Remember Sven-Goran Eriksson? The guy who took England to the quarter finals in the 2006 World Cup? Well he’s now in charge of the Philippines national team.
Not that it matters, because this isn’t about him, it’s about Marcelo Bielsa, or, at least, how the Swede views the current Leeds manager.
With the Elland Road club currently doing well in the Championship, a lot of the press around him has been nothing but good, with many players crawling out from under the woodwork to praise the Argentine and his ways.
Eriksson is no different, although the former Manchester City manager had a few choice words when it came to certain aspects of Bielsa’s approach, notably in front of the press.
Speaking to So Foot in France, the 70-year-old was asked about the difficulties of arriving at a club (or a nation) where you don’t speak the language, using the Leeds manager as an example, who ‘refuses to express himself in anything other than Spanish’ (their words, not ours).
He replied: “Bielsa is a very special man. If you talk to the great managers of today, most of them will tell you they took something from him. I find him very intelligent and very interesting tactically, but, you know, when it doesn’t work out, he just leaves.“Also, not speaking or learning the language, for me, that’s snobbery, and I’m not scared to say it. A manager shouldn’t do that. Personally, I love learning new languages. The only one I struggled with was Chinese, but I took lessons, and in the end I could speak with my players, taxi drivers or waiters.”
Over the course of his career, Eriksson has managed in Sweden, Portugal, Italy, England, Mexico, Ivory Coast, China and now Philippines.
He was also a director of football in Thailand the United Arab Emirates.
That’s a whole lot of languages to learn.
