Marcelo Bielsa targets derby pride for Leeds United at Old Trafford, as Sheffield United eye early Christmas gift

Sometimes you wonder what Leeds United coach Marcelo Bielsa must make of us strange Brits and our silly little fascinations.
Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa. Picture: PALeeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa. Picture: PA
Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa. Picture: PA

A question yesterday about his arms-pumping goal celebration during the Whites’ 5-2 midweek win over Newcastle United was met with a look of pure bemusement. But ask him about the passion of derby football – then you are talking his language.

As a one-club city, Leeds United have to look across the Pennines for their derby rivals, but it is a tribalism that has lain dormant since the then-League One club’s historic FA Cup win over Manchester United in 2010.

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To be playing the Red Devils tomorrow is therefore a big occasion. Sheffield United’s trip to Brighton and Hove Albion hours earlier is a long way from being a derby and far more prosaic, but no less important.

Chris Wilder manager of Sheffield Utd. Picture: David Klein/SportimageChris Wilder manager of Sheffield Utd. Picture: David Klein/Sportimage
Chris Wilder manager of Sheffield Utd. Picture: David Klein/Sportimage

Bielsa may be new to these games but he knows all about local rivalries and what they mean.

“Football is identification and you can identify yourself when you face these kind of opponents,” he explains. “Fans can say ‘I am from this side’ and my side is represented by this badge and values.

“To have a big opponent and defeat them is very important to show what you are.

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“This process is so rich in history, especially in English football. You will see this in the sports section of any library.”

It is not just England. Bielsa’s footballing romanticism was born on the terraces of what is now the Estadio Marcelo Bielsa, home to Newell’s Old Boys, the team he supports, brief played for and much more successfully managed. His father supported their city rivals Rosario.

“The rivalry is very marked,” he says, mastering the understatement.

“If you arrive in Rosario a week before this game is played you can feel it.

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“If you were to ask a Newell’s fan whether they wanted to be the champions of South America or win this game, they would probably say they would like to be champions of South America, but if you asked the day before the (derby) game, they would prefer to win the game and that’s exactly how I feel.”

The last time Bielsa was in the Old Trafford dugout, he beat Sir Alex Ferguson’s Red Devils 3-2 in the Europa League as coach of Athletic Bilbao.

“The memories are many,” he says. “Initially, to the players who produced the performance, for the 8,000 Basque fans who attended the game.

“That triumph is in the memory of all the Athletic fans. It solidifies the link I have with the Athletic fans and the Basque people.

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“This kind of result increases the art of a city, of a place, of the people, of the village, not from a commercial point of view, but from the imagination expressed in the culture. Works, sculptures, jewellery, paintings, readings or writings, that are produced by normal people, where the feeling that is created is something unimaginable. It is done by normal people who don’t want the recognition. They don’t want any payment or anything in return.

“They show the pride that is to be part of a tribe.”

That Leeds has been increasingly decorated with artwork paying homage to Bielsa and his squad by the “Burley Banksy” and more recently a giant mural to Kalvin Phillips shows the impact they have had.

It is fair to say Brighton versus Sheffield United does not stir the same emotions but when you are bottom of the table, nine points from safety like the Blades, every Premier League games is crucial.

“We must win a game before Christmas,” demands manager Chris Wilder, presumably referring to the whole festive period rather than the day itself or else tomorrow is the last chance.

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“One point out of 13 games is not a great return and of course the gap (to Premier League safety) can’t grow so we’re looking to take a healthy points total over this Christmas period to give ourselves an opportunity of staying in this division.”

It looks a long shot but Wilder’s fighting spirit was topped up by Thursday’s encouraging, if losing, display against the Red Devils.

“I’d only walk away if I thought it was the right thing for Sheffield United Football Club,” he said yesterday. “The club means far too much to me for it to be about me.

“As seen in (Thursday’s) performance there’s still plenty of heart and spirit in this group but you make the slightest mistake on the pitch and you get punished, and if you don’t take those opportunities it comes to hurt you.”

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For both Yorkshire clubs, it promises to be a weekend of real significance.

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