Could 2012. Jose Mourinho, contemporary from main Real Madrid to their first La Liga title in 4 years, sat on the prime desk and addressed the room. “If any journalist wants a translation into Spanish, I’ll attempt to interpret,” the Portuguese introduced as Marcelo Bielsa settled awkwardly into the adjoining seat.
Bielsa appeared down on the desk in entrance of him, as is his model, and proceeded to mirror on Athletic Bilbao’s defeat, mumbling in probably the most obscure, nebulous phrases. Mourinho gave the viewers a bemused, disdainful look earlier than providing a sequence of succinct interpretations: “We performed badly,” “The referee is a wanker” and, lastly, exasperatedly, “Not a fucking clue what he simply mentioned.”
None of this really occurred, in fact. It was a comedy sketch on a present referred to as Al Rescate, on Basque regional TV station ETB 2, and the joke was not solely concerning the two coaches’ contrasting use of the Spanish language however concerning the broader variations in the way in which they communicated and certainly the way in which they thought…
On the one hand, Bielsa the romantic, misplaced in his ideas and his soccer philosophy. However, Mourinho the blunt pragmatist who cuts straight to the purpose and takes the shortest path to the closest accessible trophy.
Or, as Mourinho actually did put it in Could 2017, 5 years and two jobs later, “There are many poets in soccer. However poets, they don’t win many titles.”
He wasn’t speaking about Bielsa again then. At the moment, in a flash interview after main Manchester United to victory over Ajax within the Europa League last in Stockholm, it appeared he was referring to Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp and Mauricio Pochettino of Tottenham Hotspur, each of whom had been a lot praised over the course of a season that finally left them empty-handed, whereas Mourinho led United to 2 trophies (or three as he insisted, telling his workers and his gamers to boost three fingers through the post-match celebrations in Stockholm, the Group Defend the earlier August nonetheless very a lot in his ideas).
Mourinho was requested within the post-match press convention to elaborate on what he meant by “poets”.
“The poets,” he mentioned, “are those that win each match. They win each match. I feel I’m going to attempt to have certainly one of these jobs in just a few years, since you win each match. And I by no means managed in my profession to win each match. I at all times lose matches. Some guys win each time. I don’t. I don’t. However in a nasty season, in a season the place generally I felt my workforce was the worst workforce on the earth, the place I felt generally that I used to be the worst supervisor on the earth, we managed to win three trophies.”
Ah, traditional Jose. There are those who “win each match” — who’re showered with reward for the job they’re doing, no matter whether or not they win silverware — and those who win trophies, like him. And if some observers are extra drawn to the poets and the philosophers, Mourinho will level to the variety of trophies he has received (“25 titles,” he used to say with nice regularity, till Pep Guardiola overtook him in 2018) and pour scorn on the concept that a supervisor’s efficiency might be measured by some other metric.
You surprise what Mourinho makes of the Bielsa phenomenon, of the enduring fascination with a coach, eight years his senior, whose solely main trophy prior to now 20 years was Olympic gold with Argentina in 2004. Guardiola and Pochettino cite him as one of many nice influences on their teaching careers, lauding a philosophy constructed round taking dangers with and with out the ball, enjoying out from defence and urgent the opposition relentlessly with the intention to win it again. Even when his Leeds United workforce have misplaced closely this season, equivalent to 6-2 away to Manchester United final month, Bielsa has been praised by many neutrals. That should make Mourinho snort. Or seethe. It will depend on his temper.
Earlier this season, forward of a pulsating 1-1 draw between Leeds and Manchester City at Elland Highway, The Athletic detailed the “love story” between Guardiola and Bielsa, whom he sought out on a fact-finding mission to Argentina in 2006 earlier than embarking on his teaching profession. There isn’t any such shared historical past between Mourinho and the person who takes his Leeds workforce to face Mourinho’s Tottenham on Saturday lunchtime. To Mourinho, Bielsa is a distant determine, somebody he barely recollects beating 4 instances out of 4 after they have been answerable for Actual Madrid and Bilbao respectively, somebody whose works don’t enthral him the way in which they do others.
It was put to Mourinho on Friday, throughout his pre-match press convention, that a few of his contemporaries, like Guardiola, regard themselves as “disciples” of Bielsa. “I’m solely a disciple of my father,” the Spurs head coach mentioned. “I don’t like that scenario in soccer. Even youthful coaches, even folks that have labored with me earlier than, I don’t like that, ‘Oh, they’re a disciple of Jose.’ Everyone seems to be a person with their very own concepts. They are often influenced by one or one other, however ultimately what issues is the person.
“And I feel to discuss Mr Bielsa is for individuals who know him properly. I don’t know him properly. I feel he was Athletic Bilbao coach in one of many seasons I used to be in Actual Madrid (really they overlapped for 2 seasons). Now’s the primary time we’re within the Premier League on the similar time. For certain he must be an excellent coach, however I’m not the individual to analyse him as a result of I don’t know him, even personally. I simply shook fingers a few instances and that’s it.”
