West Bromwich Albion manager Carlos Corberán has detailed how his stint at Leeds United, and his involvement in the hiring of Marcelo Bielsa, was key to his career development.
Corberán has been speaking to Panenka in Spain regarding his career to date, which has seen him working in various places in differing roles.
The Spanish boss has been at the Hawthorns since October last year, joining them after a short stint with Olympiacos in Greece.
His coaching career has been a varied one to date, with him initially starting out as a coach at Villarreal before moving to Saudi Arabia with Al-Ittihad Club.
He returned to Spain with Alcorcon’s youth team before moving to Al-Nassr then managing Doxa Katokopias and Ermis Aradippou.
He made his first move to England in 2017 when he arrived as a coach in Leeds’ U21 set up, maintaining that role as well as stepping up to be a part of Marcelo Bielsa’s first team coaching set up during his time at Elland Road.
Indeed, Corberán was a key part of the process to bring Bielsa to Leeds in the first place, with director of football Victor Orta utilising him as part of the team sent to Argentina to convince the legendary coach of the move.
They were obviously successful in those efforts and Corberán admits it was an experience which ended up shaping him considerably.
“My process at Leeds begins with Iván Bravo, who is the person who managed the Aspire Academy in Qatar and who today presides over Alcorcón,” he said.
“Andrea Radrizzani thought of him to coordinate his project, and he in turn thought of Victor Orta as sports director and me to coach the club’s reserve team, with the idea of implementing a game model that was consistent with that of the first team.
“Later, Victor and Andrea suggested that I join the first team as a future plan; The coach they had chosen was Marcelo Bielsa. I travelled with them to Buenos Aires to meet Marcelo and present the project to him.
“That agreement reached with him was another turning point in my career. I was lucky enough to live and work for two years with one of the best coaches in the world.”
