would go to try and destroy a true genius of the game. Instead, the only thing they have achieved is to make Leeds a united club, ready to take on all-comers and storm to promotion. Bielsa understood this, and he poured cement onto the problem and strengthened the foundation he has laid for success. On!! On!! On!! PS. Just in case Fragile Frank is doing research and stumbles upon this thread: "Puerile ~ childishly silly and immature" PPS. As for the EFL, at the end of the season they should gather every single EFL manager together at a conference centre and have Bielsa give them a coaching presentation. At least this way they will be making a genuine effort to improve the Football League rather than destroy it.
Very good the last sentence sums Lampard up exactly, which I do believe I mentioned at the begining of this saga. If the Corrupt FA EFL come up with some kind of sanction penalty for LU or Mr Bielsa if I was Radrizant I would immediately go to law. I am by no means convinced that the FA and in particular the EFL could stand up to a in depth investigation.
hey 2p, great point you make there, and I totally agree Leeds should fight ANY sanction bit late back to this board, haven't had a chance to read through all the recent threads yet but will try and catch up asap
Great piece Billy and not thought about the psychological damage he's done by showing them he knows all your players and what time they take a dump.mifnhe raises one arm it means this if he raises 2 arms he does that. The penalty save by BPF must have been researched Marcus Abadd with Bailey the best bit wasnStokes new manager so he hadnall Luton's matches watched and analyses ready for tomoz. Wow
Fantastic in deph piece Billy,no stone left unturned their,now i know how those journo's felt at the press conference
Billy can you shorten your comments for us goldfish memories.....I had to take a break half way through.
Sky Sports have 56 minutes of it but a great podcast by Phil Hay and Joe Urquart who recorded it after the presser with a lot of analysis and actual presentation stuff. YEP Leeds utd Podcast can be downloaded from all the usual places.