There have been instances prior to now when Mourinho has sought to personalise clashes with totally different managers. It’s one thing he has constantly prevented since taking the Spurs job. When requested how he approaches a sport in opposition to Bielsa, having overwhelmed him 4 instances prior to now, he mentioned, “I don’t play in opposition to Mr Bielsa, by no means. My membership performed in opposition to his membership or my workforce performed in opposition to his workforce. I don’t like that particular person scenario as a result of that doesn’t exist, for certain. We analyse our opponents. We did that in relation to Fulham and we did that in relation to Leeds. We all know the place they’re very robust and naturally now we have to strive to not allow them to exploit their strengths and on the similar time now we have to attempt to play our personal sport.”
It’s an intriguing encounter between a coach who has been accused of being too pragmatic and too cautious in latest weeks, with Tottenham paying the value within the closing levels in opposition to Crystal Palace, Liverpool and Wolverhampton Wanderers, and a coach who has been accused of being too naive in leaving gaps for opponents equivalent to Leicester City and Manchester United to take advantage of on the counter-attack. The potential for juicy post-match narrative and sweeping conclusions, from either side of the philosophical divide and from the sizeable center floor, is wealthy.
After West Bromwich Albion, whom they thrashed 5-0 on Tuesday, Leeds have the worst defensive report within the Premier League season, having conceded 30 objectives in 16 video games, together with 4 in opposition to every of Liverpool, Leicester and Palace, and people six at Outdated Trafford. Additionally they have the fourth-best report for objectives scored. Their seven victories to date embody a 4-3, a 3-0, a 5-2 and that 5-0. When they’re able to play on their very own phrases, they’re a pleasure to look at. When their fragilities are uncovered, as they have been by Leicester and Manchester United, they’re nonetheless a pleasure to look at, even when you suspect {that a} supervisor like Mourinho finds fairly much less to admire.
Delving deeper into the statistics, Leeds have taken extra touches of their defensive third of the pitch (253.9 per 90 minutes) than some other Premier League workforce this season. They’ve additionally taken the fourth-highest variety of touches (28.6 per 90 minutes) within the opposition penalty space, behind solely Aston Villa, Liverpool and Manchester Metropolis. Tottenham rank 18th within the latter class (18.3 touches per 90 minutes), with solely West Brom and Newcastle United taking fewer. If nothing else, it means that Mourinho’s workforce, particularly Son Heung-min and Harry Kane, have needed to be extraordinarily scientific to attain as many objectives as they’ve.
They’re two very totally different approaches — and, sure, it’s true that no person was moaning about how few touches Tottenham have been taking within the opposition penalty space after they have been scoring 5 objectives at Southampton after which six at Manchester United within the early weeks of this most peculiar Premier League marketing campaign. Mourinho’s response to an anarchic 3-3 draw at dwelling to West Ham United, who scored their three objectives from the 82nd minute onwards, has been to tighten up significantly. A few of their early-season effervescence appears to have been misplaced consequently. In contrast, Bielsa’s response to setbacks in opposition to Leicester (4-1), Palace (4-1) and Manchester United (6-2) was to inform his gamers to maintain taking dangers, which they did to nice impact when beating Newcastle 5-2 and West Brom 5-0.
Debates about soccer philosophy dominated the Premier League within the last weeks of 2020. On some events, it was Bielsa being castigated for leaving his groups too open on the again. On others, it was Mourinho being criticised for permitting his groups to drop deeper and deeper in attempting (and failing) to carry onto a lead. Virtually each week, it’s Steve Bruce being lambasted for Newcastle’s lack of ambition. At instances it feels as if some pundits lengthy for a world wherein each workforce performs middle-of-the-road soccer, nothing too difficult for us to attempt to get our heads round.
In Bielsa’s native Argentina, there may be an everlasting argument about enjoying model. The 2 opposing soccer philosophies are often called Menottismo, after the chain-smoking liberal Cesar Luis Menotti who led the nationwide workforce to glory on the 1978 World Cup as hosts, and Bilardismo, after his nemesis Carlos Bilardo, who, even with Diego Maradona in his workforce, took a much more pragmatic path to glory in Mexico eight years later.
Menotti used to characterise the battle as between “right-wing soccer”, which was attritional, and his personal “left-wing soccer”, which was free-spirited, filled with artistic expression. “Proper-wing soccer,” he mentioned disparagingly, “needs to recommend that life is a battle. It calls for sacrifices. ‘We’ve got to grow to be (males) of metal and win by any technique’. Obey and performance, that’s what these with energy need from the gamers.”
It most likely isn’t too nice a leap of religion to recommend that, within the fashionable Premier League, Mourinho can be a standard-bearer for what Menotti referred to as “right-wing soccer” and Bielsa the other. However the Leeds head coach is a contradiction. Sure, he is an ideologue, zealously so, however he, like Guardiola, is obsessive about small particulars and attempting to regulate the variables. You don’t send a lackey on a 150-mile round trip to Derby County’s training ground, with a pair of binoculars, if you’re extra curious about philosophy than outcomes.
