How Gordon Strachan, Eddie Gray, Gary Speed and fans help Victor Orta plot Leeds United future

The history and the culture of Leeds United, the men who made the club famous in the 60s and 70s and the desires of the fans help Victor Orta form decisions for the club’s present and future.
HISTORIC - The size and history of Leeds United attracted both Victor Orta and Marcelo Bielsa to Elland RoadHISTORIC - The size and history of Leeds United attracted both Victor Orta and Marcelo Bielsa to Elland Road
HISTORIC - The size and history of Leeds United attracted both Victor Orta and Marcelo Bielsa to Elland Road

Leeds’ director of football, the man responsible for finding and signing the right players to give head coach Marcelo Bielsa the tools he needs to achieve Elland Road objectives and dreams, has spoken on numerous occasions about what attracted him to the club in the first place.

The same passion that is the trademark of Latin clubs is what he found when he began considering Leeds as a workplace in 2017, when approached by owner, Andrea Radrizzani.

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And he says his ideal is to work with clubs that have a weight of history behind them.

So Leeds, with a global fanbase rabid for success and a return to the glory days which form the most famous and for many, their fondest part of the 100-year-old club’s history, were an attractive proposition for the Spaniard.

Those attractive qualities are also signposts for Orta in his daily work, as are the profiles and attributes of the players the fans hold dearest.

So when Orta is poring over his 8,000-plus scouting reports on players who could fit the current Leeds side or a Premier League Leeds side, or a Whites team managed by someone other than Bielsa in the future, he keeps legends of the past in mind.

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“If you analyse 100 years of players you can watch that a lot of players in Leeds United were stylish players, like Gordon Strachan, Gary Speed, Eddie Gray,” he said.

“Here, Leeds United fans like attacking football, they like offensive players, but they like effort too, like Norman Hunter, a lot of players for whom the effort was part.

“You need to think about the view of the fans of Leeds United to be part of your decisions on players, your decisions on your coach.

“If Leeds United like the offensive team, anyone can talk about the ‘dirty Leeds’ era but the ‘dirty Leeds’ era was more about quality players in the 60s and 70s – you need to understand these things to improve your work.”

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The Leeds United tradition of producing players for the first team, through the academy system, adds another layer of accountability to Orta’s job.

The Whites have, through the years, and particularly since legendary boss Howard Wilkinson masterminded the building of Thorp Arch, given an exhaustive list of talented footballers a pathway from junior football to stardom.

James Milner, Jonathan Woodgate, Aaron Lennon, Paul Robinson, Scott Carson, Fabian Delph, Danny Rose, Lewis Cook and most recently future England player and current Bielsa favourite Kalvin Phillips have all come through the Thorp Arch ranks. Orta feels it is incumbent on him to maintain and improve standards and keep talent rolling off the production line.

“If you know the culture of Leeds United, it is to give value to the academy, so as director of football I have the obligation to improve the academy, I have to give value to the academy,” he said. “If, in the history of Leeds United only three games are without any academy players on the pitch, you need to think that the academy needs to be a big part of your strategy.”

Orta’s role at Leeds is a hugely significant one.

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The club’s success, their bid to once again boast Premier League status, hinges on his ability to source and secure the players capable of not only playing well enough to win enough games, but capable of withstanding the crushing pressure of simply playing for Leeds at Elland Road, players with the right mental and psychological skills. If the players he has helped put in place for Bielsa carry on their 2019/20 trajectory when the season restarts, his work and methods will be justified but his responsibilities will only grow, if Leeds regain and wish to retain a top-flight place.

But he insists he is not a ‘big deal’ at the Championship’s ‘biggest deal’ and reminds himself by setting out to achieve success the right way, the Leeds way.

“You have to adapt to the culture of your club, not the other way around,” he said.

“My first year in Leeds I made a lot of mistakes that were a foundation to improve the day by day the next year. The important thing is to have a balance between sports results, business results and community results. We need to work for the fans. I am now top of the league, but if I am top of the league with seven Italians and four Spanish, because my chairman is Italian or Spanish, it is not good.

“These kind of things are important for me, the balance between sport, business and community. You are really small in the size of your club.”