One of the few perks of an empty stadium — the only perk, if truth be told — is the access it offers to Marcelo Bielsa’s commentary from the touchline.
At his loudest, he is audible with a frenzied crowd around him but the buzz from the stands strips the nuance from his voice. In the stillness of a vacant ground, his shouts fill the air and his English is the Queen’s. “Ayling, defend please! Very good Helder! Again! Again! Pay attention!” He strays into Spanish from time to time and the inflection becomes more abrasive as he does, the tone he takes when football frustrates him.
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He was on his players right to the end of Thursday’s 5-0 thrashing of Stoke City, staring pensively while Patrick Bamford angled in a volley in injury time. And on Friday morning he was in the ears of his staff, straightening them out for matches that were left. On the outside, the mathematicians had established that seven points from four games would earn Leeds United automatic promotion. All well and good, Bielsa told his coaches, but what did Leeds accrue from the final four games of last season? And did they go up?
The answers were one point and no, and the purpose of the conversation sunk in quickly. If there were little moments against Blackburn Rovers or Stoke last week when it appeared that Leeds were too close to fail, Bielsa cut the complacency short. Stoke, he said, “was not a match with a five-goal difference between the teams”. His translator, Diego Flores, erroneously described a 3-1 win at Blackburn as “very good”. Bielsa jumped in and corrected him. “I said our performance was a little bit more than good,” he said. “Not very good.”
Crossing the line would make no difference to Bielsa’s insistence on keeping feet to the fire. In Argentina, they recall the second of his titles with Newell’s Old Boys, the Clausura in 1992. Bielsa was mentally drained and about to resign but still consumed by his competitive fibre, right to the end. Newell’s were crowned before their last match, away at Platense in Buenos Aires. There was no weakening of his line-up or any softening on the touchline.
Newell’s trailed for much of a 1-1 draw and players in his team that day describe Bielsa as “desperate”, driving them as if the title was at stake until Ricardo Lunari, with a bandage over one eye, lobbed in an equaliser 10 minutes before the end. The squad at Newell’s had no concept of regular matches. A friendly was the same as a cup final. And a cup final was the same as a friendly.
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Ninety minutes of tracking Bielsa in the dugout is a journey into his mind and an inability to switch off. There are coaches in England who wonder how it is that the 64-year-old has the poise and the assurance to watch from a bucket which provides an abnormally low vantage point but Bielsa’s blue stool is a starting point for him, a temporary resting place until the urge to step forward eats him. His head bobs around like a bird as Leeds go forward, straining to follow the ball. In between the action are the long silence pauses, his eyes fixed to the ground. Three minutes into yesterday’s game at Swansea City, a coffee arrived from one of his analysts. He took a little sip and then jumped on to his feet, into the fray.
At Chelsea, Andre Villas-Boas used to do what Bielsa does, crouching down on his haunches at the front of his technical area to survey the game from the level of the players’ knees. Villas-Boas said it provided him with a better, more insightful perspective but then gave up on doing it as Chelsea’s football became car-crash viewing. Bielsa can hold that pose indefinitely, with leg muscles that are built to last.
As Leeds and Swansea feel each other out at the Liberty Stadium, he says next to nothing for 1o minutes and save for a short exchange with Diego Reyes, his assistants say very little to him.
Then, as Leeds lose the ball in Swansea’s half, he is up again with a shout of ‘come on’ and a yell at Mateusz Klich. For the first half, the orders come in brief bursts. “After the ball, Dallas. Harrison, Dallas, get the ball and move!” Bamford and Tyler Roberts receive the same message. Movement is everything, the first priority. Pablo Quiroga and Carlos Corberan traipse up and down the technical area and Quiroga barely leaves it. He has the feel of Bielsa’s first lieutenant and sits in the seat directly next to him. Leeds contrive to set up another Swansea counterattack and Bielsa slaps his head before fiddling with the bottles lined up for the drinks break. Is he enjoying this? Is it killing him?
The pacing starts before half-time, back and forward like zoochosis with purpose. The steps let the brain tick over. He gets exercised as Leeds try to go man-to-man at a free kick. “Pay attention. Pay attention please!” He implores Bamford to run and activate the high press, winding the striker up to pounce. From 20 metres away, you can feel Bielsa’s temperature rising.
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The game is goalless and he knows that neither side has proper control of it. A few minutes before the break he goes to his fitness coach, Benoit Delaval, and waves towards the substitutes stretching behind Illan Meslier’s goal. Quiroga yells to substitute Pablo Hernandez and tells him to step it up. It will be Hernandez to the breach again at half-time, along with Gjanni Alioski.
In the second half Bielsa pleads for effort, like Alioski closing down Connor Roberts. “Good, Ali,” he says. The officials get it in the neck when a throw-in goes Swansea’s way and after Helder Costa is taken down by a studs-up foul. He screams at Keith Stroud as the referee pulls back Bamford for a tug on Marc Guehi and Quiroga gets a lecture. But the quality is lacking, even with Hernandez in the middle. “Again, again,” Bielsa barks relentlessly. Keep on digging and you’ll find some gold.
It almost pops up on 65 minutes when Hernandez picks out Jack Harrison’s run and he squares the ball to Bamford a few yards out. Bamford’s diving header is clean but Freddie Woodman is there to parry it, right beneath his crossbar. Bielsa pauses, watches and then turns away without saying a word. Close.
As the clock ticks down, voices are coming from everywhere: Bielsa, Quiroga, Corberan and Reyes. Gaetano Berardi, another of his substitutes, is perched on a step barking intermittently. Harrison lashes a chance over the bar and Bielsa makes a helpless gesture to Reyes, shaking both hands. There were better options in the middle. Leeds won’t get many more chances like that and it’s chewing away at him. Stress. Tension. More pacing.
And then in the penultimate minute, it comes. Costa finds the oxygen to go down the right. Luke Ayling finds more to overlap him from a mile upfield. Ayling’s cutback finds Hernandez who holds his position, holds his nerve and shoots in off the far post, beating Woodman by millimetres. Players run to mob the Spaniard. Bielsa spins away and wipes his nose. No one mobs him. They all know better. But inside the heart must be pounding.
Full-time follows and he clenches both fists with a jubilant cry. Then it’s off to shake Steve Cooper’s hand and slip away quietly as his staff bounce around on the touchline. Not there yet but so very near. Is the euphoria rising? Is he feeling the rush? “No,” Bielsa says. “I can’t enjoy this. All you can feel is that you’re taking a step forward each time. The only thing I can enjoy is the last objective if we get there.” Four points from three games. As close as that. Eternal gratitude at Bielsa’s fingertips.
(Photo: Athena Pictures/Getty Images)
