Bielsa is a football romantic - This rivalry won't be lost on him

On Marcelo Bielsa's very first day as Head Coach of Leeds United he told the world's press sat in a room at Elland Road's East Stand that "no foreign person knows as much as Leeds United as me".

To know Leeds United is to know the rivalry with Manchester United. This is the first season in sixteen years since the two clubs shared the same division, it has been nine years since they last met (save for last season's friendly in Australia) and amazingly it is almost eleven years since Leeds, then in League One, came to Old Trafford and dumped the Red Devils out the FA Cup.

No wonder the fans of both sides are excited ahead of tomorrow's (Sunday) clash at Old Trafford.  

.How often do you see managers and players alike before such games playing the occasion down? Something like, 'it's just another three points'? There was not a chance of that happening for this one. The front cover for Man United's programme for the match is titled "a rivalry resumed" alongside pictures of the two sides in full battle, often with the ball out of sight. Leeds midfielder Mateusz Klich has revealed he soon learnt of the rivalry when he first arrived at the club despite the Whites being exiled in the Championship at the time and openly saying he knows how important the game is for the fans. Nope, this is worth more than just three points, sentimentally if not mathematically.

Marcelo Bielsa is a football romantic. There was probably a reason he took on the role as coach of Athletic Bilbao in that the club has a tradition of only employing "Basque" players and Bielsa perhaps saw that as a handicap and therefore an identification and a challenge. Likewise, attracted one of the most revered coaches in world football to move half-way across the globe to take on a struggling team in English football's second tier? Perhaps the romantism of being the man to take a fallen giant back to their rightful place alongside their most traditional rivals? Bielsa has thrown himself whole into his role at Leeds almost as an honorary Yorkshireman (even if he has not quite grasped the language) with his Wetherby Flat and his love of coffee shops and walks across Yorkshire's beautiful countryside. He said before the Newcastle game in midweek the reason he has now stayed at Leeds for longer than any of his other teams in terms of matches was because of the acceptance he has felt from the fans. Bielsa is Leeds, and he understands that to be Leeds is to desire to beat Manchester United.

Bielsa was and still is so invested into, let's face it, his true club Newell's Old Boys that when he lost to city rivals Rosario Central for the only time he said afterwards, "I die after every defeat, the week that follows is hell". When a group of Rosario Central Ultra's, The Barras Bravas arrived outside the gates of his Rosario home chanting, he greeted them holding a hand grenade and threatened to pull the pin, the act that earned him his name of 'El Loco' in Argentina. Perhaps even more audaciously on the eve of a Newell's/Central derby he approached young defender Fernando Gamboa playing on a PacMan machine. He asked him what he would give to win the game. Gamboa replied saying "everything you know me gaffer, the game is life itself". Bielsa told Gamboa he could give more than that to which Gamboa asked how that was possible.

Bielsa: "We have five fingers on each hand. If I guarantee now that we will win the derby, would you cut of a finger?"

Gamboa: "But if we win five derbies, I am not going to have a hand left!"

Bielsa: "It seems to me that you haven't understood a damn thing about what this is all about".

Gamboa scored in an emphatic Newell's win the next day.

Bielsa may of mellowed just a tad in age but the pre-match press conference for Man United game saw Bielsa almost beaming with excitement and stated that he knows 'the immediate rivalry and that Leeds do not ignore what it means to play in such a game'. He also revealed the feelings he felt when Newell's Old Boys used to face city rivals Rosario Central. It was a statement true of any fan of a football team who shares a rivalry with another team and certainly how many Leeds United fan's will feel tonight before tomorrow's eagerly awaited clash.

"Ask a Newell's fan if they want to be champion of South America or win against Rosario Central and they will say champion of South America. If you ask them the day before (the derby) they would prefer to win the game....... "That's exactly how I feel".

By Lawrence O'Sullivan