Marcelo Bielsa's language is football and that is all he needs at Leeds United

All the biographical sketches of Marcelo Bielsa and tactical explanations of Leeds United prepared viewers for something at Anfield, but nothing prepared them for what they got. Jamie Carragher, after reading confidently from his diligent notes about Bielsa’s man-marking system, had to throw it all away when he saw it happening in the game. Carragher’s had a long career and can read a football pitch, but was like a toddler chewing a picture book. “What am I watching?” he asked, sounding stunned. Something much closer to Bielsa’s ideals than we expected so soon in the Premier League, that’s what. It wasn’t quite “murderball”, but was breathless, and the no-stopping rule of those intense training matches was replicated on the pitch. Over the weekend, Crystal Palace vs Southampton led the fouls table with 25; no match had fewer than 19. Except at Anfield, where there were only 15 fouls, and only six by Leeds. The Peacocks were too busy scoring beautiful goals to foul anybody - and losing, they were busy with that too. If anything completed the imprint of Bielsa on the Premier League, it was his £30m striker giving away the match-losing penalty. Leeds left with nobility but no points, the story of Bielsa’s life. What could any lover of football find to criticise? Well, something had to be found, because tweets won’t write themselves. Step forward Mick Dennis, a former journalist with a maniacal commitment to bad takes, asking: “If Bielsa is the genius his fawning acolytes among my old media mates believe, shouldn’t he have mastered a bit of English in 27 months?” Well, if Albert Einstein was the genius his fawning acolytes among the Nobel Prize committee believed, why didn’t he write War and Peace? Perhaps because his genius was in physics, not literature, just as Bielsa’s is in football, not languages. But people like Mick use the way Bielsa’s protege Mauricio Pochettino was bludgeoned out of using a translator as evidence Bielsa is a traitor to the Premier League, and seize upon him correcting translations as if some sort of mask has slipped, not realising it’s precisely that response that keeps Bielsa behind his linguistic defences. Nor has it occurred to them that, as a Spanish-speaking reporter put it, his Spanish is so “perfect and detailed” that competence in English would not be enough. To speak as he would wish, his English would have to be impeccable. Interviews with managers in English have a comfortable banality but, at the end of the day, Bielsa’s barriers of translation and interpretation bring more attention to the content and value of his thoughts, even if some people don’t like the language they’re originally spoken in. The corollary complaint about needing an interpreter to talk to his players is also daft, but interesting. Outside the perimeter, nobody really knows what goes on at Thorp Arch, but we see the interpreted chats with substitutes. And we also see the results: a team that completely and totally understands what their coach wants and how to deliver it, even if it’s beyond anything they tried to do before Bielsa asked them to. Answering that reporter about bringing his detailed Spanish to England, back in June 2018, Bielsa explained his approach to communicating with players. “I think the biggest factor which gets players playing is emotion,” he said, “and, if you speak sincerely, words and how you express yourself go hand in hand with activating these football emotions. “There are other ways of getting your point across if you believe in something sincerely ... [by] showing how you feel.” None of that is confusing to a football fan. It’s the world we understand and live in, or used to. When football grounds were open, they were howling circuses of incoherence, 35,000 people each convinced their wordless cries of agony or elation will be heard and understood by the players on the pitch. And those 35,000 people were always exactly right. That football is a universal language is a cliché, but that football emotions are universal is true. Bielsa can use football emotions to communicate his ideas because he believes in them the way a fan believes in their team, and can express his faith in them with the same sincerity and passion as a fan. And everybody knows how that sounds and what that means. It’s one of the reasons why there’s no plan B for Bielsa. Another plan would require another language, not backed by emotion. If there’s a language Bielsa doesn’t speak, it’s 4-4-2. And it’s why Pascal Struijk was one of Saturday’s best players in his Premier League debut against the champions. Because when, instead of a crowd cheering, Bielsa is roaring from the touchline, “Good, again!”, it’s all he needs to hear.

Marcelo Bielsa's language is football and that is all he needs at Leeds United - Daniel Chapman