Leeds United vs Verl & Paderborn: Being there
As football develops its technical side, one thing becomes clearer: it's really better watched there, with a beer.
Leeds United jetted off to Germany last week, for a second successive summer, shrugging and waving as they left their loyal followers behind. To tour once behind closed doors may be misfortune, to tour twice looks like carelessness, and so on.
The club said it wasn't their fault. Anxious to avoid a repeat of last summer's secretive shenanigans, they'd had local assurances that fans would be allowed to come on this trip, until local authorities changed their minds. But the club also always had a choice. Daniel Farke might have his preferences but there's nothing about the facilities in (location redacted) that makes them unique. Leeds United could hold their camp literally anywhere in the world. Yet they still booked the one place on the planet that definitely didn't want Leeds fans there last year, thinking things would be different this time. They weren't. And it didn't have to be this way because they didn't have to train there, wherever they were. (Are we allowed to say yet?)
The specificity of this training centre feels like part of a trend in football for pretending details are more important than they really are. I was struck in a very marginal gains way by Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler talking about how their pre-season was being 'plotted meticulously': "I try to control, honestly, everything. The time of the games, how many you play, that we have the right opponents, that we get the right training sessions on the pitch, the right number of training sessions, that we have the right quality of opponents at the right time. So, I had more impact on this pre-season than I had before."
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Then we read the Athletic's behind the scenes report of Leeds in Germany, about a paintball session and a disputed penalty in training about which the players enjoyed shouting at each other, 'shitbags'. Was this only possible thanks to the sort of meticulous plotting that Hurzeler talks about, the precise conditions available at this training centre? Had Farke's technical staff prepared a 'shitbag' metric months back when they organised the trip? Did they study architectural plans of the paintball arena? Or is all this stuff a little more dressed up than it needs to be, like several years of deep data analysis of the Premier League inspiring Leeds to sign some big lads to head the corners? Watching the games, the players didn't even know who was supposed to be taking the corners, and it didn't feel very meticulous.
The hunt for infinitesimal advantages can, in any case, include travelling fans. It might seem like a minor inconvenience that fans couldn't attend, but small details say big things. The number of fans who would have gone isn't big, but that doesn't mean they're not significant. A lot of the fans who go to pre-season camps choose them over 'traditional' summer holidays, saving up and spending more on trips to wherever Leeds decide to go, and to an extent the football is secondary to the people they see while they're there — Leeds fans from all over the country and the world gathering in the sunshine — and the ritual. They do it because they've always done it and they like doing it and it isn't rational, so in that sense it's about being a football fan in its purest form. Don't try to make it make sense.
And in an important sense this is part of the culture of the football club, which Adidas hailed in the marketing for the new away kit: 'Leeds take more'. And that's why it's been disappointing. In summer, Leeds United go on a pre-season trip and a number of fans go there for their holidays. It's a thing that happens: part of the culture. And as such, if you own and run the football club, it's a thing you need to make sure happens. Rather than booking the one training 'n' paintball centre in Europe that won't facilitate it.
This is important because we're going to be hearing a lot about the culture of Leeds United Football Club over the next few years as the plans for redeveloping Elland Road are proposed, debated and probably approved; as the roof comes off the West Stand and we wait for the North Stand's turn. Not to mention the thousands of square feet of pure 'whatever' sketched in for building on all the surrounding land. The history and traditions and culture of the club will, supposedly, be at the heart of these developments. The club say retaining the atmosphere and the fan culture is important to them and being taken into account. But because such things are hard to define there's a big risk, no matter how good the intentions, of much that's culturally important being lost.
I'm reminded of when the current Leeds 'boardroom' was quoted by the Daily Mail as sceptical about improving wi-fi at Elland Road, to stop fans taking selfies when they could be singing. That doesn't work like that and it's not the point. 'Retaining the atmosphere' is the broad brush stroke across everything planned for the Old Peacock Ground but there's more to it than acoustically slanted roofs and keeping fans close to the pitch.
For example, to retain a supportive atmosphere, don't make dedicated fans feel grumpy by making them unwelcome on pre-season tours. Pick somewhere they can go and let them have a nice holiday with their mates watching some training sessions and friendly matches, and when they come back to Elland Road, they'll be ready for a sing-song no matter what Premier League hellscape they find on the other side of the turnstiles. This might even make supporters feel like proposals to move away fans into the South Stand, and Category A+ match ticket prices edging up to £59 (plus booking fees), aren't more parts of a single reality contradicting all the talk about retaining the club's culture.
