Will Leeds United’s form implode – or is ‘Bielsa burnout’ just a myth? An investigation
Leeds sit top of the Championship but, with injuries piling up, concerns have been raised they are about to fall prey to an 'old' problem
Jon MackenzieFriday November 9th 2018
Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa has disciples all over the world - including Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino - but he also goes by the nickname 'el loco' (the crazy one) (Photo: PA)
Ask most fans of football if there are any certainties in the beautiful game and they will be all too happy to furnish you with suggestions: Harry Kane won’t score in August; Jürgen Klopp cannot win finals; José Mourinho goes through a “third-season syndrome†at whichever club he manages; Romelu Lukaku will fail to score against top sides… and Marcelo Bielsa teams will suffer from burnout.
That these sorts of ideas have entered the public consciousness is hardly surprising. As psychologist Steven Pinker explains: “Cognitive psychology has shown that the mind best understands facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric, such as a narrative, mental map, or intuitive theory. Disconnected facts in the mind are like linked pages on the Web: They might as well not exist.†Narratives exist as a scaffold upon which we can hang our facts, giving some kind of meaning to an array of otherwise arbitrary details.
Of course, this goes both ways. Where the stories we tell can allow us to impose an order onto the chaotic world we find ourselves in, they can equally introduce erroneous ideas into the conversation. How else do you think we ended up with Mohamed Salah, the player who “wasn’t good enough for Liverpool†when he signed, the player who was “going to challenge Messi†at the end of last season or the player who is now being touted as a “one-season wonder†all within the space of a year? When we attempt to narrate football we often find ourselves treading the narrow path between arbitrary fact and mythological fiction.
Take Bielsa. As Leeds United travel to the Midlands to play fellow promotion hopefuls West Bromwich Albion this weekend, he finds himself in charge of a team who sit at the top of the Championship, having taken the league by storm with a style of play seldom seen in the second tier of English football.
At this point, you might suppose a tilt at automatic promotion is on the cards or, at the very least, a chance of play-off glory. However, at the back of everyone’s mind the three-decade-old apprehension remains: Bielsa teams always fall away at the end of a season, don’t they?
Origins of the ‘Bielsa burnout’ narrative
Marcelo Bielsa greets fans as he arrives at Elland Road prior to the match between Leeds United and Brentford (Getty Images)
Narratives don’t arise from nowhere. A series of events or details emerge that strikes someone as odd. These are investigated more closely. A story is told.
In the case of Bielsa and the burnout narrative, there is solid evidence to suggest that the phenomenon has occurred at points in his career. During his first season as manager at Newell’s Old Boys in 1990-91, Bielsa’s team went from securing the title in the apertura – the opening half of the season – to winning only six games in the clausura – the second half of the season.
Inevitably, questions were raised about his ability to regulate the intensity of his approach to management. However, there are mitigating factors which should be taken into account here. On the one hand, the clausura in 1990-91 was followed by an even more disastrous apertura the following season. Winning only three matches, Newell’s ended the calendar year with a mere nine victories in the league. The summer break had done very little to substantiate the claim that fatigue might be the sole explanation for the slump.
On top of this, the structure of the Argentine Primera División at that time pitted the winner of the apertura against the winner of the clausura in an end of season play-off to determine the overall champion. Played as a two-legged tie in early July, Newell’s beat Boca Juniors, winning 3-1 on penalties. Where Bielsa’s side were not so fatigued as to lose to their opponents in the play-off, a case could be made that they dropped off in the clausura as a result of their qualification for the play-off at the end of the apertura.
What’s the problem?
Marcelo Bielsa watches Argentina during their FIFA 2002 World Cup qualifier against Peru played at the Estadio River Plate (Getty Images)
A quick perusal through Bielsa’s managerial CV from this point onward makes it difficult to understand quite how the burnout narrative took such a firm hold in the collective consciousness of the footballing world.
The Argentine’s is certainly a non-standard career pathway and includes a long stint with two national teams along with a number of tenures cut short because of various off-pitch issues. Having left Newell’s Old Boys after losing in the final of the Copa Libertadores in 1992, there was nothing from his time in Argentine club football that gave any suspicion that an end of season fatigue was an ongoing problem.
