Marcelo Bielsa’s daily weight check-ins were a staple of his success at Leeds United.
For several years under Bielsa‘s management, the Whites were renowned as being the fittest team in the country and that all stemmed from his obsession with players consistently meeting their weight targets.
Kalvin Phillips recently recalled the brutal first pre-season he had with Bielsa where he would simply have a ‘protein shake’ for his dinner in a desperate bid to quickly shed the weight.
Patrick Bamford says Bielsa was always the ‘harshest’ on Phillips when it came to these things behind-the-scenes, but that doesn’t mean he was any more lenient with other players.
Luke Ayling shared some brilliant detail of an altercation he had with Bielsa during one of his first training sessions, while Ben White also spoke of how he was sent to Leeds’ U21s just days after signing.
Andy Lonergan shares Bielsa’s brutal ‘fat’ verdict
Whether you were a goalkeeper or central midfielder, Bielsa gave no leeway when it came to players’ weight and Andy Lonergan learned that the hard way.
Lonergan was speaking on the latest episode of the ‘I had Trials Once Podcast’ where he explained the brutal story of what one of Bielsa’s staff members told him on his first day back after the summer break.
The goalkeeper had been contracted to Leeds for Bielsa’s first season but just a few days following his appointment, saw his deal terminated by mutual consent.
According to Lonergan, his first and seemingly last encounter with one of Bielsa’s staff members came in the canteen, where he was told he wasn’t allowed butter for his toast because he was ‘too fat’.
He said: “The summer, Bielsa came in and as soon as his name got mentioned, I got a message from the director of football Victor Orta, who’s actually a top guy, ‘oh, we need a chat.’ I’m thinking, right yeah he doesn’t want you, thinking see how it goes.
“First day I got in sat in with my breakfast, got some butter for my toast and went to have my coffee. Someone took my plate off me, I was like, ‘what are you doing?’ He’s like, ‘you can’t have butter, you’re too fat!’ So I’m like, ‘are you taking the p*ss?’
“Then I never spoke a word to the manager or nothing, never met him but one of his people took it off me. Then about three days later I got paid off, so worked out well.”
Kalvin Phillips and Patrick Bamford recall first Bielsa pre-season
Hearing those sort of comments about weight can’t be easy for professional footballers and Phillips was in a similar boat to Lonergan under Bielsa.
Here is what Phillips recently said about his brutal first pre-season under Bielsa where he was almost starving himself just to shed the weight.
Phillips said: “We have got so many stories that we could sit here, talk about and laugh at…”
Bamford then responded: “You know what, I think he was the harshest on Kalv [Phillips agrees]. But that is because he knew what he could get Kalv to be, but he was definitely the harshest on him if you looked at the players. He had his moments where it would change week-to-week but generally Kalv was the one he would push and push.”
Phillips added: “I think what Pat is talking about is we would always have to lose loads of weight. When we first came in, Bielsa being South American and being obsessed with body composition, weight and fat, I was on the higher end of the team, if not the highest.
“We had a pre-season where, I’m not even joking, for three weeks I’d go home and literally just have a protein shake for my dinner and then come in the next day and keep having to lose weight. He was still like that until the last week he was there, he’d always push me to be on a certain weight target.
“I obviously respected it but then I knew that I can’t starve or dehydrate myself because eventually I am going to get injured, or I am going to stop performing.”
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