San Martin manager Diego Flores has insisted he won’t dare to compare himself to Marcelo Bielsa, despite working closely with him at Leeds United.
The Argentine coach has been speaking to LV12 as he gets underway with San Martin after taking charge at the club in December.
They are his second club as manager in the last two years, after a 28 game spell at Godoy Cruz that came to an end in April 2022 before he returned to the club in November that year for a 10 game spell until April 2023.
The 43-year-old is still forming himself as a manager and is early in his career having previously been an assistant manager, starting at Marseille in 2014, then Lille in 2017 and Leeds in 2018.
All of those spells saw him working closely alongside iconic manager Marcelo Bielsa, with him working as the Argentine’s assistant for 149 games in total.
Naturally it means eyes are now on Flores and whether he has been influenced by the man he’s worked alongside so often.
Flores isn’t interested in any of that, though, and insists he would never even dare to compare himself to the former Leeds boss.
“I started as an intern, with collaborations filling out forms,” he said on his time at Elland Road.
“They gave me a space to train and grow and I took it with a lot of commitment. The work was valued and little by little I went from intern to technical assistant.
“I don’t even dare to compare myself (to Bielsa). There are many things that I was able to learn during my experience with him. It would be disrespectful to try to compare myself to him.”
