Marcelo Bielsa

[Boo Radley]

Big nomination, and rightly so!

https://www.skysports.com/football/news ... f-the-year

[Fridge]

Big nomination, and rightly so!

https://www.skysports.com/football/news ... f-the-year

WOW!!

Pinching myself. We have gone from Paul Heckingbottom to the nominee for FIFA Manager of the Year in 2 seasons

[Cjay]

On your WELL DESERVED nomination for Fifa Coach of the Year.

Ignore idiots like this

Tbf Wilder did a great job last season and he maybe worthy of a nomination. But Lampard and Smith (and i like Dean Smith i wanted him to replace TC and PH if we went domestic)

Lampard took Chelsea from 3rd to 4th and did statistically worse than Sarri as well as making Chelsea defensively worse than almost anytime ever.

Smith spent an absolute fortune, his side couldn't defend and but for a dodgy hawkeye malfunction they would have gone down.

So for the year of 2020 neither of them did better than Bielsa.

I think that what is being missed by people like the Journalist above is the "coach" bit.

This isnt a plop your medals down on the table for the year and lets have a count.

This is an award for a person who has done the best COACHING.

Who has made the most of what they had at there disposal.

Imo thats where MB deserves this nomination.

His faith in his small group, his faith in a 20 year old Baby faced goalie when our number 1 got banned.

His faith and work with an average Championship winger when we needed a left back. (Dallas).

His work and faith in Paddy Bamford .

Liam Cooper

Kalvin Phillips

Mateusz Klich

Jack Harrison

He has kept faith and improved again for that 2nd season his small group.

Ask Ben White if Bielsa deserves his nomination.

Bielsa improves players, he coaches.

Its not about trophies, its about coaching, and a coach improves players and teams and for the 2020 year we improved again.

That is why he got his nomination.

Progression on the pitch as a group and as individuals.

[Boo Radley]

WOW!!

Pinching myself. We have gone from Paul Heckingbottom to the nominee for FIFA Manager of the Year in 2 seasons

It is massive! And considering the dual resurrection involved in him getting this nomination, both for Leeds United and for Marcelo himself, he should get this award.

I wonder if there is a vote to decide the winner?

[Fridge]

I wonder if there is a vote to decide the winner?

There is!

Vote here:

https://www.fifa.com/the-best-fifa-foo ... ens-coach/

[Boo Radley]

There is!

Vote here:

https://www.fifa.com/the-best-fifa-foo ... ens-coach/

Bloody hell! Not easy to log on there, but hopefully worth it.

We have to get everyone to vote for Bielsa to be recognised as FIFA’s best men’s coach this year. With Liverpool fans voting for Koop and Real fans voting for Zidane we need Leeds fans everywhere to push this one.

Let’s get voting folks!!

[The Subhuman]

Needs an account to vote and I can't be arsed

[Boo Radley]

You do have to register on the FIFA site in order to vote, and it takes a little effort, but surely it’s worth it considering what the man has done for us as Leeds fans.

This also raises the profile of Leeds United, so get voting everyone! My vote is in

[Fridge]

Bloody hell! Not easy to log on there, but hopefully worth it.

We have to get everyone to vote for Bielsa to be recognised as FIFA’s best men’s coach this year. With Liverpool fans voting for Koop and Real fans voting for Zidane we need Leeds fans everywhere to push this one.

Let’s get voting folks!!

I think most neutrals will vote for Hansi Flick. Won the treble at Bayern after being there for less than a year.

[visitingvillan]

Blimey, I don't understand how he's been nominated for that. He's done a fantastic job with you guys mind.

[Fridge]

Dean Smith

This guy really said Dean Smith?

9 wins out of 38 last season.

Would have gone down too if not for that hawkeye disaster against Sheff Utd

[Fridge]

Blimey, I don't understand how he's been nominated for that. He's done a fantastic job with you guys mind.

He took us from 14th to this with a couple of additions:

It’s all about the style of play for me. No other reason they’d nominate a 2nd tier manager.

He’s an enigma

[Ken Pow]

Took about five minutes to register and vote. Don’t know how the voting works but I gave my 2nd and 3rd votes to Lopetegui and Zidane, trying to keep Klopp and Flick out of the running.

[Irish Ian]

Blimey, I don't understand how he's been nominated for that. He's done a fantastic job with you guys mind.

I think Fifa want to recognise a man of integrity as well as footballing achievement.

Bielsa has tried to stamp out the arguing with officials, diving, playacting, time wasting. Also he is never critical of officials in his press conferences.

