No one simply tolerates Marcelo Bielsa. He’s a bit like Marmite: you either love him or you hate him.
Fans are like that, mostly because they only live in extremes, but the more players talk about the current Leeds United manager, the more you realise it’s the same with those who have featured under him.
Take Benjamin Mendy, for example, who has been very open about how much the Argentine helped him.
On the flipside, you have players like Andrés Guglielminpietro, or Guly for short, who got to know Bielsa back when he was in charge of the Argentina national team in 1999.
On March 31st of that year, a friendly against the Netherlands took place, and Guly replaced Ariel Ortega at half-time as they trailed 1-0.
Then, 36 minutes later, Bielsa subbed the midfielder off to bring on Hernan Crespo, which didn’t go down well, and Gabriel Batistuta scored the equaliser a minute later.
He said, relayed by Il Intransigente: “Sometimes, I take it well. Others, I take it badly. It’s a subject that always comes up. I’m very critical of Bielsa, surely because of what happened. Sometimes I say that I should have told him to **** off. I think if I cross him, I would do it, but I should have done it 20 years ago.”
Pressed on the subject, it seems Guly calmed down a little bit before continuing: “I don’t know what would happen if I crossed him. I respect his career a lot and what he does as a coach a lot. I think he was ahead of his time in training methods, but I don’t share his way of acting.
“I suffered a lot from what happened. I’d brought my family with me as a surprise. A lot of time has passed and it still hurts. Being a coach now, I understand it even less. After that, I could never enjoy the national team again.”
As Il Intransigente point out, he isn’t the first to come out and critique the Leeds manager’s methods, especially in the past, as Nicolas Peric, who played under Bielsa with the Chile national team also spoke out about how the Argentine treated his players.
However, things appear to be going well over at Elland Road these days, and it could be the 64-year-old has learned from some of his mistakes?
