Mauricio Pochettino has told Monday Night Football on Sky Sports (02/11/20 at 7:20 pm) that he told Marcelo Bielsa he will be ‘very successful’ in England prior to him joining Leeds.
In 2018, then-Championship side Leeds made the bold move to appoint the highly-regarded Bielsa as their head coach and it’s fair to say every bit of what was expected has come off.
From Pochettino to Pep Guardiola, they all consider Bielsa as the best coach in the world and given the job he has done at Elland Road during his two years, it’s pretty clear where he gets his reputation from.
If there is anyone who understands Bielsa more than anyone in today’s game, from his character to his tactics, then it’s Pochettino, who has worked under him since he was a teenager and he shared a phone call Bielsa made to him prior to his move to England.
“I have to say when he was in France, he called me and he was asking me about England,” Pochettino told Sky Sports. “And I said ‘Marcelo, you can be very successful here’.
“I talk very highly about English culture. The English players and the identity because at the end it is always ahead the English culture in every single team. And you need to keep that because it’s the identity of the Premier League. And I said ‘you will fit perfectly’.”
Whilst a Pep Guardiola, Carlo Ancelotti and Jose Mourinho may have their cabinets stacked with trophies, it sometimes doesn’t really showcase the true worth of a coach or a manager.
That’s the case with Bielsa, who is perhaps the best coach in the Premier League today and the work he has done with the Leeds players is proof of that.
The majority of these players were struggling in the Championship when he first joined and they were deemed mid-table players in the second-tier.
But Bielsa’s eagle-eye and demanding ways have transformed them into top-quality Premier League footballers from the likes of Luke Ayling, Stuart Dallas, Kalvin Phillips and Patrick Bamford, to name a few.
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