Marcelo Bielsa ruled with an iron fist at Leeds United and he imposed his will on the squad from his very first day in charge.
Leeds United became infamous for calamitous decision-making during their plummet down the football pyramid but the choice to hire Marcelo Bielsa was a rare masterstroke.
The eccentric Argentine was hired in 2018 and immediately went about revolutionising the club, making radical changes from top to bottom.
That led to pulsating football and eventually, after Spy Gate and play-off heartbreak, a return to the Premier League after a 16-year absence.
Such a transformation required countless tiny changes and that started on the first day when Bielsa drastically changed the players’ diets, as former goalkeeper Andy Longergan’s hilarious story makes clear.
Marcelo Bielsa banned butter at Leeds United
Longergan – who is still playing at 41 for Wigan Athletic – made 47 appearances for Leeds over two stints but knew his time at Elland Road was up as soon as Bielsa was hired.
The shot-stopper would last just three days before he was out of the door and he couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start when his breakfast was confiscated.
Speaking on the I Had Trials Once podcast last year, Longergan shared the hilarious story: “The summer Bielsa came in and as soon as his name got mentioned, I got a message off the Director of Football, Victor Orta, who’s actually a top guy, ‘oh we need a chat.’
“I’m thinking, right, it’s like: ‘yeah, he doesn’t want you.’ [I’m] thinking: ‘well, see how it goes.’
“First day I got in, sat down with my breakfast. Got some butter for my toast, and went to have my coffee, someone took my plate off me.
‘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___? Honestly. I never spoke a word to the manager, never met him but one of his people took it off us. Then, about three days later, I got paid up. Yeah, worked out well.”
What food did Marcelo Bielsa ban at Leeds United?
It wasn’t only butter that Bielsa ensured his players never ate, as he quickly established a strict dietary regime for all his players to follow.
Bielsa’s high-pressing, all-action football is extremely demanding, so players needed to be incredibly fit for it to work.
As a result, out went pizza and starchy carbs, in came high protein foods like fish, chicken, steak, fajitas, vegetables, fresh fruit, smoothies and low-fat yoghurt, according to a report in The Athletic.
Former Leeds midfielder Adam Forshaw revealed in 2022 how the players were forced to hide traditional birthday cakes in the dressing room from the manager.
Speaking to the Football Daily podcast, Forshaw said: “It’s a football thing and you’re normally judged on it, so it becomes a bit of a competition on how big you can go with it. I think standard is like Krispy Kreme’s and stuff like that.
“Some people go way and beyond. You have to bring them in otherwise, it’s a fine. It’s all about outdoing your teammates with it. Normally, it’s who can bring the best selection in, it just becomes a little bit of a thing.
“When Bielsa first came in, it was banned. It was no cakes. So what the lads would do is they’d put them in the changing rooms and if one of the staff came in, you’d just hide them.
“Throw a bit of kit over them or something like that. At first, it was like, no, Marcelo won’t have the cakes. We used to walk out of the changing rooms and onto the pitch with a load of icing round our mouths.”
It was certainly a grind playing for Bielsa but no one can say it wasn’t worth it.
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