Paul Heckingbottom was enjoying a family holiday in Greece when Leeds United’s then-Sporting Director, Victor Orta, arrived to inform him that he had been sacked as head coach. Enjoy the rest of your holiday, Paul. Sheeesh. For those of us watching events unfold, it was difficult not to think, “Here we go again.” Another manager gone. Another spin of the Leeds United managerial merry-go-round. The only question was who would be next to occupy the increasingly uncomfortable hotseat at Elland Road.
Would it be another obscure appointment from overseas, desperate to make a name for himself in English football? Or perhaps another run-of-the-mill Championship manager whose greatest qualification was knowing how to grind out a goalless draw on a miserable Tuesday night in Stoke? Whoever it was, Leeds supporters had learned not to get their hopes up.
Except, this time, something extraordinary happened.
Rather than settling for another uninspiring appointment, Leeds aimed for the moon. And somehow, against all expectations, The Chuckle Brothers, Victor Orta and Angus Kinnear convinced one of football’s most fascinating and influential coaches to take charge of a club languishing in the Championship.
El Loco. Marcelo Bielsa.
The rest, as they say, is history. Except, of course, that rather defeats the entire purpose of this series. Because in our alternative Leeds United universe, Bielsa isn’t walking into quite the same dressing room he inherited in the summer of 2018.
This time, there’s a certain Norwegian teenager waiting for him.
The Method Behind The Madness
Bielsa wasn’t your typical managerial appointment. Far from it. While most managers might have been content to watch a handful of matches, glance over the squad list and trust the judgement of those already at the club, the Argentine took an altogether different approach. Before agreeing to take the job, Bielsa reportedly sat down and watched all 51 of Leeds United’s competitive matches from the previous season, along with two friendly fixtures. That’s 53 matches. More than 80 hours of football. And we’re talking about a Leeds United side that had just stumbled to a thoroughly uninspiring 13th-place finish in the Championship. The poor bastard.
But this was Bielsa. Obsessive, meticulous and utterly uncompromising in his approach to football. Every player, every movement, every misplaced pass and every defensive lapse would be scrutinised. He wasn’t simply familiarising himself with the squad he might inherit. He was assessing whether those players possessed the technical ability, physical attributes and mentality required to survive the demands of his footballing philosophy. And given what we’d witnessed the previous season, you’d have been forgiven for thinking he’d need an entirely new squad.
By the time Bielsa arrived at Elland Road, he already had a remarkably detailed understanding of the players at his disposal. He knew who could fit into his system, who might be capable of adapting to his methods and, perhaps most importantly, who would be surplus to requirements. There would be no room for passengers. No room for players unwilling to run themselves into the ground. And certainly no room for anyone who thought a leisurely jog back into position constituted an acceptable defensive contribution.
And somewhere amongst those 53 matches, Bielsa would have been watching a young Erling Braut Haaland who, in our alternative universe, had already swapped Molde for Elland Road. And you have to wonder what the Argentine would have made of him.
Well, for starters, we’re talking about a 17-year-old Norwegian striker standing at approximately 6ft 4in, blessed with frightening pace, an eye for goal and the sort of physical attributes that most Championship players could only dream of possessing. On paper, there was an awful lot to like. But this was Marcelo Bielsa, a man who once turned up at the home of a 15-year-old Mauricio Pochettino and, years later, joked to Pochettino’s son that his father had been a “fat little boy with fat little legs”.
Bielsa pulled no punches, and what he would have made of the towering Norwegian teenager is anyone’s guess. But you can be certain he wouldn’t have been particularly interested in how many goals Haaland thought he could score. He’d have wanted to know what else he could do. Attackers in his side were expected to press relentlessly, chase down defenders, and start the defensive work that allowed the rest of the team to function. There was no standing around waiting for Pablo Hernández to produce a moment of magic. If you wanted to play for Bielsa, you were going to have to work for it. And that’s what makes the prospect of Haaland working under Bielsa so fascinating.
