@ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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@ Coach,

Ever wonder why its oft said, 'space is at a premium' in a match?

Nothing can be further from the truth!

The only thing infinite in football is space. Not time, not energy, not physical abilities; nothing else, except space.

The only constraint limiting space in football is human imagination...

You can create space, multiply it per player, or better still per unit of time, which makes it ad infinitum!

It is thus imagination, not space that is at a premium in football.

That is why there are so many errors in the game, and why football is rightly described as a game of errors.

Crucially, that is why so many footballers were often the weakest performers in school.

Take the pass, which is probably the most basic and foundational elements of the game.

More than 80% passes I see made in the game have technical leftovers- mostly from being under hit and lacking the right weight and velocity.

The most accurate quarterbacks in American football are the ones whose passes are anticipatory, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, lead to a catch that is executed WITHOUT breaking stride.

How many times have you seen players waiting for the pass to arrive, even when such a pass was made in the attacking phase of the game?

In every other professional endeavor, a system defined by errors cannot be sustained; except football!

Think about it for a minute....

Happy New Year bro...

And speaking about ur Arse; what a trio of centerbacks in today's game. Mustafi, Holding, Chambers- The muddling muppets of ineptitude!

But I digress...
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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Choi! I forgot how much TXJ can blow grammar ontop cliches! Lawd have mercy. Haven't read this much claptrap since the last time I read a atxj analysis. Lawd :taunt:

Abeg Coach, come talk to your brother O!
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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More "clap trap and cliches" for the uneducated mind...
Manchester City recognise the value of space under the guidance of grandmaster Pep Guardiola
matthew syed

In 1973, Herbert Simon, a future Nobel Prize winner, led an experiment to test the memory of chess experts. He showed them the position of 20 or so pieces in a mid-game situation, then disrupted the pieces, before asking them to place the pieces back in the original pattern. The experts did so effortlessly. Chess novices, on the other hand, could place only four or five pieces.

But in the next stage of the experiment, Simon placed 20 or so pieces not in a real game situation, but randomly. The configuration of the pieces therefore bore no relationship to competitive chess. This time, the novices could still place four or five, just like before. The chess grandmasters, however, were little better. They could place only five or six.

The experiment revealed that chess mastery is not about superior memory, it is about pattern recognition. Long practice enables grandmasters to encode the structure of competitive chess, so that they can grasp the meaning of a match scenario with a single glance at the board. This is sometimes called “chunking”. This is why top players suffer almost no deterioration in performance under blitz conditions — they generate usable options almost instantly.

I was thinking of all this in the context of an impressive start to the season by Manchester City. You see, football is also a game of patterns — albeit patterns that encompass time as well as space. This was perhaps the key insight of Johan Cruyff, Pep Guardiola’s influential predecessor as coach of Barcelona. While Brazil prized the individual dribbler, and the English valued heart, Cruyff’s emphasis was how teams combine to exploit patterns.

In a seminal essay on the Dutch master, Simon Kuper of the Financial Times wrote: “Cruyff best explained this in a 1980s TV programme that compared football to ballet. Initially, he had no desire to debate the gay ballet choreographer Rudi van Dantzig, but he rapidly got into it. While he was lecturing Van Dantzig on how when the first man was passing to the second man, the third man already had to be running to receive the second man’s pass, Van Dantzig interrupted, ‘So it’s choreography?’ ‘Exactly!’ said Cruyff. Cruyffian football is a dance for space.”


The key word, here, is “choreography”. Given that a given player has possession for only about 1-2 per cent of overall match time, dominance can emerge only through patterns that encompass the entire team. A pass, for example, has meaning only if a team-mate is running into the intended space, with new vistas of possibility emerging as other players dart into fresh positions. Barcelona’s game under Cruyff — the ball shifting around constantly moving players — may have looked spontaneous, but it was built upon an appreciation of shared patterns.

Improvisational jazz provides another useful metaphor. This can sound magically spontaneous, bands creating music on the fly, but it adheres to rigorous musical conventions and norms. As Frank J Barrett, an expert in complex systems, put it: “Although there are many players known for their soloing, in the final analysis, jazz is an ongoing social accomplishment. What characterises successful improvisation, perhaps more than any other factor, is the ongoing give and take between members. Players are in continual dialogue and exchange with one another”.

It is no surprise, then, that Guardiola’s training methodology focuses so relentlessly on encouraging his players to encode, and further elaborate, these patterns and conventions. At Barcelona, the coach had the benefit of a group of players who had passed through La Masia, the academy, and so had been absorbing Cruyff’s ideas. They were so attuned to each other that they didn’t need to think before passing. You might call it collective chunking.

