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.
There they were again, the two of them, I'm so glad. Marcelo Bielsa, suppressing his fury that media duties are back already, in a new white training t-shirt, fidgeting to get back to work; Andres Clavijo, the man who makes the legislator legible if not always comprehensible, by Bielsa's side with his hands in lap like he's waiting for Sunday School to start. What a pleasure to see them again after all these weeks of silence when anything could have been happening.
"Good afternoon everybody, the contract situation is one which has already been resolved."
And what words to begin with! (You can see them being spoken on video on LUTV or read them in a transcript at Leeds Live). There's more, be patient, let the follow-up question be asked, the answer spoken, and translated:
"It's a subject that's resolved."
Well, that's good enough for me, and I expect it's good enough for you, dear reader, because we knew it all along — there were no doubts, no expectations of drama, nothing to say it wouldn't turn out this way, not even a trip home to Argentina to worry us, 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. We knew he was here, we knew he was preparing for the new season, we knew that two days before the first game kicks off he'd shrug and say, "It's a subject that's resolved."
It's still a relief to hear him say it, though. Although this is less good news:
"One year is habitual."
Same again next summer, then? Great. But if this is how it is, it's how it is. It's odd to look back to how I cared less about Massimo Cellino picking between watermelons every six weeks than about the almost certainly continuing work of the staunchest coach in the Premier League. Something Bielsa seems to be aware of, but we'll come to that. I just wish he was aware of how large that word 'almost' looms in our nightmares while his contract is awaiting his pen.
Marcelo started off quite terse with his short answers, as if his mind was still on diagrams of Harry Maguire's head he'd been studying in his office, but once he was asked about the work that has been done around him at Leeds United this summer he warmed up to his theme. And that theme seemed to be expressing his gratitude to the club hierarchy, after spending all summer torturing every detail of his contract until the football club was to his liking: