Marcelo Bielsa

[Jaydog]

Good man, i'm pretty sure these odds are gonna get shorter and shorter over the upcoming months, and perhaps leading up to them being summert like 7/1 and possibly favs.

I'm backing him to the hilt throughout all upcoming games and tourneys.

Favourites? Not hard to see them being a fair bit shorter. Perhaps if they win the qualifying group.

Top 6 qualify and it kicks off this September

[Kennyb41]

Uruguay are ranked 16.
You’re preaching to the converted. I’m all over the 50/1. I said as much at the last WC where they looked very decent and the rumour of Bielsa had just started.

Let's make a point here of making sure we know when they're playing and help each other find the best odds for whatever they're going into, this Uruguay team was expected to do well in Qatar and have a lot of promising players, my only small concern is the amount of time he'll have to spend with them, but it's only a minor concern.

Up the Uruguay !

[Kennyb41]

If they happen to win that above (which i'm backing them for too) their odds will reduce rapidly i'm sure.

[Kennyb41]

Qualification for top 6 there is nailed on.

But obviously be short odds.

[Jaydog]

Let's make a point here of making sure we know when they're playing and help each other find the best odds for whatever they're going into, this Uruguay team was expected to do well in Qatar and have a lot of promising players, my only small concern is the amount of time he'll have to spend with them, but it's only a minor concern.

Up the Uruguay !

1/33 to beat Cuba on the 21st June.
33k to win 1k.
They’ll be a decent price to win the qualifying group and if they did then their WC odds would crash.
Nunez should be in his prime by then

[Hugo70]

Hola, aquí hay bastante negatividad sobre su llegada, son muy nacionalistas con la selección, hoy es un amistoso y esta probando jugadores
Las eliminatorias son complejas pero seguramente este entre los dos primeros

[Kennyb41]

Hola, you're jokin

[weasel]

Hola, aquí hay bastante negatividad sobre su llegada, son muy nacionalistas con la selección, hoy es un amistoso y esta probando jugadores
Las eliminatorias son complejas pero seguramente este entre los dos primeros

Have Uruguay a history of foreign managers?

Definitely going to throw the word bastante into conversation a bit more. Quite a number of bastantes around here

[Jimstorrie]

Have Uruguay a history of foreign managers?

They don't have a recent history of changing managers, Oscar Tabarez was there from 2006 to 2021

[Kennyb41]

I really think this sums up the great man perfectly for me and is exactly how i feel about him, so to ALL the fcking numbskulls that wanted him out, this should have it's own place for ALL to read, if you didn't know already how i feel from top to bottom, you do now.

From KP to Dallas etc and the transformation i try to get though to your thick football brains, he was truly remarkable.

And you dumb lot should feel ashamed, I am absolutely all over every single item in this piece below, and this guy sees it totally from my perspective, read em an weep fools.

To the outside, the adulation that Leeds United supporters hold for Marcelo Bielsa may appear strange, bordering on fanatical, perhaps even delusional. But to those who have followed his every move over four exhilarating years at Elland Road, his departure leaves a hole not only in the dugout but also in the heart.

In Chile, they call themselves “widows of Bielsa”. The same sentiment can be found at Marseille and Athletic Bilbao, teams who look back on the Argentinian’s time with wide eyes and palpable nostalgia. Leeds are at the beginning of this undoubtedly painful process, coming to terms with life post-Bielsa, a life that will never quite be the same again.

Marcelo Bielsa

Discussing a football manager in such reverential terms might seem hyperbolic. However, what Bielsa has done for the club and the city in many ways transcends sport. He is a man who sees the corporate, avaricious, sportswashing modern game for what it is, yet managed to navigate his way through it all and still hold on to his principles: decency, humility and an unwavering work ethic.

Without wishing to get too existential, he has made fans question why they bother watching football in the first place. Is it for trophies? Not unless you follow a cabal of elite clubs. Is it about nicking a goal and holding on for a result? You might as well go balance the books in the boardroom. Is it about entertainment, identity and sticking two fingers up at anyone who calls you reckless? You bet.