Unlike chess pieces, which move in pre-determined ways, footballers can exercise initiative and creativity
When Guardiola arrived at Bayern Munich, however, he needed to get his players to focus on this area of the game. In pre-season, with the players expecting sprints and endurance runs, Guardiola’s first session involved four rounds of positioning games lasting four minutes each, the ball circulating with the first touch. “It is vital to offer immediate support, at the new base of a triangle of players, so that the ball movement can continue without slowing down and the team can both dominate and control the play,” Martí Perarnau, a Spanish journalist granted access to Guardiola’s first season, wrote in his book, Pep Confidential.

In a superb interview with Henry Winter in The Times, Kevin De Bruyne revealed that Guardiola has adopted a similar approach at Manchester City. “He’s intense and detailed,” he said. “Everybody knows what they have to do with the ball and without the ball. I never had a manager so detailed in every moment and aspect of the game.”

Even endurance work is conducted with a ball, enabling players to constantly build mutual anticipation. As Guardiola explained to Perarnau: “In the past, resistance work would have involved sprints of 80-100 metres, or longer-distance running. What we do is to get them using the ball and we also introduce concepts like inter-cooperation”.

When preparing to meet opponents, Guardiola’s focus is also on space and time. He conceived of Lionel Messi’s false No 9 position in May 2009 while scrutinising Real Madrid, Barcelona’s upcoming opponents, on video. He noted the tendency of Fabio Cannavaro and Christoph Metzelder, the central defenders, to stay near the goal, leaving a gap to the midfielders. It was late, but Guardiola picked up the phone. “Leo, it’s Pep. I’ve just seen something important. Really important. Why don’t you come over now? Now, please.” Barcelona would go on to defeat Real 6-2 and would utilise this pattern again and again.

One should not, perhaps, over-interpret the comparison between chess and football, even in the case of a manager such as Guardiola, who dined with Garry Kasparov in 2012 and has confessed a growing fascination with the game. Unlike chess pieces, which move in
pre-determined ways, footballers can exercise initiative and creativity. The key insight, however, is that creativity in football is recursive. A sublime diagonal pass of the kind De Bruyne executed against Stoke in October is only as effective as the run of Leroy Sané
to convert it. Creativity is not undermined when players conform to shared patterns; it
is enhanced.

Some might argue against the notion of Guardiola as a visionary. He inherited superlative teams at Barcelona and Bayern, and has spent freely at the Etihad. But it is not the results that have impressed so much as the aesthetics. At Huddersfield yesterday, City came through against dogged opponents. They may not have been at their incisive best, but one could glimpse intricate patterns amid the competitive tumult. What can be said with certainty is that Cruyff, who passed away last year, would have approved.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/manc ... -r5snv7hdj
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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5 months later....

What a game at the white house....

txj wrote:@ Coach,

Ever wonder why its oft said, 'space is at a premium' in a match?

Nothing can be further from the truth!

The only thing infinite in football is space. Not time, not energy, not physical abilities; nothing else, except space.

The only constraint limiting space in football is human imagination...

You can create space, multiply it per player, or better still per unit of time, which makes it ad infinitum!

It is thus imagination, not space that is at a premium in football.

That is why there are so many errors in the game, and why football is rightly described as a game of errors.

Crucially, that is why so many footballers were often the weakest performers in school.

Take the pass, which is probably the most basic and foundational elements of the game.

More than 80% passes I see made in the game have technical leftovers- mostly from being under hit and lacking the right weight and velocity.

The most accurate quarterbacks in American football are the ones whose passes are anticipatory, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, lead to a catch that is executed WITHOUT breaking stride.

How many times have you seen players waiting for the pass to arrive, even when such a pass was made in the attacking phase of the game?

In every other professional endeavor, a system defined by errors cannot be sustained; except football!

Think about it for a minute....

Happy New Year bro...

And speaking about ur Arse; what a trio of centerbacks in today's game. Mustafi, Holding, Chambers- The muddling muppets of ineptitude!

