Marcelo Bielsa has come under scrutiny for the wrong reasons in the last few days, but one thing is for sure, his Leeds United legacy will always remain intact.
Bielsa has been heavily criticised by former Liverpool and Barcelona superstar Luis Suarez for his management style behind-the-scenes at the Copa America with Uruguay.
Suarez was left unimpressed by Bielsa’s stand-off approach with the squad, but that is actually something Bielsa has always been renowned for throughout his career.
Former Leeds winger Raphinha offered his thoughts on Bielsa in a recent interview after Suarez’s comments. He confirmed while they did have their ‘ups and downs’, he will forever be grateful for the time they worked together.
Meanwhile, those who also worked under Bielsa from start to finish at Leeds have had nothing but good words to say about him. Luke Ayling, Stuart Dallas and Liam Cooper all reserved special praise for Bielsa in their parting messages to the club after leaving Leeds earlier this year.
Bamford makes Leeds squad admission after Bielsa exit
Patrick Bamford is undoubtedly one of the players who benefitted most from his time working under Bielsa, and he hasn’t been afraid to admit that since.
Bamford enjoyed a 17-goal Premier League season and earned his one and only England cap under his management, something which no one would’ve believed was possible beforehand. The Leeds striker even backed Bielsa for the vacant Three Lions job recently.
However, unfortunately for Bamford, Bielsa’s final months at the club were spent with him out injured. Despite all Bamford’s faults, Bielsa’s Leeds were always a better side with him in it, which is why he persisted with him as his starting number nine throughout almost his entire tenure.
Leeds’ results in the final few weeks of Bielsa’s time at the club left Andrea Radrizzani, Victor Orta and co without any other option in the end.
Bielsa’s Premier League Leeds were always a little suspect defensively, but his final five matches took that to new levels. Leeds picked up just one point in that run, conceding an incredible 20 goals.
Speaking on the latest episode of the BBC’s 72+ Podcast, Bamford says it will always frustrate him that he missed the final few months of Bielsa at Leeds, but did admit a ‘divide’ had began to form in the dressing room at that point in time.
He said: “It was tough and I took it a bit badly because when Marcelo got sacked, I was injured from pretty much October to more or less when he left.
“I kind of felt, having a little bit of an ego, that if I was fit, the team would’ve functioned as it had in the last year and would’ve been alright and he wouldn’t have had to leave the club.
“I was a little bit gutted that I was injured through that time and was sad to see him go. As you said, when a new manager comes in it was hard to come in and follow what Marcelo had done.
“But because we had been under Marcelo, a lot of the players had not only developed as players technically and physically, but also the way we saw the game helped when the new manager came in kind of grasp his ideas a little bit.
“That doesn’t make sense considering we then got relegated, so we obviously we didn’t do that great. But at that point there was a little bit of a divide in the changing room, you sometimes get that with teams in the lower part and struggling. You kind of see people’s true colours.”
- READ MORE: Patrick Bamford admits why Leeds could find it harder to get promoted this season than last
Bamford and Kalvin Phillips agree on who Bielsa was harshest on at Leeds
Clearly Bielsa is the type of manager players either love or hate working under. For those like Bamford, Kalvin Phillips, Liam Cooper, Stuart Dallas and Luke Ayling, they quickly recognised what a hugely respected figure in the game like Bielsa could do for their careers.
On the contrary, someone like Suarez who has won everything there is to possibly win in football, perhaps won’t take to Bielsa’s methods as openly.
On a recent podcast, both Phillips and Bamford were reflecting on the time they spent under Bielsa and agreed on the fact he was the ‘harshest’ on Phillips.
Thankfully Phillips clearly took his advice in the right way considering what he has gone onto achieve in his career, not only with Leeds, but Manchester City and England too.
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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