For all the great work Marcelo Bielsa is doing at Leeds United, and the English press are always keen to remind you about it, the French media often point to his time at Lille and Marseille as a reminder everything isn’t always rosy under the Argentine.
His time in the north of France was far worse than at Stade Vélodrome, yet his abrupt departure down south is often a bitter talking point, as he left the club in the lurch one game into the new campaign.
He had his reasons, and while Marseille fans still look back on his time at the club with fondness, they often forget the downside to his time there.
When he first arrived, the club exceeded expectations, finishing the first half of the 2014-15 campaign top of the table, but they ended the year in fourth, dropping off drastically after the Christmas break.
Asked about the successful style of pressing and counter-pressing football we are seeing from the likes Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp in England, former France national team manager Raymond Domenech recalled the Argentine’s time at Marseille as an example of when such instructions go wrong.
He explained to Sports.fr: “The only one who can do it is Paris Saint-Germain. Marseille tried it for six months but Bielsa didn’t understand that it was very difficult physically and his team ended up overcooked.
“You can have the ideas, but you need the means. Bielsa started off with a philosophy of pressing the opponent everywhere. It’s simply impossible! You can do it in sequences, but it needs intelligence from the players.”
Struggling at Lille too, it seems Bielsa learned from his mistakes when he arrived at Leeds United, even if there was a small drop off towards the end of the 2018-19 campaign that saw them miss out on automatic promotion and eventually lose to Derby County in the play-off semi-finals.
The team are now back on track in the early days of the current season, as they are two points off top after suffering a 1-0 loss to Charlton on Saturday.
With still plenty of games to turn things around, perhaps we’ll see a Bielsa team finish strongly this time rather than wane off.