But I digress...
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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^The game lacked precision, for a hint of precision would’ve seen Real flat out like Dave Price after his brief meeting with Povetkin’s left hand humdinger.
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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The return to the rule of four...the season started with much promise of a shift in the orthodoxy with a China-like mass production of Conte’s copycat. 3-4-3 and it many motifs and hybrids, came, saw and was promptly escorted out of the auditorium. Can it’s failure be considered a consequence of its mishandling or was it the yearlong curriculum taught by Conte enroute to the championship, that learned the apprentice the measures for the antidote? Was the element of surprise the master mason and that lost, reduced the transient tactical revolution back behind the authority of the four.
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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@Chief Oga Tx, before discourse turns towards Kiev and the heavyweight clash of counterpleas and counterattack, the small of the Mundial, the greatest show on earth. In keeping with their historical penchant for invasion, England arrive at the threshold for debate, uninvited and expectant. With Nigeria on the horizon, t'is perhaps a discussion perfectly timed and high in relevance. After decades of misappropriation of resources, notably Joe Coles and Steven Gerrards, for want of a 4-4-2, the Three Lions, have, whilst waltzing the road's yellowest bricks in search of courage, stumbled upon a realisation that, one cannot build with what one doesn't have. Alas, a three at the back system, with width provided wingbacks that they do have, thus rendering the need for a left winger that they don't, redundant.

Southgate's 3-4-2-1 is interesting, not for the peculiarity of England in anything other than a back four, but rather for the goings on at the right side of the back three. Kyle Walker, arguably England's best right back, plays slight of centre, in a more defensively inclined role, with Kieran Trippier given the reigns at right wingback. Madness or stroke of genius?

The method borrows a bit from Tony Conte use of Azpiluiceta and much from Guardiola's system prior to Bernard Mendy's injury. Where Southgate places his marker on this spectrum, will define the degree of genius and could prove pivotal in England's impact this summer. Yes theres a balance about the back three with Walker right and Dier no doubt ahead able to slot in as required to complete the four, but what if the pendulum is swung further towards the Guardiotic end? Kyle Walker as an attacking inside fullback.

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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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There's a potential black hole in the middle where the game, like asteroids could go to perish.

Mistake not to take Jonjo in a deep-lying role which would free Eric the Red to move to RCB, restoring Walker in his proper place, rather than Tipper at wing back.
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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Agree Jonjo was a big mistake by Gareth and England will pay the price for a lack of creativity from deep. But Walker as an inside fullback is interesting and offers the potential for Henderson and Dier to double pivot without losing numbers in the transition. Walker is by far the better wingback but tucked inside with the liberty to attack could unleash a wonderful weapon.
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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Southgate better get Delph on the field. He better put as many Pep disciples as he can get his hands on on the field. :)
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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spastic wrote:Southgate better get Delph on the field. He better put as many Pep disciples as he can get his hands on on the field. :)
Delph and Young in place Betrand made little sense
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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Coach wrote:Agree Jonjo was a big mistake by Gareth and England will have at the price for a lack of creativity from deep. But Walker as an inside fullback is interesting and offers the potential for Henderson and Dier to double pivot without losing numbers in the transition. Walker is by far the better wingback but tucked inside with the liberty to attack could unleash a wonderful weapon.
...and a huge turnover risk!

But to what point though? First he is no Ox, ala Liverpool, whose runs to break the lines is a product of high pressing and begins much higher.
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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An unmagical square of Henderson-Dier-Cahill-Stones would offer the four man defence in event of the turnover. Of course, the idea of Stones defending and equally not being caught ahead of the ball is laughable. A runner from deep would certainly pose a problem for the opposition. Don’t expect England to be pressaholics rather play on the counter and a marauding Walker offers another string to the counterattacking bow.
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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Coach wrote:An unmagical square of Henderson-Dier-Cahill-Stones would offer the four man defence in event of the turnover. Of course, the idea of Stones defending and equally not being caught ahead of the ball is laughable. A runner from deep would certainly pose a problem for the opposition. Don’t expect England to be pressaholics rather play on the counter and a marauding Walker offers another string to the counterattacking bow.

Given a clear highway in the Arizona plains, can a jaguar reach top speed?

Geico, 15secs can save you money on car insurance.....
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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@Tx, Chief Oga at that...do me a fevvor pleez...You know the rest.

Question, what does Klopp do to stop Marcelo tearing TAA to shreds? Surely the Roma game will be ringing in the back of Jurgen's mind. Second leg, he was savaged.
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Will be a stern test for 'pool...
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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txj wrote:Will be a stern test for 'pool...
How should pool line up today?
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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Match breakdown from Spieverlagerung:

https://spielverlagerung.com/2018/05/28 ... hree-peat/
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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@ Coach,

Some fall-outs of the CL final which IMO, do not bode well for ur Beloved.

Nature of the global game is changing fast. The biggest turning point IMO, came with the Neymar transfer. The Barca folks complained about PSG undermining the fabric of the game, by which they meant the unwritten rule by which the game within the game is played. A little hypocritical surely, but they did have a point...

