I think he feels empowered by the incredible love he has generated at Leeds," says Mora y Araujo. "But I think the pressure of the Premier League, with its circus of money and power, is quite unlike anything he has experienced. Anything could happen."

It was a huge change for us 15- or 16-year-old boys who were used to playing mostly for fun," says Lunari. "We were used to training for an hour and a half, but with Marcelo we trained for three hours with a level of concentration and physical intensity that we were not used to. Each chapter has extensive analysis for a tactical situation based on Marcelo Bielsa's tactics and is then followed by a full session to help all coaches adapt the tactics into training sessions for their team.As his exciting Leeds United team prepare to take on the Premier League, it makes for a revealing portrait of a fascinating but flawed character who is embarking on a tantalising new chapter in his career. From over 50 training sessions, theory on rotations and movement to the languages of the game and the #1-3-3-1-3 formation, Davies has explored many of the themes that merge into one to form the Argentine’s football thinking. The Philosophy of Football: In Shadows of Marcelo Bielsa delivers best in its attempt to celebrate football played between lines: between the opposition midfield and defensive lines. Between enemy lines Despite briefly making the first team at Newell's as a player himself, he soon realised that his physical limitations but agile mind made him more suited to coaching. He quit playing at the age of 25 and after a spell in charge of the University of Buenos Aires team he took over the youth academy at Newell's, developing a forensic approach to scouting players that serves him to this day. Without any doubt that's the year I improved the most as a football player, because his huge level of demand makes you perform at the highest level," says Aduriz. The best chapter is on the ‘spy gate’ controversy. Here Rich carefully details what actually happened. In 2018, Bielsa sent a young intern to Derby County’s training grounds to spy on Derby’s pre-match training sessions. Once again Bielsa bore the brunt of the controversy, but Rich makes a convincing argument that sending one intern to an opposition training ground doesn’t mean Leeds are guaranteed a victory on match day.

Pushing young players to their physical and mental limits has been a theme throughout Bielsa's career. At Leeds, players compete in 'murderball', a high-intensity 11-a-side match where the ball never goes out of play. In my opinion, Klopp, Guardiola and Zidane are probably friendlier with the players," he says. "Marcelo Bielsa convinces the player about the system and gives us the tools, but the relationship we have as people needs to be close. He thinks players are machines, but we are humans as well."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. The effect that he has had on Leeds United, and on the city’s environs has been extraordinary. He has transformed a team floundering in mid table mediocrity in the Championship to Premiership heavyweights and fired the imagination of a whole region.