Murderball
The Argentine’s arrival at Thorp Arch brought with it a training regime unlike anything the players had previously experienced. Double sessions, relentless physical conditioning and, of course, the infamous Murderball. An eleven-versus-eleven training exercise played at a ferocious intensity, with virtually no opportunity to catch your breath. Lose possession? Win it back. Win possession? Attack. Ball goes out of play? Another immediately thrown back in by one of the coaches. Videos began to circulate of players catching up on sleep between sessions at Thorp Arch. In fact, the training regime was so demanding that players were sometimes required to stay overnight in nearby hotels, rather than return home to their families. Double sessions became triple sessions, with players arriving as early as 8am and not finishing until 7pm or 8pm. It was a pre-season like no other.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. As Leeds supporters, we genuinely had no idea what to expect when Stoke City arrived at Elland Road on the opening day of the season. Nobody could have predicted quite how dramatically Bielsa would transform a group of players who, just months earlier, had looked distinctly ordinary in a Leeds United shirt. Kalvin Phillips became one of the finest defensive midfielders in the country. Mateusz Klich went from being an afterthought to an indispensable part of the team. Stuart Dallas would eventually become the sort of footballer who could probably play in goal and still somehow finish the afternoon with an assist.
And then there’s Erling Haaland. We know what the Norwegian eventually became. A goalscoring machine with an insatiable appetite for putting the ball in the back of the net. But imagine what Bielsa might have done with him at just 17 years old, before the goalscoring records, before the Champions League nights and before the rest of Europe had truly realised what an extraordinary talent he was.
Of course, none of this guarantees that Haaland would have become an overnight sensation. Kemar Roofe was still at the club, and Bielsa would have recognised his qualities too. The Norwegian would have needed to earn his place, adapt to an entirely new philosophy and prove that he could meet the extraordinary physical demands placed upon him. But at just 17 years old, with the best years of his career still ahead of him, could there have been a better manager to oversee his development? Probably not.
And as it turns out, Haaland’s presence at Elland Road might have changed considerably more than the identity of Leeds United’s centre-forward.
The Transfer Window That Never Was
On 31 July 2018, Leeds United announced the signing of Patrick Bamford from Middlesbrough for a fee believed to be in the region of £7 million. It was a significant investment for a Championship club, particularly one that had spent the previous season looking a million miles away from the Premier League.
But in our alternative universe, Leeds already have Kemar Roofe and Erling Haaland competing for the number nine position. So, in this timeline, it begs the question: do we really need Patrick Bamford?
Now, before anyone starts, this isn’t an attempt to rewrite history by pretending Bamford was some useless lump who had no business wearing a Leeds shirt. Whatever your opinion of him, he would go on to play an enormously important role in our eventual return to the Premier League. His contribution to Bielsa’s Leeds United deserves recognition. But we’re not talking about the Patrick Bamford of 2020. We’re talking about the summer of 2018, when Leeds were preparing for their first season under a new manager and had a finite amount of money to spend. With Roofe already established and Haaland waiting in the wings, would Bielsa and Victor Orta really have sanctioned another £7 million investment in the same position?
I’m not convinced.
And that decision could have had enormous consequences elsewhere in the squad. Because on 1 August 2018, just a day after Bamford’s arrival, Leeds United sold Ronaldo Vieira to Sampdoria for a fee reportedly worth around £7 million. Vieira was just 20 years old. A talented, energetic midfielder who had already made 63 Championship appearances and, crucially, was exactly the sort of young player you might have expected to flourish under Bielsa. His departure was disappointing at the time, particularly given the potential he had demonstrated since breaking into the first team. Bielsa himself had informed owner Andrea Radrizzani that Vieira’s valuation could double or tiple. But the financial realities of Championship football meant Leeds had decisions to make. Money had been spent strengthening the attack, and selling Vieira helped balance the books.
Except, in our alternative universe, that £7 million hasn’t been spent on Bamford. And suddenly, the decision to sell Vieira becomes considerably less straightforward. And that brings us to perhaps the most intriguing consequence of our alternative timeline.
