The Leeds owner explained why he kicked Bielsa out and said the plan was to bring him to immortality

They were made for each other. A perfect company. An indestructible society that had been forged by the strength of a miracle. The return of Leeds United to the Premier League after 22 years in the dark. It seemed that Marcelo Bielsa would have stayed to live in the Yorkshire club, a place where he became a myth and also a postcard of the city. That’s why he made a noise when the owner of the club, the Italian Andrea Radrizzani, decided to kick him out. Everyone wanted to know why. And only this Friday, in an extensive interview on the site Atleticothe reasons for a seemingly impossible divorce were known.

“I never thought of firing Bielsa. I never thought that situation would happen, ever. It was a myth and that’s why he achieved it, but I felt that something had broken and that’s when a turning point took place “, acknowledged Radrizzani about the decision taken in the last stretch of last season, when the results were complicated. and the team was playing for the permanence in the Premier League.

But there was a time when patience ran out. “I started having doubts in the match against Aston Villa, when we drew 3-3. I remember that the media spoke positively about our performance. The reality for me, at half-time I almost wanted to leave the stadium because I was so disappointed with the lack of discipline on the pitch, how easy it was for us to score. That was the first moment I realized that maybe something was wrong. and the computer can no longer perform what it has requested in the last few years. They had begun to tire, mentally more than physically. I felt something had broken and that’s when a breakthrough happened, but it was too early to make a decision, “she recalled.

In this sense, Radrizzani stressed that it was then that he understood that something had to change to have an impact on a group that was no longer responding. “In the end I realized that Marcelo only had one path, that he could not commit himself to this path. We needed to change, we needed something that had an impact on the group. It was risky both ways. It wasn’t easy to decide whether to potentially die with him or die with someone else.a, “said the leader in defense and justification.

And condemned: “His strength is his discipline and the way he works. But his strength is also his weakness. The lack of adaptation and flexibility have spelled his end.”

The Italian entrepreneur therefore decided to sign the American Jesse Marsch, who finally managed to avoid relegation on the last day of the championship. “The players supported Marcelo. They pursued him, mainly because of the legacy of what they had done together. They would go with him. But the next day, when we arrived with Marsch, I had never seen the atmosphere so changed and so happy. Something had gone wrong inside and we didn’t notice until the moment we changed things“, he stressed.

Radrizzani instead revealed that he had decided “build a football university” with the name Bielsa. “I have an idea that I shared with him, which is that one day I would like to build a football university under his name,” said the businessman. Will it come true? Time will tell.

The concrete thing is that Bielsa said goodbye to Leeds with 170 direct matches, with 81 wins, 30 wins and 59 losses, with an effectiveness of 53.5%. And take it from the depths of the league to go face to face with the giants of the Premier League.

Leeds United, already with little to do with the mystique of Loco de Rosario, will begin their third consecutive season in England’s elite football against Wolverhampton on Saturday 6 August.