Marcelo Bielsa ready to lead his French revolution with Lille as maverick Argentine sets to work
The challenge for Bielsa, now, will be to implement his brand of football at a club who finished 11th in Ligue 1 this season just gone
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Your support makes all the difference.Marcelo Bielsa was careful to insist that he was here to build on the history of Lille OSC, but it was impossible to avoid the feeling that this was year zero for this new project.
Not least because the men at the top of the club, sat alongside Bielsa at his unveiling on Tuesday afternoon, have been speaking that way for some time. General director Marc Ingla, once vice-president of FC Barcelona, has spoken “une refondation” of the club, and the start of a transformation. The local press have been speaking of a ‘big bang’.
This is how it works now for clubs who are trying to push their way into the elite, they need somewhere to start from. Chelsea have 2003, Manchester City have 2008, and Paris Saint Germain and AS Monaco share 2011. Lille have just seen Monaco snatch the Ligue 1 title from PSG, something not many would have expected at the start of the season. Now they want to have their own try.
Gerard Lopez, billionaire investor and Lotus F1 Team owner, bought Lille last October and presided over this press conference with the grin of a man whose plans are starting to come together. He was sat with the elite team he has built to take Lille to the top. Bielsa, the maverick genius manager. Ingla, the former Barcelona executive. And Luis Campos, the Portuguese scout who helped to build the Monaco team which won Ligue 1 last week.
It is an impressive array of talent even if it feels slightly like fantasy football. They insisted that there was no hierarchy between them and that in fact the four men are working as a team.
This was day one and everyone was rigorously on message. Bielsa, speaking in his steady Spanish with his head bowed, said that he had found exactly the right ingredients here to do his work. “Football is made of a little bit of industry and plenty of passion,” Bielsa said. “I find that here, and in the right proportions. It fits my vision. And the potential that I see in this club, this town, this project, only increases my desire to do well.”
The challenge for Bielsa will be to implement his brand of football at a club who finished 11th in Ligue 1 this season just gone. He will need plenty of new players, who Campos will do his best to provide. Then, with the limited time-frame that comes with any club who aims high, he must start winning and soon. Lopez wants a top five finish in 2017-18 and top three in 2018-19, the second year of Bielsa’s two-year contract.
“We want to reach the full potential in terms of beautiful play,” Bielsa said, “but without forgetting the objective, which is getting results.”
Bielsa’s football can be spectacular when it works, as he has shown over the years in jobs as diverse as Newell’s Old Boys, Athletic Bilbao, the Chile national team and, most recently, Marseille. It is ferociously aggressive, and Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham play essentially a more refined version of his old mentor’s game.
“We want to be the protagonists,” Bielsa explained. “We want to attack at all times if possible, but defend well when we have to, and against the counter. We want to play in their half and keep the ball on the ground.” When it comes off it is just what Lopez wants, a spectacle, although Bielsa knows they have a long way to go to get there.
The hard work begun here yesterday, on Bielsa’s first day at the Domaine de Luchin, Lille’s secluded training complex just a few minutes from the Belgian border, which he said was the “perfect” setting for him to work.
Bielsa came in on Monday to oversee a special post-season training session for the youngsters he feels might be able to offer him something next season. In his well-worn old grey tracksuit top, Bielsa sat in the stand above the training pitch with his notebook and pen. Fares Bahlouli, Rominigue Kouame and Alexis Araujo and others were put through the drills, not by Bielsa himself but by Diego Reyes. Bielsa sat and watched.
Some managers adapt to the resources they inherit but Bielsa is already starting to bend what he has found into his shape. The youth teams here have been playing with a back three ever since his appointment was announced. Pre-season, at least for those players who did not play internationals, will start early on 19 June, four weeks from yesterday. When the players return they will be run harder than ever.
Turning this mid-table team into a big-hitter is a huge task but then Lille have already said plenty about their ambitions with the appointments they have made. Now Bielsa has to find a way to win. “I arrive at LOSC with plenty of enthusiasm,” he said. “The expectations placed on us are not small.”
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