Moving to Espanyol in 1998, Bielsa left early to take up the position of Argentina’s national team coach before later switching one South American national team for another when Chile came knocking. Understandably, fatigue was never an issue for Bielsa during this period. But neither was it an issue at Marseille, who won four consecutive games at the end of the 2014-15 season before Bielsa left early the following season. Beyond this, Lazio came and went within 48 hours and a disastrous spell at Lille lasted just 13 games.
In fact, the only other period of his career that gives any credence to an end of season fatigue narrative is Bielsa’s first season at Athletic Club, which saw the side lose three of their final four games in the league as well as a Copa del Rey final and a Europa League final.
‘We couldn’t even move’
Ander Herrera gestures during the Copa del Rey Final match between Athletic Club and Barcelona in 2012 (Getty Images)
When asked about that season, Ander Herrera was forthright with his opinion about the underlying cause: “I can’t lie to you, in the last months we couldn’t even move. We had five games to play in the league and were in two cup finals and I think we lost all of them. [They lost three in the league, drew one and won one].â€
“Our legs said ‘stop’,†he continued. “We used to play always with the same players and were not at our best in the finals. We were a completely different team than we had been before because, to be honest, we were physically f*cked.â€
There can be little doubt that the Athletic Club players had experienced a burnout in those final weeks of the season. Once again, though, there were mitigating factors.
Firstly, regardless of the three losses out of five in La Liga, Athletic’s final league position of 10th was hardly indicative of an end of season slump. The team had spent almost the entire campaign in the midtable and even dropped as low as 19th at one point. They also lost three out of five games at the opening of that La Liga season.
It was also a long season – the team ended up playing 65 matches across all competitions – and, despite losing in the Copa del Rey and Europa League finals, falling at the hands of a second-placed Barcelona and fifth-placed Atletico Madrid was hardly indicative of a complete collapse.
No worries
Kemar Roofe looks on during the Sky Bet Championship between Leeds United and Nottingham Forest (Getty Images)Speaking to the Leeds manager after their 2-1 win against Wigan Athletic last weekend, i asked him about the injuries mounting in his squad and whether or not he had any concern they might have been caused by his famously intense training regime.
‘Actually, we are the team who has the least injuries in the Championship’
Marcelo Bielsa
The Argentine was adamant: Leeds are not an outlier in the Championship. “Actually, we are the team who has the least injuries in the Championship,†he argued. “If we take some parameters, we are the team with fewest injuries: if we take into account the number of players used, the kind of injury, the muscular injuries.â€
When viewed from this perspective, Bielsa suggested, the question of training intensity becomes a non-issue. “Muscular injuries are linked to excessive effort,†he went on, “but [muscular injury] is not the case for Gaetano Berardi, it’s not the case for [Luke] Ayling, it’s not the case for [Patrick] Bamford, it was not the case for [Liam] Cooper. I would actually say that the high percentage of injured players didn’t have muscular injuries.â€
Is the idea of an end of season burnout a concern, then? Not for the manager, at any rate. Once again, he reiterated the idea that his side were hardly unusual in their injury record: “Usually as an average, each team when the team plays twice a week, four players are missing from each team. And we are close to this average.â€
If Leeds were going to fall away at the end of the season, so his logic seemed to be, then so were a lot of other teams.
A question of quality
Marcelo Bielsa with Ander Iturraspe during a training session on the eve of the Europa League final in 2012 (Getty Images)
But what do the experts say? In search of a view from outside the club, i spoke to Jed Davies, first team assistant coach of Ottawa Fury and author of The Philosophy of Football: In Shadows of Marcelo Bielsa.
