Currently third in the Championship, two points behind leaders Norwich but with a game in hand, Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds are continuing their good form in 2019 as they seek promotion back to the Premier League.
Spygate drama aside, the Argentine has lived a relatively drama free first season at Elland Road, winning over half his games in the league and losing just seven in 32.
What appears to have really made a difference, however, is a sense of unity within the team, one where fans can feel how much the players enjoy being on the pitch.
Part of that, according to former professional footballer and Diego Maradona’s ex-girlfriend Rocio Oliva in her column for BolaVIP, could be primarily down to Marcelo Bielsa and his management style.
She wrote: “Once, I heard someone say on a plan from Rome to Naples that everyone wants to play for El Loco because players never feel at fault, they never feel alone… This guy blames himself and takes the blame for his players’ mistakes.
“Do you know how important that is for a kid? Marcelo Bielsa sacrifices himself, with his soul, his mind and his heart”.
As she puts it, Marcelo Bielsa is an ‘extremist’ who takes his obsession ‘to the extreme’.
However, Oliva feels we’ll never really know who the Leeds manager really is, ‘what moves him and makes him emotional, what goes through his veins when he thinks about football, what losing or winning does to him’.
She recalls Daniel Arcucci, an Argentine journalist, once describing him as a ‘real authentic crazy’, which sounds about right.