He hasnt been 100% successful but there has been big strides in those areas.

Plus Bielsa has lifted the club, the city, and some football writers argue that he could elevate the entire league if his principles are imitated.

[1964white]

Bielsa on his FIFA nomination

"To be nominated is always a distinction. I appreciate it. Every time a manager is singled out, the players are involved in this singling out because the coach is always an appendix of the players. Also, the technical staff because of their construction of the football team. It’s not solely responsible for the one in charge. This is for the technical staff and this happened with the despair of a club like Leeds is recognised too. It can be considered as excessive, the nomination. Any labour generating a repercussion can have its praise or criticism. So I appreciate all the recognition and I accept all the criticism"

[1964white]

Arsenal draw - deja vu from Championship games?

Bielsa
"I think in other opportunities, we have had many chances to score and this prevented us from winning. The game against Arsenal had this characteristics"

Much you can do as a coach about that?

Bielsa
Football is decided in both boxes. You have to be effective to finish off your attacks and you have to neutralise the attacks of the opponent so they don’t become dangerous. What happens in the two boxes appears to be key, but in the rest of the pitch will condition what happens in the boxes. If you elaborate you will have more chances to create danger and more important chances. If you neutralise the opponent before they reach your box you will have more opportunities to defend. Against Arsenal, in the first half we played well 11 v 11 and in the second half it was more difficult to attack because the opponent sat back with the same amount of players, even though they had one player less. Because Arsenal had one player less they were able to defend deeper and better, but it cost them offensively. We had to defend less and had more of the ball to attack in more difficult conditions. Within that context we created 12 opportunities to score. We received three attacks from them and the best team in the world with 12 chances, score three or four goals. Usually, from 12 we score two or three. In this case, there was not accuracy. It’s not we don’t train precision, accuracy or shooting, but what we have to do is create opportunities. We have to achieve not needing as many chances to score a goal. Your question is how we improve this. We have to be precise. All players and all teams train this rigorously. There’s no direct relationship the more we train these aspects and the better they get. What the sessions do influence is the amount of opportunities you can create.

Why is the art of dribbling dying out?

Bielsa
I wouldn’t know how to answer you, sincerely. Even though I constantly talk about football, I would risk. To dribble is to trick your opponent, show him you do something and then another. Can’t teach it. It belongs to every player and the talent they have. Traditionally, a player would learn to play without many rules and for many hours. Many hours and no rules creates situations to resolve. Everyone would find their own solutions. Nowadays, kids don’t spend as much time with the ball and what they learn is not by themselves, but transmitted to them. For me, football as a creative spectacle has less beauty. As time goes on, players are worth even more, but not because the quality increases, there’s fewer good players. Football in general hasn’t been able to develop this so it becomes more efficient.

[Boo Radley]

He took us from 14th to this with a couple of additions:

It’s all about the style of play for me. No other reason they’d nominate a 2nd tier manager.

He’s an enigma

Perfect summary Fridge, in a nutshell

[visitingvillan]

He took us from 14th to this with a couple of additions:

It’s all about the style of play for me. No other reason they’d nominate a 2nd tier manager.

He’s an enigma

Fair enough, I just don't think that winning promotion from the Championship would warrant a nomination compared to someone like Gasperini getting Atalanta to the Champions League Quarterfinals and not getting nominated.

[Fridge]

I just don't think that winning promotion from the Championship would warrant a nomination

Again, I agree.

That’s why I think there’s more to it than that alone.

3 managers win promotion from the Championship every year. (15 if you count those promoted to all of Europe’s 5 big leagues)

That’s why there must be more to it than that.

I think it’s a mix of playing style and enigmatic personality.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that he won the Fifa Fair Play Award and is talked about so very highly by other greats in the game.

Plus, I think all of us here were beginning to think that getting Leeds into the PL was the hardest job in football. If he’d done it the first season then maybe he wouldn’t have been nominated, but I think the fact that we fell just short put all eyes on us and turned it into a much bigger story.

[1964white]

Fair enough, I just don't think that winning promotion from the Championship would warrant a nomination compared to someone like Gasperini getting Atalanta to the Champions League Quarterfinals and not getting nominated.

I have the utmost respect for Klopp & Pep however would those two great coaches have turned a mid-table set of players around with little investment as Bielsa has achieved?

For a long time our players looked average, within six weeks of pre-season training the very same players performed totally different. This award is all about coaching skills & Marcelo has got that in abundance.