How the manager rebuilt Leeds – and why he wanted hillocks removed and a wood stove installed at the training ground
There was consternation at Leeds council. Why had a painted blue line appeared on the streets of Wetherby, running from outside Marcelo Bielsa’s flat to Leeds’s Thorp Arch training ground? The call duly went into the club to ask the question and it is good fun imagining the reaction. “Blue paint? Ah, OK. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Ridiculous. We’ll look into it. Yes. We know.”
Bielsa and one of his assistants, a wizened old guy from Chile, had been spotted walking the route with a trundle wheel and the video was uploaded to social media. It looked like a scene from Last of the Summer Wine and the paint would appear the following day. Apparently, the Leeds manager had planned to cycle into work and he did not want to have to concentrate on the logistics, merely lock on to the blue line and leave his mind free to think about other things – namely his club’s quest for Premier League promotion.
