Why is Kalvin on the Bench?
If we want those running stats for bragging rights, and those outlying scatter graphs redrawn to include our style of play, we have to hold on tight while our belief systems are subverted.
Tag
Marcelo Bielsa
A collection of 39 posts
We All Knew Bielsa Was Staying But It's Still a Relief That Bielsa is Actually Staying
Bielsa has been working at Thorp Arch all the summer long, and when he wasn't working he was domiciled a matter of steps away, and the one time he ventured beyond Yorkshire, to Scotland, he was quickly located and photographed by fans.
Manchester City 1-2 Leeds United: A Madman Has A Team
I know Bielsa will always love Newell's the most, and one football fan to another I respect that he'll never change. But dear me Leeds must run them close.
Leeds United 1-1 Manchester City: Giving It All
As Bielsa crouched in the rain beneath the annihilating silence and the contrasting floods of light and dark, cut off from the spontaneous response of supporters who always supply immediate answers to doubts, was he wondering, who made this game?
Hiding The Horizon
It turns out that where the rest of us see problems at Leeds United, Marcelo Bielsa sees solutions. And the solutions he sees are among the reasons why people call him El Loco; to anyone else they'd be mad.
Rock concert: Vélez Sarsfield vs Huracán, 1998
A gap opens up, then someone appears, a player or member of staff, I'm not sure; they open their arms wide and hug Marcelo, and Bielsa's arms are like a flytrap closing around him, hugging him back.
The footballing idea: Argentina vs Sweden, World Cup 2002
At the airport back in Argentina, a group of Newell's fans handed Bielsa a letter of praise.
Aston Villa 2-3 Leeds United: Never Too Late
Only football can do this. Humans have done a lot of damage to this planet over millennia. But over the last 150 years some humans have kicked a football into a net at just the right moment and made it all feel like a price worth paying.
We will not live this again: Newell's Old Boys vs Sao Paulo, Copa Libertadores Final, 1992
Fernando Gamboa is an interesting case study in what Newell's Old Boys means to Bielsa, and what Bielsa and his team mean to Newell's Old Boys' fans. Imagine Vinnie Jones but taller, with shoulder length black hair.
Swansea City 2-2 Leeds United: The Stubborn Strategy
Bielsa sits, crouches or prowls, eyes on the action, with one aim in mind that inspires countless thoughts and strategies: get this plan working. Bielsa has one way to play. His flexibility comes from the extraordinary lengths he'll stretch to so that he doesn't have to change a thing.