Candid snapshot of the enigma that is Leeds United coach Marcelo Bielsa

Except perhaps when he came out of his house one night to confront angry Newell’s Old Boys fans brandishing a live grenade, that is. Plus if you overlook the time he asked Fernando Gamboa if he would be prepared to chop off a finger if Bielsa could guarantee victory in the derby with Rosario Central, of course.

Bielsa’s eccentricities only add to the fascination around Leeds United’s head coach, as does the disparity between the adulation his peers and former players feel for him and how well stocked his trophy cabinet is.

Brazil’s 1982 team never made it to the knockout stages, yet they are revered far more than the side than won the trophy in 1990. Holland’s World Cup runners-up of 1974 and 1978 are better thought of than the only Dutch team to win a major tournament, the 1988 European Championships.

An Olympic gold medal is all Bielsa has won since his early days in Argentina, although Leeds fans will be hoping one way or another his first title in European domestic football is on the horizon. He has managed at World Cups – disastrously in the case of Argentina’s 2002 tournament – but not in the Champions League. It has not stopped him being widely regarded as a world-class coach. If anything, it has added to the romanticism.

Samir Nasri said Marseille attracting Bielsa to come to manage “felt like we had signed Cristiano Ronaldo.” His interpreter there compared him to Vincent van Gogh – it was meant to be part-compliment, part-criticism, though Bielsa apparently only saw the first half of the equation.

When you see a book with Rich’s name on the cover, you know it will be well-written. If Bielsa’s is there, the storyline will be fascinating.

Rich knew what he was letting himself in for. “Bielsa is a mythical figure at Athletic (Bilbao) and the more time goes by, the more the bigger the myth becomes,” he quotes journalist Santi Sergurola as saying. “Bielsa is charismatic, hard-working, peculiar.”

Undeterred, Rich does his best to try to find out what made the football-obsessed son of a lawyer and undistinguished defender into a manager adored by the likes of Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino.

This is no sycophantic homage, the run-ins with federation presidents, directors, players and even builders are examined, as is the time when Bielsa threatened his translator, Fabrice Olszweski, with a fight for failing to pass on his insulting instructions to a Marseille player. The great sulk after Argentina’s World Cup failure is not glossed over and the legendary ‘Bielsa Burnout’ is discussed, as is spygate.

That there are so few words from Bielsa, save from the odd quote or two along the journey, only strengthens the narrative that we are dealing with a true enigma. There is plenty of input from former players, though – many sceptical at first but not by the end – and others around him.

Rich is wise enough not to fall into the trap some authors do, getting bogged down in trying to record every match, and instead focuses on important snapshots of a career he divides into three parts – the early years in South and North America, his years on the Continent and a decent-sized third part focusing on what Leeds fans are most interested in, his time at Elland Road.

That part is still to be completed, and the challenge of writing a book of this nature is you start it never quite knowing how the final chapters will have panned out by the time it has to be finished. Least of all in times like this.

The paperback version which will surely follow could be an even more prized copy for Leeds fans if it can tie up some of the loose ends but for those who cannot wait, and the many neutrals fascinated by one of football’s great characters, there is plenty already to enjoy reading now.

The Quality of Madness: A Life of Marcelo Bielsa by Tim Rich, published by Quercus, is available now, priced £20.