Bristol City 1-3 Leeds United: The Magic Touch
Maybe we should learn from Kiko Casilla's impassive demeanour; he works at Leeds on the inside, knows where Bielsa keeps the levers and pulleys at Thorp Arch, and he doesn't look frightened. If he ever needs to relax, he can just punch Liam Cooper. It's fine.
Football and magic; football as magic; football is magic, if you support Leeds United in 2019. They sold the man with the magic hat, but the illusion hasn't left Leeds.
I learned over the summer that the awkward translation from Marcelo Bielsa, whether by Salim Lamrani or now by Marcos Abad, into the English word 'illusion' — "One of the things is to improve, with illusion, the things we made last season" — is from the Spanish word meaning 'hope'. That makes things a bit clearer when listening to Bielsa speak, although you still have to watch his movements to try working out the trick. Movements, huh. He sits on his bucket and doesn't, and I guess that's the point.
At Bristol City Bielsa pulled off the same sorcery we saw against Stoke City on the first day of last season. That's twice now that Bielsa has given nothing away in his pre-season line-ups, while the fans wring their hands over transfers and doubts; then named a starting eleven that, one player apart, was a flashback to the previous season's disasters.
Does he do it on purpose? Is it all part of the thrill, his and ours? People go to see their favourite magicians — David Blaine, Penn & Teller, The Great Soprendo — again and again, knowing how their stunts will end. But they go for that thrilling tension while the illusion is constructed, while the hope builds, towards the pay-off — unless, this time, something goes wrong. Twice now Bielsa has tormented us, thrilled us and left us feeling relieved. Even Jesus only turned water into wine once, but after turning Kalvin Phillips into Franz Beckenbauer last season, here's Stuart Dallas, becoming the Cookstown Dani Alves before our very eyes. [Edit: MVT is right; he's the Cookstown Cafu.]
Kiko Casilla is also before our eyes, when we dare to uncover them for long enough to look at him. Like a clowning warm-up act he started the season by dribbling around an attacker in his own six-yard box, charging out of his goal to tackle, jumping beneath crosses and, when it comes down to it, not conceding anything until slack defending gave Andreas Weimann a free shot in the second half. His actions look calamitous, but his face is so calm, it's like being tempted to swim in a shark-infested sea.
Ben White's calmness was in his expression and his defending, near faultless on his debut in the Championship. Liam Cooper dominated and intercepted and blocked with none of the ornament Pontus Jansson used to bring, but all the same self-assurance. He hardly even flinched when Casilla, channelling Scott Wootton, tried punching him out of his serenity, but then Kiko didn't look flustered by the K.O. either.