Marcelo Bielsa’s short time with Lille won’t be one of the manager’s favourite periods of his career.
He joined the French club in May 2017 and was dismissed the following December, with legal battles being dragged through French courts since. Both sides felt the other had reneged on the way the club should be run, and as Leeds United fans will be well aware, there’s no point appointing Bielsa if his input is going to be overruled repeatedly.
Bielsa’s plan with Lille was to show the door to senior players at the club and replace them with younger options, with the idea that Lille could build something for the future and also have a strong financial footing for subsequent sales.
Despite being there for such a short time, the Leeds United manager signed Nicolas Pepe, who was later sold in a huge deal to Arsenal, and that move, and the huge profit for Lille, formed part of the case for Bielsa’s legal team.
Sunday’s edition of L’Equipe has a lengthy interview with Gerard Lopez, who is now major shareholder at Bordeaux, having been the same at Lille during Bielsa’s time there.
Vladimir Petković is the current Bordeaux manager, and L’Equipe asked Lopez if a ‘lack of progress’ at the club has made him doubt the appointment.
Lopez replied: “I ask myself, except that I ask myself with the staff, not in isolation. There are a lot of people who keep making the analogy between our first season here and the one in Lille. It has nothing to do with then. In Lille, we had to deal with a coach who, at one point, decided not to be in the project and to do his own things. These are not the results that put an end to this collaboration. This is the way to work.”
L’Equipe are under no doubt that Lopez is talking about Marcelo Bielsa, indeed it couldn’t really be anyone else.