“He’s Magic Y’know, Phillips The Yorkshire Pirlo”
Kalvin Phillips.
It’s easy to look back at Phillips now and forget just how extraordinary his transformation under Marcelo Bielsa actually was. Before the Argentine arrived, Phillips was a decent Championship midfielder. A local lad who had come through the academy, established himself in the first team and shown flashes of genuine quality. But an England international? A player capable of holding his own against some of the finest midfielders in European football? Get fucked. Yet that’s exactly what happened.
Bielsa took a player who had spent much of his early career operating as a box-to-box midfielder and completely reinvented him. Rather than asking Phillips to charge around the middle of the park, the Argentine deployed him in front of the back four, where his tackling, positional awareness and range of passing became fundamental to the way Leeds played. The transformation was remarkable. Phillips became the heartbeat of Bielsa’s midfield, earning the affectionate nickname of the Yorkshire Pirlo (and a poster in my bedroom – much to the dismay of my ex) before eventually receiving his first England cap in September 2020. He would go on to start every match of England’s run to the European Championship final, establishing himself as one of the country’s finest defensive midfielders. And to think, just two years earlier, we’d been watching him finish 13th in the Championship under Paul Heckingbottom.
But here’s where our alternative universe presents an interesting dilemma.
Because Ronaldo Vieira was no fool. In fact, when Vieira broke into the Leeds first team as a teenager, there was genuine excitement surrounding his potential. An England youth international with impressive athleticism, an appetite for a tackle and a maturity that often seemed beyond his years, Vieira looked like a player with an enormous future ahead of him – and he never gave the ball away. His subsequent career, however, never quite lived up to those early expectations. A move to Sampdoria failed to provide the platform many had anticipated, and he never developed into the midfielder Leeds supporters once hoped he might become. With hindsight, selling Vieira for a reported £7.7 million looks like a pretty sensible piece of business.
Or does it? Because there’s a rather significant detail we’re overlooking.
Ronaldo Vieira never got the opportunity to work under Marcelo Bielsa. And that’s not some insignificant footnote. We’re talking about a manager who transformed the careers of footballers who had previously looked incapable of challenging for promotion from the Championship. Phillips is the most obvious example, but he was hardly alone.
Look at what happened to so many of those players once Bielsa departed. Phillips struggled to reproduce his Leeds performances following his move to Manchester City. Others found themselves unable to maintain the extraordinary standards they had reached under the Argentine. Of course, it would be ridiculous to suggest every single player regressed, or that Bielsa alone was responsible for everything they achieved. But there’s no escaping the fact that he consistently managed to extract performances from that group that few other managers had come close to producing. So why should we assume Vieira would have been any different? That’s not to say he would automatically have become an England international, or that Bielsa would have transformed him into a £50 million midfielder. We simply don’t know. But judging his potential under Bielsa solely by what happened to him in Italy seems rather unfair. Particularly when you consider that Bielsa himself reportedly wanted to keep him.
Andrea Radrizzani admitted at the time that the Argentine was unhappy about Vieira’s departure. Bielsa recognised that Vieira wasn’t necessarily ready to command a regular starting position, but he clearly believed there was more to come from him. And in our alternative universe, he’d have had the opportunity to find out.
Which raises an obvious question. Would Kalvin Phillips still have become the Yorkshire Pirlo? Personally, I think he would. Bielsa’s decision to convert Phillips into a defensive midfielder was based on qualities he recognised in the player, rather than simply a lack of alternatives. Vieira’s presence wouldn’t necessarily have changed that assessment. Phillips would still have possessed the passing range, tactical intelligence and defensive attributes that made him so important to Bielsa’s system.
But Vieira would have offered something Leeds didn’t have in reality. A talented young midfielder capable of challenging Phillips for his position, learning the demands of the role and potentially developing into a genuine alternative. And let’s not forget how demanding Bielsa’s football was. Injuries, suspensions and fatigue were inevitable over the course of a 46-game Championship campaign. Having another midfielder capable of operating at the base of the midfield could have been invaluable.
