Season Review
The Adelites
theadelites
16 hours ago
2018/19: Leeds United Season Review
A Gigantic Explosion that Flickered and Died
They say that losing makes you philosophical. In that case the Leeds United fan base should be able to boast a renaissance of philosophers the world hasn’t seen since Aristotle. And Marcelo Bielsa feels like he fits Leeds like Cinderella’s shoe, he once said after losing while manager of Newell’s Old Boys “’I shut myself in my room, turned off the light, closed the curtains and I realised the true meaning of an expression we sometimes use lightly: “I want to dieâ€â€
Marcelo who?
The gigantic leap from former Barnsley manager Paul Heckingbottom to former Argentina manager Marcelo Bielsa could not have been more of a change of direction than had we made the Sun orbit the Earth. And before the season most Leeds fans could be forgiven that churning sensation in the gut at hearing an unfamiliar and foreign name – flashbacks to Darko Milanic and Uwe Rosler still fresh in the memory. Or even more recently Thomas Christiansen. So many years of being fed false hope has turned most of us into beaten dogs, barely flinching at the next kick in the knackers – we’re Leeds – it’s been par for the course now for many years.
But many of us were wrong. Marcelo turned out to be a coup beyond extraordinary, a man of grace, passion, dedication, principles, who made the players pick up rubbish, who pointed to a shoe mark on the wall and called it disrespect. A man who insists that there are no small details, who wears his Leeds clothes almost every hour of every day, who poses for photos for all, who gives sweets to children lined up to great him, who paces up and down the technical area in superstitious steps that echo the great Don Revie.
And after decades of pain, hurt and mistrust; and after a very indifferent pre-season, Leeds came out of the summer like a bullet from a gun, disposing of several favourites for promotion with big scorelines. Marcelo’s genius reverberated around the pitch, in every action of the players, everything about them had changed from the previous year – the way they ran, the fluidity of the passing, the transitional movements from defence to attack and from attack to defence, the burning hunger in each player to run 50 yards and make a tackle and win the ball back..
The Transformation
The transformation was so alarming, it was verging on voodoo, some sort of unearthly magic – Klich having been at best on the verge of the squad, now became almost a complete midfielder, Kalvin Phillips who was a good, fairly attack-minded midfielder, had been turned into the best defensive midfielder in the division. The performances that Marcelo squeezed out of these players, was nothing less than extraordinary.
A bumpy ride after an initial incredible start followed, coinciding with the loss of Pablo and Roofe to minor injuries. Riding those results out we turned a corner when both players came back to win 9 in a row culminating in two incredible but exhausting and hard fought victories. Firstly against Aston Villa away, coming from 2-0 down to win 3-2, with Roofe scoring in the 94th minute; and then secondly, just 3 days later coming back from 2-1 down to Blackburn Rovers at home, to first equalise in the 91st minute, then Roofe again providing the winner in the 95th. This all meant that as the world turned into 2019, Leeds were top of the Championship.
The breaking point
The mentality to continuously win, to continuously fight, Bielsa-style, pressing all over the pitch, and then constant attacking, eventually cannot be maintained; not necessarily physically – for players can get fit, but to be constantly excellent takes time and experience – to create the confident mindset to be able to accomplish this. The stark reality is that the same players who finished 13th the season previous did not have the either the time, experience nor capacity to put the energy and will into every game in a long championship season. And Leeds fell off the pace in the first part of the year, in the last part of the season.
No simple answer is probably correct though, and there are a myriad of other reasons why this season flickered and fell and eventually died on a barmy night at Elland Road in May. Over 50 injuries is unusual enough even for a big squad, and Leeds do not have, and Marcelo does not like, big squads. But the furore and vitriol of the media and members of the EFL board were at even bigger odds with the demeanour and character of the Leeds manager when the storm of Spygate would blow over the club; and the EFL ensured that Spygate would linger and hang like a shadow above Elland Road long enough to disrupt the rhythm of the clubs march towards automatic promotion.
Of course it felt like the world was against Leeds, that the nature of the reaction was staggeringly disproportionate to the act of standing on a public footpath and observing a rivals training session – a simple enough tactic, that has occurred in one form or another since time immemorial. The confessions of other managers, Tony Pulis for example, flickered and died in the avalanche of diatribe against Leeds.
The fact is that the media’s favourite Leeds narrative is and always has been to paint the image of “Dirty Leeds†and any shred of evidence that affirmed that description is the norm; and for most of them it was a relief to get back to this monologue after the opening months of Bielsa-ball had left them with nothing to say but superlatives for the beautiful football being played by the Yorkshire side.
But for all of the endless reasons to pad the conspiratorial narrative, it is simply not in the Bielsa-way, of which many of his closest observers this season have assimilated, to pass the responsibility onto any other.
