Forza Varadi, Forza White: LUFC Experiments Abroad

If there’s been a big story from Leeds United’s pre-season, it hasn’t been the fifty pound note, it hasn’t been the Ferencvaros crew fighting among themselves, it hasn’t even been intra-squad Twitter japery. No, the biggest news is Aidy White playing in the hole.

Aidan has had a tough career at Leeds so far, hailed as the next big thing when he was just 16, and shoved around from position to position, and even on loan to Oldham, ever since. The search for a natural position in which he can fulfil his potential has taken him from left back, to left wing, to right wing, and always back to the reserves again. But I would have expected to see him in goal before he turned up in the 10/false 9/fake Messi position. Yet there he was at Farsley and in Slovenia. “I feel Aidy can play in an attacking off-the-striker role and I've talked to him about that,” said Brian McDermott on the official site. Well, maybe.

If you’re going to do this stuff, Slovenia in pre-season is the place to do it. The only win out there was against a Slovenian third division select, but that’s no disaster in friendlies. Get too avant garde with your friendlies and your formations, though, and it can blow up in your face.

The New Year’s Cup in Florence in January 1993 was one such occasion, only this didn’t even have the luxury of being pre-season. Leeds were the Champions of England but performing like relegation candidates away from home - only a brilliant record at Elland Road kept them clear of relegation. Howard Wilkinson saw the winter trip to Italy as a way of snapping his team out of their malaise. “It will enable us to have a mid-winter break from usual surroundings,” he told the YEP, “and bearing in mind the weather we have had in the last three weeks, the trip will also give us the chance to train on grass.” It was also the first appearance in a Leeds shirt for Frank Strandli, being kept out of the side by his work permit and Norwegian national service.

I don’t know what weather reports he had seen, but as he shivered underneath his beret in Fiorentini’s Stadio Artemio Franchi and looked around the at all the heavy woolen coats in the stands, Wilko may have regretted packing his summer shorts. He might have regretted taking Fat Frank, too. In fact by the end of the night I think he was regretting the whole sorry thing.

The tournament format was three games of 45 minutes each, all broadcast on Eurosport: Leeds faced off against Inter Milan and Fiorentina, who then met in the final. In those circumstances, and without an injured David Batty, we can perhaps forgive Wilkinson for getting experimental with his team. But against an Inter side featuring Ruben Sosa, Nicola Berti, Mathias Sammer,  and Darko Pancev, the Leeds line up was hard to fathom:

Mervyn Day, Jon Newsome, David Wetherall, Imre Varadi, Chris Fairclough, Chris Whyte, David Rocastle, Rod Wallace, Frank Strandli, Steve Hodge, Scott Sellars.