Perhaps Vieira would have challenged Phillips for a starting place. Perhaps Bielsa would have experimented with using them together. Whatever the outcome, it’s difficult to imagine that another year working under Bielsa would have done the youngster any harm. But there’s another player whose career could have been completely transformed by Vieira remaining at Elland Road.
And this one might be even more interesting. Mateusz Klich.
“It Could Be 20 Yards or 30 Yards”
Remember the Polish midfielder who arrived from FC Twente in 2017, barely featured under Thomas Christiansen and was subsequently shipped out on loan to FC Utrecht? By the summer of 2018, Klich looked like another name destined to disappear into the ever-growing collection of forgotten Leeds United signings. He had struggled to establish himself, failed to convince the previous management and appeared to have very little future at Elland Road. Yet within weeks of Bielsa’s arrival, he was starting against Stoke City on the opening day of the season.
And scoring. Not a bad way to announce your return.
What followed was extraordinary. Klich became virtually undroppable, featuring in all 46 Championship matches during Bielsa’s first season and contributing ten goals in all competitions. His relentless running, intelligent movement and ability to arrive in attacking positions made him one of the most important players in the side. Klich went on to start 111 of the 112 league games Leeds played between August 2018 and January 2021, and he only missed that one because as Beren Cross reported “he was half-cut on promotion champagne”.
This was a footballer who, just months earlier, couldn’t get a game for a team finishing 13th in the Championship. Now he was indispensable to one challenging for automatic promotion. But would any of that have happened if Ronaldo Vieira had stayed? It’s tempting to assume Bielsa would simply have recognised Klich’s qualities regardless. After all, he clearly saw something in the Pole that his predecessors had missed. But football doesn’t work quite like that. Opportunities matter. Circumstances matter. And sometimes, the difference between becoming a first-team regular and disappearing into obscurity is little more than another player leaving the club. It’s worth remembering that Klich had not featured in Bielsa’s main training group that summer.
Had Vieira remained at Elland Road, Bielsa would have had Phillips, Vieira, Klich and Adam Forshaw competing for places in midfield. Four players with different strengths, different levels of experience and different claims to a starting position. Would Klich still have forced his way into the team? Would Bielsa have preferred Vieira’s energy and defensive qualities? Would Forshaw’s experience have counted in his favour? Or would Bielsa have found a way to accommodate them all?
For me, there’s a strong argument that Klich would still have emerged as an important player. His ability to operate further forward, link midfield with attack and make intelligent runs beyond the striker offered something different from the qualities of Phillips and Vieira. In Bielsa’s preferred 4-1-4-1 formation, there was room for a holding midfielder and two more advanced central players. Phillips could anchor the midfield, Klich could provide the attacking movement, and Vieira could compete for minutes across the central positions.
On paper, it sounds like an embarrassment of riches. But there’s no guarantee things would have unfolded so neatly. What if Vieira had impressed Bielsa more during pre-season? What if Klich had found himself further down the pecking order? What if he never received the opportunity to score that opening goal against Stoke, and the confidence that followed? Would we still remember Mateusz Klich as one of the most important players of the Bielsa era? Or would he have become another forgotten signing, quietly leaving Elland Road without ever demonstrating what he was capable of?
It’s impossible to know. And that’s what makes this alternative timeline so fun.
One decision to sign a teenage Erling Haaland in 2017 could have prevented Leeds from spending millions on Patrick Bamford the following summer. That, in turn, could have removed some of the financial pressure to sell Ronaldo Vieira. And suddenly, we’re no longer simply wondering how many goals Haaland might have scored. We’re questioning whether Kalvin Phillips would still have become an England international. Whether Ronaldo Vieira might have fulfilled his enormous potential. Whether Mateusz Klich would ever have become the player we remember.
Three careers. Three very different possibilities. All potentially influenced by the arrival of one Norwegian teenager.
And we haven’t even kicked a ball yet.
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