As Davies sees it, part of the explanation for the popularity of the burnout narrative comes from the perception given off by the way that Bielsa’s teams play. “Marcelo Bielsa’s teams are known for their high-octane intensity in the pressing moments and off-ball movements (see video below), especially the sheer volume of runs in behind. The football fan’s perspective is, therefore, one that observes such combative energy and concludes the training week must represent something similar.â€
This, he argues, is not an entirely accurate picture. “With much of Marcelo Bielsa’s methodology being unopposed and playing-style related, the idea must be to avoid contact injuries with [his] idea of training.†Increasing the intensity of training sessions, then, does not necessarily mean that the result is an overall increase in physical intensity.
In fact, the intensity that is often spoken of when discussing Bielsa’s methods could be misleading. Davies explains: “What Bielsa does demand is an ‘all-in’, detail-orientated commitment from players to remain highly concentrated and present for longer spells during the training week.â€
“At many clubs, it’s commonplace to work three or four-hour days as professional players. Under Bielsa, players will often be expected to work longer days and appreciate those hours invested in improving performance. So, naturally, it might take some time for players to accept and maintain their quality of work.â€
Thus we arrive at the idea that any burnout that does occur in Bielsa’s teams is as much the product of an emotional intensity as a physical one.
Living La Vida Loca
Marcelo Bielsa watches the action during the preseason friendly match between Marseille and Juventus FC at Stade Velodrome in 2015 (Getty Images)
The idea that the cause of the so-called ‘Bielsa burnout’ could be the result of an emotional rather than physical intensity is a compelling one.
The Leeds manager readily admits his own obsessive tendencies and these, married with his obvious passion for the game, have led to the deterioration of a number of his managerial positions. Most famously, Bielsa left Italian club Lazio after a mere 48 hours in charge, citing a failure to “sign any of the seven additions in the work program expressly approved by the President†and “the departure of 18 players who were involved in the previous season.â€
At his previous club, Marseille, the Argentine had left after only one game had been played of his second season, handing in a resignation after announcing his displeasure at the club’s ‘shifting position’ during negotiations for a proposed new deal.
Beyond this, Bielsa has a habit of falling out with the increasingly ubiquitous directors of football who operate behind the scenes at many clubs. The ruinous 13-game stint at Lille that directly preceded his time at Leeds involved a slowly rumbling disagreement with Gérard Lopez and his time at Athletic Club was punctuated by fallouts over player signings and contracts, principal amongst which were cases involving Fernando Llorente and Javi Martinez.
Emotional toll
These off-field events, along with the need for complete commitment from his players on the training field, have contributed to the maverick persona that has come to be associated with Marcelo Bielsa. Given the nickname ‘El Loco’, an epithet that understandably rankles him and which he even refuses to repeat in press conferences, Bielsa has been widely cast within popular culture as some sort of footballing madman, imposing his eccentric ideals on his squads in pursuit of perfection.
Regardless of the rightness or wrongness of these characterisations, though, there is clearly an emotional toll that comes from playing for him. When Juan Manuel Llop spoke about his time playing under Bielsa at Newell’s, he hinted at this. “We had two poor seasons because of the level that was demanded of us to fight for the title.
“We had a small squad too. All players from the squad were from the youth system, so Marcelo was extremely demanding and, along with the pressure of challenging for the title, it made a certain easing off inevitable. It’s a phase you go through.â€
Yes, fatigue contributed to the decline. But it was as much emotional as a physical one.
Rewriting the narrative
So will Bielsa’s Leeds suffer burnout as the season unfolds? Perhaps. Is it a given? Certainly not.
Narratives exist for a reason. Bielsa’s first seasons at Newell’s and Athletic Club respectively are clearly instances of some sort of late-season fade. However, they are also two occurrences in a career that spans nearly thirty years.
Whatever else happens come the end of this year’s Championship campaign, Bielsa and Leeds United are clearly aware of the burnout narrative and are taking steps to prevent it from becoming a reality.
But, as we have seen, these burnouts have as much to do with external factors as internal factors. Should the emotional intensity become too much, should there be disagreements with pivotal players or the board, should a physical fatigue actually set in, then the whole edifice could well come crumbling down.
One thing is for certain, though: if Leeds United can hold on and return to the Premier League after years wandering in the wilderness, Bielsa will have written a whole new narrative for himself.