It’s why Leeds supporters were still singing his name even after the poor performances that resulted in his cruel sacking. It’s why Leeds supporters will sing his name long after he has gone. It’s why England midfielder Kalvin Phillips wrote on Sunday: “You saw in me what I didn’t even see in myself.”

In many ways, the rise of Phillips embodies all the work Bielsa has done. Like most of the squad he inherited in 2018, Phillips was drifting, searching for his role in a team of misfiring misfits flailing for land in the bottom half of the Championship. Stuart Dallas was half the player he is now, Mateusz Klich was deemed surplus to the extent he had been shipped out by the previous regime on loan to Utrecht.

Within seven weeks of pre-season training, Bielsa transformed the group into an entirely new team. They were comfortable on the ball, played one- and two-touch cushions all over the pitch, and never stopped running. It was as if someone had finally found the mains supply at Elland Road, plugging the old ground directly into the Northern Powergrid and sending a surge of voltage pulsing through brains and bones.

New players have joined, but the team that currently hovers over the Premier League relegation zone still holds core members of the first game against Stoke City in August 2018. If loyalty has proved to be the undoing of Bielsa, it is surely a flaw worth celebrating.

For all his idiosyncrasies, his trips to Costa Coffee and Morrisons, his former flat above a Wetherby sweet shop, what shone brightest was Bielsa’s humble perspective. During the pandemic, when Leeds lost many club legends and the whole world faced a daunting new reality, it was a comfort to many that a man of integrity was leading the club. Throughout his reign Bielsa never criticised a referee, never blamed VAR or spoke in negative terms about any individual. When “Spygate” rumbled on he publicly chastised himself and paid the fine out of his own pocket. He was a man you wanted in your corner when life was out of control.

Bielsa was the best possible manager for Leeds at the best possible time. After so many years of stagnation, years of waste and anger, he proved the perfect antidote. In the early days there were constant fears that he would simply leave, that the Leeds curse would snare him, yet he stuck to his beliefs even after a catastrophic end to his first season saw them lose to Derby in a thrilling play-off semi-final.

And it wasn’t the grenade-wielding, pitch-invading Bielsa of his youth. It was a man who knew this may be the last major test of his guiding principles, a final shot at showing the world how football should be played.

Rarely can there ever have been a greater connection between supporters and manager. More than anything, he has allowed fans to dream again. His sacking doesn’t simply feel like the loss of a genius manager, rather, the loss of an old friend.

So long, El Loco.

[Sara]

I lost touch with Union years ago, when Wasps moved from Sudbury, made a few trips to Loftus Road but not the same. Since then maybe half a dozen internationals if they were on and I was home.... So no clue really to current rules but 70's rugby U was for the purist

Rugby union in the 70s was the sport I was into, much more than football. I used to watch Bedford play most weeks.

Not watched it for years now; it's been ruined by the rule changes.

[The Subhuman]

Rugby union in the 70s was the sport I was into, much more than football. I used to watch Bedford play most weeks.

Not watched it for years now; it's been ruined by the rule changes.

Agreed...

[Kennyb41]

Thanks to Sara another great piece that every fool that wanted his removal should have to read everyday and embarrass themselves for not knowing what the great man was all about.

And the pricks think they know better than him.

https://www.thesquareball.net/blog/moun ... happiness/

[Kennyb41]

Got another £50 on the great man at 50/1 via Betway, Pari Match have him at 50's but only allowed £4.88 lol, Bet Victor also at 50's.

The rest vary from 27/1 to 40/1

[Cjay]

He's a nice man

Looks so much healthier than he did here as well.

I think international management suits him at his age.

Better for his health

[Chilli D]

He's a nice man

Looks so much healthier than he did here as well.

I think international management suits him at his age.

Better for his health

He looks a lot slimmer that's for sure.