Marcelo Bielsa sets coaching example for Jose Mourinho to follow

Leeds United’s 4-1 demolition of Derby County soon went viral across social media on Saturday afternoon. Leeds were away from home, defending a 1-0 lead and their backline was being pressurised by a swarming and clearly hugely motivated group of players from Frank Lampard’s new team.

What did they do? A big hoof to the safety of the stands? Launch it up to the strikers in the immediate hope of gaining some territory? Or did they fizz the ball around between themselves in a series of one-touch passing triangles that looked more like something off the Barcelona training pitches or Fifa 18 video game than a Championship division supposedly all about physical and mental toughness?

That it should be the latter will surprise no follower of Marcelo Bielsa’s career. After Leeds' similarly emphatic 3-1 win against Stoke City and a week where so much of football's energy and resource has been devoted to the closing transfer window, the early make up of Bielsa's team is especially impressive. Just one member of Saturday’s starting side was a new summer signing.

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Such a powerful example of what can be achieved on a training ground is also all rather timely so soon after Jose Mourinho had pointedly noted that his profession should now be known as head coaches rather than managers.

The backdrop was this ludicrous recent depiction of Manchester United being some sort of have-nots in the transfer market and Mourinho’s purposeful refusal to answer a question about whether his team could even challenge to win the league. And yet, on this first weekend of the Premier League season, there were examples all around of teams who have been transformed by the work of good coaching above cheque-book management.

Bournemouth and Crystal Palace, with two excellent English coaches in Eddie Howe and Roy Hodgson, are both away to fliers. West Ham looked disjointed despite the addition of nine players while a team like Burnley under Sean Dyche appear ready to build on recent progress.

Mauricio Pochettino has not added a single player to his Tottenham squad but they also began with a win against Newcastle. It is no coincidence that the guiding inspiration in Pochettino’s career is Bielsa, who first made his name with Newell’s Old Boys in Rosario before six years as the manager of Argentina. Diego Simeone was another member of that Argentina team to be heavily influence by a coach Pep Guardiola has called the best in the world.

His early weeks at Leeds United's Thorp Arch training ground have certainly been different.

After asking one member of staff how hard an average Leeds fan must work to afford a match-ticket, he had the players out picking up litter for an equivalent period of time - three hours - so that they understood just what it all meant to those watching.

The players have been regularly spending from 9am until 7pm at the training ground, even sleeping there between sessions, while Bielsa himself has a bed in his office.

When he was interviewed for the Leeds job, he was able to recite the formation that every opposing team had used last season in the Championship. A letter from Pochettino formed part of the evidence supplied to the Football Association arguing that Bielsa more than met the “exceptional talent” criteria to be granted a work permit.

It is of course still very early days - and Bielsa himself has been repeatedly warning against any premature praise or expectation for Leeds - but he has already reawakened the fanbase.

One fan took to Twitter on Sunday to proudly announce that, having been at Pride Park on Saturday, he promptly watched the entire match back over when he arrived home that evening and then again when he woke up on Sunday.

Another wrote: “Been with my wife for 15 years, we’ve got a great son and shared some amazing times. However, it’s taken a Marcelo Bielsa Leeds United team for her to see me truly happy.” Phil Hay, the chief football writer at the Yorkshire Evening Post, said that the Leeds squad have had “a personality transplant” and noted how, amid so much perceived wisdom about what is needed to succeed in the Championship, rival clubs were in fact now being forced to adapt to a coach from the other side of the world.

Mourinho was of course once another who changed teams, who made them so much more than the sum of their individual parts. He is 55. Bielsa is 63 and providing an example he should consider.