And if you think I'm overdoing this, remember Brian McDermott spending every Euro in his pocket on beer for fans one pre-season, and how many fans kept trying to think well of him through the defeats at Rochdale and Hillsborough because they owed him a pint. Small gestures can have big impacts, good or bad. The data and the meticulous prep might have pointed to this one training venue, but I can't believe the choice of pitches and hotel can be that deep. It's one time when fan culture could overrule the boss's spreadsheets: after all, who will be here longer? By winter, Daniel Farke and the executive crew might be wishing they'd had the chance to buy some of the loyal fans a beer in summer.
Leeds also produced some football over in Germany, so how about that. Well, when the footage arrived on LUTV, the wonky overform of the game with SC Verl felt like a taunt. Think you like football? Think you like pre-season? Fine, here's 127 minutes of footage of Leeds United players, arranged like they'll never be in the Premier League, practising against a side from the third German tier. You wanted to see this, so you'd better enjoy it!
This wasn't a game that was meant to be enjoyed on a screen, though. This really was one for the video analysts at Leeds, a match extended into four half-hour quarters so Daniel Farke could make plenty of changes and the coaches could harvest plenty of clips and data. It was also for Ilia Gruev, who followed 86 minutes in Stockholm with more than 120 minutes here. Perhaps for him, and for fans, this is meant to be aversion therapy, like making us smoke 100 cigarettes so we'll never want to smoke again. Fans, stop mithering us about pre-season. Ilia, with Longstaff and Stach in the squad, could you do us a PSR favour?
I'm tempted by overdoing some thoughts about how transmissions like this could be more common in future. The saturated marketing of the top-level game has been so successful that stadiums can't accommodate all the fans, even at £60 a ticket and more, and Elland Road's redevelopment is a way of monetising the thirsty bystanders. Another method would be noticing how charging fans more and more has created resentment of players who don't show the same commitment to playing football, a parasocial bitterness that rears its head if players, like, go for a drink after losing a game, or show an outside interest while their team has important fixtures. A product of this is that, yes, actually, yes fans do want to watch training matches, and even training sessions, partly to keep an eye on what the players and coaches are up to — it'll make a change from analysing the sporting director, at least — partly because it might be the only affordable football left.
It's like how I'm still bemused that Premier League clubs aren't making more of Under-21 games, when the high price of league football leaves so many supporters hungry for in-person experiences; every other damn thing has been monetised, so how come not this? Perhaps bringing Jonny Howson back as part of the Under-21 team will change things, and Leeds will charge for his competitive PL2 debut as if they're unveiling a hot galáctico at the Bernabéu. New York Red Bull's second team play in MLS Next Pro, a marketed development league that includes experimental rules and the chance to see cool players of the future today, and I wonder when/if something like that will hop the Atlantic.
The game against SC Verl introduced Alex Cairns to a new rule about goalkeepers wasting time, so that was interesting. Otherwise, this two hour slog actually emphasised how important in-real-lifeness is to football, as this day's play would have been perfect viewing in person, in the sunshine, with plenty of time for a few beers. It didn't really work as a Wednesday morning television replay, though, possibly because I'm not the guy for beers on the sofa before noon in midweek anymore. Through my sober prism, I can confidently report that everything looked fine in this 4-1 win, and if Leeds have to play a 120 minute match against a lower division German side this season, they should be up to the challenge.
Things were a little realer while beating Padeborn 3-2 on Saturday afternoon, when the match was returned to a proper ninety minute shape, at least. Again, though, the sterile atmosphere made Ethan Ampadu kicking the opposition midfielder around — who happened to be Daniel Farke's son — feel quite pointless.
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All anyone really cared about was Anton Stach getting there from Hoffenheim, Mateo Joseph not getting there because, as Daniel Farke said, "I can't call the police to drag him here on the training pitch," and whether Brazilian winger Igor Paixão will ignore Marseille and Roma and come be the Raphinha replacement Luis Sinisterra was supposed to be. There's also a big new goalie with a big punch, Lucas Perri, to look forward to, while Illan Meslier keeps quietly making enough good saves this summer to make me muse about buyback clauses.
As for the rest of it, well, hopefully this training trip really did offer something Leeds couldn't get anywhere else. But I'm minded again, reviewing Brighton's 'meticulously plotted' pre-season — also behind closed doors, but by choice — that since Fabian Hurzeler spoke about that and how he'd been 'holding workshops' about solving last season's injury problems, their vital defender Adam Webster did his knee ligaments while they were away, chucking a lot of their plans in the bin. There's never been a spreadsheet yet to prove that football and footballers suit a controlled laboratory environment but the game still presses on, believing in its data driven future, getting pushed into its 22 players and a round ball past. ⭑彡