As a lot as any coach, Bielsa obsesses about information and numbers — these recorded by forthcoming opponents in addition to his personal workforce. However possibly they’re totally different numbers to those that Mourinho and numerous different managers fear about. And past the numbers, past the tweaks from sport to sport, the core rules of Bielsa’s method stay non-negotiable whether or not he’s teaching Argentina or Chile, Bilbao or Leeds.
These rules helped rework the mediocre-looking squad he inherited in 2018 into the very best workforce within the Championship final season and now some of the eye-catching newcomers to the Premier League scene in years. Gamers equivalent to Luke Ayling, Kalvin Phillips, Jack Harrison and Patrick Bamford have improved each step of the way in which. He isn’t about to desert and even average these rules simply because a high-risk method has backfired on just a few events, not to mention as a result of a small variety of pundits query the strategies which might be so admired elsewhere.
Bielsa has grow to be an idol in Leeds (Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP through Getty Photos)
By the identical token, Mourinho shouldn’t be going to vary his methods simply because some folks recommend, as they did beforehand when he was at Manchester United, that his method is holding his workforce again. It is just 4 weeks since Tottenham have been prime of the desk after a 2-0 victory over Arsenal. He insists the cautious second-half performances which have price them in subsequent matches aren’t any reflection on what he has demanded of his gamers. “Opinions are opinions and I’m used to that, particularly as a result of I do know who I’m, what I’m,” he advised reporters on Friday when requested about criticism of his enjoying model.
And what’s Mourinho? A winner, actually, with the trophy assortment to show it. A poet or thinker? Most actually not. “Some coaches prefer to promote the thought of a philosophy,” he mentioned in 2019. “However it’s a must to promote the philosophy after you win. If you happen to win nothing, what’s the level? I don’t just like the contradictions now we have in soccer these days.”
That’s the outlook that Tottenham, with no trophy since 2008, purchased into after they appointed Mourinho in succession to the much-admired Pochettino. Leeds, in turning to Bielsa after 14 years exterior the Premier League, purchased into one thing very totally different. A training philosophy, sure, but in addition the cult of Bielsa. It might have gone badly flawed, because it did at Lazio in Italy and French membership Lille. Bielsa and Leeds, although, has been a match made in heaven. He has remodeled their gamers, individually and collectively. He has re-energised the club and their city. The notion that he has to win one thing at Leeds — aside from the Championship title — to be thought of a hit is, frankly, laughable. He has already succeeded whereas adhering to a philosophy many mentioned wouldn’t work in English soccer’s second tier.
It isn’t about the appropriate means or the flawed means. Bielsa’s means would have been the flawed one for Leeds if, as many predicted, it hadn’t labored within the Championship. Mourinho’s means would be the proper means for Tottenham if it takes them to heights that they didn’t attain below Pochettino. It’s a outcomes enterprise, which, for a supervisor or coach, means discovering the way in which to get the very best outcomes with the sources accessible to them. On the very highest degree, at these golf equipment with the largest sources, that may virtually actually imply successful trophies. Past the elite, it would imply striving for survival or for enchancment or for one thing much less tangible than the silverware that Mourinho has at all times used as his sole level of reference.
Bielsa is a unique animal. He has by no means managed a kind of elite European golf equipment and, at this stage of his profession, he seemingly by no means will. “It doesn’t matter what number of titles he had in his profession,” Guardiola mentioned when Bielsa was appointed by Lille in 2017. “We’re judged by that — how a lot success now we have, what number of titles now we have received — however that’s a lot much less influential than how he has influenced soccer and his soccer gamers. That’s the reason, for me, he’s the very best coach on the earth.”
Many others would see it in a different way, not least Mourinho. Not each coach is in thrall to Bielsa or his strategies. Completely different coaches have totally different concepts and totally different approaches — and the sport is all of the extra interesting for that. There have at all times been managers who’ve been risk-averse and managers who’ve thrown warning to the wind. It isn’t about proper and flawed. It’s about outcomes and, crucially, discovering the way in which that most accurately fits a selected workforce.
It goes again to one thing Bielsa mentioned shortly after arriving at Leeds, when he was making ready for a sport in opposition to Middlesbrough and Tony Pulis, a supervisor who would make Bilardo look positively cavalier. “Tony Pulis is a legend in English soccer,” Bielsa mentioned. “It could be pretentious for me to say my model is best than anybody else’s. What we’re evaluating proper now could be style, sensibilities, emotions.
“We can not solely have two reverse methods, in order that soccer is lowered to Guardiola’s model or Mourinho’s model. Each types are a route to success. With the tactic I play, I imagine I’ve a greater probability to succeed in success. However you by no means win enjoying dangerous. You by no means win when you don’t assault. You by no means win when you don’t use the ball. You possibly can keep away from utilizing these sources for a brief period of time, however just for a brief interval if you need success.”
And success, aside from the very largest trophies, will at all times be considered in relative phrases. And elegance will at all times be subjective — a matter of style or feeling, as Bielsa places it. And a few will want the pragmatists and others will want the poets.
In soccer, there’ll at all times be room for each.
(Photograph: Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Photos)