At the end of the CL final, Klopp and LFC made a rapid readjustment; not so much in terms of targets, but rather the speed of implementation of the project.

This was a game in which they had achieved a 'tactical detente', only to be undermined by a combination of a key injury and the power of the purse- a la Madrid's bench.

Now, where is all this leading to? Is this yet another scouser moaning diatribe?

Its the money, you morons! The late Giorgio Chinaglia would say...

Teams are being constructed today, not simply with a look across the neighborhood, but rather across countries, with the ultimate destination of a super league- one way or the other.

The result is Barcelona working on bringing in Greizmann, Lenglet, as well as trying to structure 'forward contracts' to tie up the likes of De Jong, De Leigt, Fabian; having already tied up Arthur...

Across the neighborhood Madrid, which had already stolen a march on Barca by at least 2yrs, is further stockpiling- there's talk of Odriozola; then the Chelsea duo of Hazard and Courtois...

These recruitments are targeting developments at City and PSG.

The fall-outs of all this is the beginnings of the emergence of a super tier of clubs, and the scramble by those beneath them to quickly catch up; which is where LFC comes in.

Needless to say, you cannot scramble up that ladder with Papadopoulos....You cannot bring a knife to a gunfight at the Ok Corral!!! Not especially if you do not have an entire market to yourself, a la Bayern or Juventus...

But yet, football remains the ultimate in team sport. Which brings us right back to detente, and that painful night in Kiev. According to Eddy Murphy, its not how many you shoot, but WHO you shoot! Football is also about how you position ur forces on that battlefield.

Which in turn brings me to the strategic thinkers in the game. Watch out for Roma and the work of Monchi; Dortmund, and a little further behind, Leipzig....and possibly Spurs- needs to be seen if Genghis Khan from the north steals their thunder on the NFL stadium deal...

Ultimately, it will come down to the most clever of managers, and how well they deploy the arrows in their quiver; always hoping that having achieved detente, there's no Gandalf suddenly arriving with the army from the north!
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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@Tx, nno! Alas the sodden veg has been scraped off the plate and the meat remains. At long last. First course, the burnt ends of Argentina vs the chateaubriand of gay Paree. On paper and employing sound logic and reason, today marks the last stop of King Leo in the contest. Argentina surely lack the cohesion,!strategy and command to be any more than fodder for the French. But...where there’s a will, there’s a way. It will probably be more of the same from Sampaoli, but what should it be?
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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Marcelo Bielsa had a question. The new Leeds manager wanted to find out how hard the average supporter had to work to pay for a ticket to watch the team. How many hours did he or she have to put in? It was unclear what kind of calculations went into the answer but one was provided. It would be about three.

So the Argentinian called his players together and he told them that, for the next three hours, they would be picking up litter from around the club’s Thorp Arch training ground. He wanted them to learn a lesson; to appreciate how the fans laboured to fulfil their passion.

It was classic Bielsa on many levels, taking in his empathy for the worker, his fixation with discipline and team spirit and, above all, the quirkiness and unpredictability that has led to the “El Loco” nickname. The 63-year-old is not crazy. It is just that his obsessive nature, ferocious intensity, eccentricities and refusal to adhere to convention can make him seem that way.

When Bielsa strode into Leeds on 15 June to replace Paul Heckingbottom, it quickly became clear the club would never be the same again. The stories of Bielsa’s attention to detail are already legendary. He runs his forefinger across various surfaces at Thorp Arch to check for dust, invariably being appalled at what he finds, while he once inquired why there was a bootprint on a wall – about half a yard from the floor.

It was explained to him that, perhaps, it was the result of somebody leaning back against it, with his or her foot up. “That shows the person is not concentrated on their work! Unacceptable!” Bielsa exclaimed. Leeds have had and do have bigger problems than the odd dirty mark but this is Bielsa, the perfectionist, and this is how he intends to drag the club up by their bootlaces: little bit by little bit.

Bielsa checks all the surfaces at the Leeds training ground for dust, invariably appalled by what he finds
Leeds are often described as the deepest sleeping of England’s giants and their travails since relegation from the Premier League in 2004 are well-documented. The club have tried many things and gone through many managers yet the roll of the dice on Bielsa is arguably the most intriguing and exciting.

This, after all, is a former Argentina manager; a man who became a hero in Chile for his work with the national team; and somebody so revered at Newell’s Old Boys, his local club in Rosario and the first one he managed, 28 years ago, that they have named the stadium after him.

