Bielsa isn't just a manager or coach, he is a walking project. An entity with a clear vision. With Bielsa, there are no such things as this is an ex-player, therefore, you need to include him in your squad, or we paid this much for this player so you have to include him in your starting XI. Players' salaries, transfer fees, or agents aren't important to him.

Despite football evolving into a complicated business, it is still run by old traditions that should have disappeared long ago.

Marcelo Bielsa: The Dreamer, The Inspiration

When Bielsa joined Leeds, he got himself a flat very close to Thorp Arch, Leeds' training ground. He didn't care for the fact that it was right next to the HM Prison Wealstun as he was showing. Bielsa leads by example, not that he wanted all the players to live near a prison, but he was showing how serious he is about this project.

His loyalty and dedication make everyone around him believe in his project. They do everything he asks, no matter how extreme it may seem. It also makes them willing to accept his temperament, that's according to Luke Ayling at least.

Problematic Image

There will come a time when we talk about Patrick Bamford in more detail in this book. But, for now, I will talk about the time Leeds United brought in Jean-Kévin Augustin as Bamford wasn't exactly the best striker. Bielsa didn't care about the fee cost since the player wasn't doing the work in his eyes. This led to many legal problems.

These kinds of actions are what seem to be giving Bielsa a bad name. However, they're not fair at all. Bielsa isn't confrontational for no reason, he doesn't create a fight out of anywhere. He is simply a man who knows exactly what he wants.

Some people love talking about how he quit Lazio less than three days after he was hired. To be honest, Lazio's management is problematic in general, something you can learn just by researching them. Only Simone Inzaghi managed to stick around, and that's because he needed a job.

The question shouldn't be why Bielsa left as much as it is why the others stayed. Bielsa knew what he wanted and needed weren't possible to obtain, so why would he waste time pursuing something he knows wouldn't happen? How do you accomplish something when don't believe in it?

Marcelo Bielsa: The Sincere

Whether it is the Augustin or the Lazio incident, Bielsa is just sincere about his approach. He is not a hypocrite, he even governs himself by those same standards as we saw by how he chose his flat to be near the training ground. He also retired as a player after only five years because he didn't see himself able to be that good of a player.

In Conclusion

It's easy to just give Bielsa a bad nickname like "confrontational" and "problematic". The hard part is looking deeper into knowing why those confrontations occur. The explanation is simple, he is a man who knows what wants to do and how to do it.

So, he picks clubs that are completely willing to stand by him, and support him financially with the little money he asks for. We're talking about a manager with 40+ years of experience at the job with his most expensive deal costing 30 million, and that only occurred under the rich Premier League umbrella. So it's not like he is overspending.

Marcelo Bielsa requires people to treat him as an entity, a person who will come and create an identity for the club and its youth system. Someone who will manage transfers and interfere in players' lives with many of them looking at him as a father figure.

This is why his time at Leeds opened my eyes to so many things. I understand now why people at Leeds, management, players, and even people in the city love him so much and went as far to name places and streets after him. The persona created about him in the media is completely false.

He is considered "crazy" because he doesn't accept the conditions other managers do, and in my opinion, shouldn't. Marcelo Bielsa is a dreamer, inspiration, and a sincere man who chose not to waste his time with people seeking to that away from him.