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The Incredible Details Marcelo Bielsa Revealed In His Press Conference
Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa hit the headlines last week by spying on Derby County and on Wednesday evening he was back in them after admitting he'd spied on every Championship opposition this season.
Marcelo Bielsa isn't the most conventional of managers and he's well known for some of his odder antics as a manager so when he called a press conference for 5pm on Wednesday some thought it would be to end his tenure as Leeds United manager.
The Championship club are flying high at the top of the table but following last week's 'spygate' controversy it wasn't beyond the realms of possibility, after all the Argentine once quit Lazio two days after joining the club and before he'd managed a game.
Ahead of the game against Derby County Bielsa admitted that he'd spied on Frank Lampard's side before the match and at Wednesday's press conference he admitted that his club had spied on every Championship team this season.
On top of the spying the former Marseille boss revealed the incredible analysis of his team's opposition he and his staff have:
Bielsa: "My goal is to make the (EFL) investigation easier." Says Leeds have watched training sessions of opposition clubs before every game they've played. "By doing this, I assume the possible sanction that the authorities might bring." #lufc
- Phil Hay (@PhilHayYEP) January 16, 2019
Bielsa now using a big screen to demonstrated his analysis. Says what he's showing us took more than 300 hours of work. He's running us through the information he gathers for individual games, using Derby as an example. #lufc
- Phil Hay (@PhilHayYEP) January 16, 2019
Bielsa says his staff watched all 51 games Derby played last season. Each game took four hours to analyse. "Why did we do that? Because we think this is professional behaviour. It's to try and avoid being ignorant about the competition we're playing in."
- Phil Hay (@PhilHayYEP) January 16, 2019
This is a spectacular takedown of Spygate. Now showing us percentages for the number of times Derby have used certain formations and which players have moved around in different positions. "This gives you priorities." #lufc
- Phil Hay (@PhilHayYEP) January 16, 2019
Now going through every Derby formation and showing who plays where most often and how is changes. He knows how many minutes each player has played in each position. You sort of wonder if even Lampard knows this much about Derby.
- Phil Hay (@PhilHayYEP) January 16, 2019
Clearly Bielsa is the most knowledgeable manager about his opposition that there is, knowing more about the opposition than they know about themselves.
The point of the whole press conference from the 63 year old is clearly to show that spying on his opponents doesn't actually give him an advantage.
The whole thing remains morally questionable despite not being against any rules but even if he's stopped there's no doubt he has all the information he needs.