The spygate saga, scandal, whatever you’d like to call it, was one of the most bizarre moments of Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United tenure.
Make no mistake; Marcelo Bielsa is a modern day legend at Leeds United. The Argentine was the man who finally brought Premier League football to Leeds, doing so in 2020, after a 16 year hiatus from the top flight.
Leeds would go on to spend three years in the top flight before relegation in 2023. Now, Daniel Farke is doing his best to get the Whites back into the big time, and he’s certainly making positive strides.
Despite a 1-1 draw against West Brom last time out, Leeds remain in 1st place of the Championship table and are widely backed to go on and earn promotion to the Premier League.
Former Derby County boss Frank Lampard, now at Coventry City, is also eyeing up what would be an unlikely promotion to the Premier League, having shot up the table since taking charge of the Sky Blues in November.
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Patrick Bamford reveals all about spygate, Leeds United and Marcelo Bielsa
In January 2019, Bielsa and Leeds United were caught having ‘spies’ watching Derby County training outside from of their training ground. The Whites were eventually fined £200,000 and the matter was settled. And although a quite controversial matter at the time, it’s one that can now be looked back on quite humorously.
Speaking earlier this season, current Leeds United striker Patrick Bamford revealed how the Leeds players reacted when the news broke, saying that he and his teammates actually had to ask what was going on at the time.
He said, in a light-hearted manner: “When it came out about spygate, obviously, we never knew if he’d done it before, or whether that was the first time, or whether that was the time we got caught, we had to ask about and find out what was actually going on.
“I don’t think Frank took it too well. But, I kid you not, every lineup when we’re doing the meetings the night before the game, so you don’t know the team’s lineup, it was bang on every time,” Bamford later added: “I think it was normal in either Brazil or Argentina.”
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What Frank Lampard said about spygate in 2024
Five years on form the incident, Lampard reminisced about spygate, and he too seemed a lot more light-hearted about the whole saga.
Lampard said of spygate last year: “The spygate stuff at the time, they sent someone to watch training and had someone hidden in the bushes. It all went off a little bit. It was an amazing press story, fans were loving it.
“Really, I wasn’t that bothered. I defended myself and the club. People said I shouldn’t talk about it – but I defended the club, it’s not as if I was going to say ‘yeah, bring people to watch our training’.”
It’d be very surprising if any team was to be caught doing it again. It was truly a one off but then again, so was Bielsa. A real maverick of management and a hero at Leeds, whether Derby County and Lampard hated him or not.
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