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselvesâ€
And that’s probably why it hurts the most. For all of the obstacles that were set against us this season, eventually we simply could not overcome them. There was more than an ounce of inevitability about Berardi’s wild lunge that got him sent off against Derby; more than a picture of perfect loss and disbelief on Pontus Jansson’s face as he sat, dejected, against the advertising boards after the match.
I’ll never understand how Pablo Hernandez ended up in Al-Arabi, when we plucked him back to England. Though it did feel like he was writing the end of a career this season, a dying star, that shines brightest briefly, before ever so deliberately flickering and dying. His extraordinary powers no more so evident than, with little back lift, and celebrating before he shot, burying the ball in the top bin after 16 seconds against West Brom, a feat that, had he not won the players’ player of the year and supporter’s player of the year, would surely have been awarded goal of the season also.
But while some were nearing the end of their careers, others were coming of age and rose to the challenge of this division, like Kemar Roofe, who finished top-scorer, and whose movements in an essentially false nine role, were a revelation against many teams, none more so than Derby, who at no point could deal with him, and who, you would have to say, had he been on the pitch, the season would have finished one match later than it did. A freak calf injury summarising perfectly the luck we had with injuries.
Kalvin Phillips was another who came of age, and into a role that seems perfect, but that came as a surprise to him before the season. Marcelo had the vision to see what Kalvin could become, where not even Kalvin himself could. Another master-stroke was that of Klich, who had been ostracised by Thomas Christiansen, but brought into the fold, ending up the only ever present and an indispensable cog in the Leeds midfield.
There was an integration of youth that could rival some of the great promising youth performances in Leeds’ teams of the past. The revelations of Jack Clarke and Jamie Shackleton were more than enough to suggest a bright future, without the focus on the academy which has seen it’s teams win silverware under the ever-impressive Carlos Corberan – a man who will most likely take over the reigns at Leeds after Marcelo leaves, should that be in the near future.
Much more could be said on other players in the team: the other leaders – Cooper, Dallas, Ayling; the other young players: Roberts, Bailey; the new additions: Kiko, Bamford and Forshaw; the old hands: Pontus and Pablo. Each having differing fortunes at different times of the season. And while no player and no team can consistently win, any player, any team can constantly try. And while performances and execution have not always been there, the effort of this team cannot be in question.
“Better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at allâ€
The end to the season was like a series of horrifying car crashes. Losing to teams that we would have easily beaten on any other day. There was a touch of fate about these games, like the Universe had flipped a coin and it was decided that Leeds were meant to stay one more year in the Championship. It certainly didn’t feel like a fault through lack of trying, but a bitter, unnecessary and almost ridiculous tragedy – the work of a cruel writer who plays with the emotions of the audience.
One thing that can be said, not that we needed it, is that the absence of a triumph makes one all the more sweeter when it comes. But in retrospect, this was the season a city fell in love once more with it’s club. Where fans fell in love with a manager, for the first time, in a very long time – where it felt like Monk brought that feeling back but was just a tease, Marcelo is the true love that you have waited for your whole life. The true love that stops the universe and punches you square in the gut, and squeezes your heart, and looks you in the eye and screams “you’re mine†– the kind of man you would go to war for, the kind of man you would die for.
And after – I don’t know how many managers – this is desperately welcome. Reason enough to mend broken hearts, reason enough to rise and applaud long after the final whistle, of a bitter season-ending defeat, to chant the name “Marcelo Bielsa†to sing “And we’re proud of it We’re Leedsâ€.
And all these words without mentioning the management and ownership team behind it all – Andrea Radrizzani, the San Francisco 49ers, Angus Kinnear and Victor Orta – a man who was inconsolably weeping in the car park after that Derby game, a man who had, a few hours earlier, been putting scarves on seats himself. And all we can do is to remember the context – of Peter Risdale’s goldfish, Ken Bate’s programme notes which cost the club legal fees, the mysterious GFH, the madness of Cellino.
Kicked dogs indeed. We Leeds fans have been battered and beaten, by bad owners, bad managers, bad players, and a governing body, media and a country full of teams that hate us. But finally we have reason to love our club, from the owner to the ball boys. We have been given our love of Leeds back; and we have never asked for super human results, all we’ve ever asked for is a team that tries their hearts out, a mentality and style that attacks and always believes they can win.
A team that plays as loud as we sing.
And after endless years of hurt, selling our best players, selling our ground, selling the club to unknowns, we finally can be proud of our club again. There is no shame in losing when you’ve tried your heart out; and though the ending wasn’t what we dreamed of, the result is something unimaginable just a few years ago: we have our club back.
And whatever you say about any of these players, they all have unfinished business.
I hope they can all stick around and finish the job.
Written by Adonis Storr, The Adelites
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