Bielsa has also taken charge of clubs in Mexico, Spain, France and Italy – although only briefly in the last of these. He walked out on Lazio after two days in 2016 because, to his mind, things were not right and he could feel it straight away. The drama somehow added a further layer to his maverick legend. The year before, he quit Marseille after the first game of his second season.

Bielsa is a mentor to some of the game’s leading managers, chiefly Pep Guardiola, Diego Simeone and Mauricio Pochettino, whom he took to Newell’s as a promising 14‑year‑old defender and set on the path to an international career.

Bielsa’s attention to detail has been unrivalled since his arrival at Leeds. Photograph: Kieran McManus/BPI/Rex/Shutterstock
It was the idea of Victor Orta, the Leeds director of football, to consider Bielsa, and Andrea Radrizzani, the club’s owner, saw the merit in it; the intrinsic sense of boldness. Bielsa’s CV spoke for itself, as did his commitment to attacking football. He was also available, his previous job at Lille having ended quickly and badly in December 2017.

Bielsa was the No 1 candidate. After what amounted to a job interview in Buenos Aires with the managing director, Angus Kinnear, and Orta, he became the only candidate. Kinnear and Orta had wanted to know how well he knew the Championship. Bielsa delved into his copious notes and began his response by detailing the respective teams in formation from last season’s Burton v Bolton game.

Leeds asked Bielsa how well he knew the Championship. He knew every formation each team had used last season
Then, he went through every formation Burton and Bolton had used throughout the season and, after that, he did likewise for every other club in the division. Bielsa could say, for example, how many times a team had played 4-3-3, 4-4-2 or 3-5-2. He had even calculated the probability for one formation to beat another. The story of how Kinnear and Orta reacted has gone around Elland Road. They are said to have looked at each other, shrugged and agreed it was a pretty good answer.

Leeds had a final obstacle to clear regarding a work permit because Bielsa had not worked often enough over the past few years. He needed to go down the FA’s exceptional talent route but he would receive exceptional backing, with Pochettino – following a request from Leeds to Tottenham – only too happy to write a letter of support.

Bielsa went before the FA’s expert panellists – the Portsmouth manager, Kenny Jackett, and the former Blackburn and England winger Stuart Ripley – and it is fair to say the outcome was not in doubt. Unlike Bielsa, neither Jackett nor Ripley has managed at a World Cup. Bielsa has brought eight members of staff with him to Elland Road and the club are paying them a collective £3m a year after tax.

Bielsa has made a typically radical impression. Previously, the first team and academy players shared the same areas at Thorp Arch but no more. Having studied the architectural drawings, Bielsa demanded the first team be granted their own private space and that a dormitory and games room be created for them.

He has stressed the training ground is a place of work and the players are there to work all day. They are in at 9am and stay until seven or eight in the evening – quite a departure from the lunchtime finishes of old. The training is gruelling, mentally and physically, with an emphasis on one-on-one coaching. They will break for lunch and a siesta at the new sleeping quarters.

Bielsa has had a bed installed in his office. The amount of time he spends within its four walls, poring over videos, is remarkable. His approach to match preparation – and everything else – pushes the boundaries of total immersion.

Leeds’s appointment of Bielsa has had the feel of a coup. The reality of the club’s situation, with recently relegated rivals still receiving parachute payments and the financial fair play rules hemming United in, means they have needed to seek a creative solution.

Bielsa is it. The hierarchy believe he offers a competitive advantage in terms of knowledge, experience and patented tactical approach, which is characterised by a three‑man defence, extreme width, aggressive pressing, risk-taking, constant movement and relentless physical effort. The statistics show the players ran more, on average, across their six pre-season games than they did in league matches last season.

The Bielsa factor, along with his contacts, was also intended to help with transfers and there has been evidence it has been the case. Guardiola suggested Bielsa take the England Under-21 winger Jack Harrison on loan from Manchester City, which he did, while the Chelsea midfielder Lewis Baker, who was chased by several clubs, took a significant pay cut to join on loan because he wanted to play for Bielsa.

The anticipation has built around Sunday’s opener at home to Stoke but it is undercut by a number of concerns. Can the players cope with Bielsa’s demands over 46 games? Will he adapt to the Championship? Are his best and most innovative days behind him? Will there be conflict, which has been a theme of his career?

It feels as though this could go very well or very badly. Then again, Leeds is not a place for the middle ground.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... elo-bielsa
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We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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Read that earlier.

The level of detail and efforts taken to prepare by some of these coaches is incredible.
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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The YeyeMan wrote:Read that earlier.

The level of detail and efforts taken to prepare by some of these coaches is incredible.
Also highlights for me the lack of seriousness on the part of our ex-players who are involved in coaching...
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp

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