How Marcelo Bielsa helped Leeds United academy earn Category One status 'almost by stealth'

The head coach joined the club two years ago and, by all accounts, raised standards off the pitch at the training facility as much as he did on the pitch.

His vast experience and demand for excellence turned a mid-table Leeds side into promotion contenders last season and Championship title favourites this season.

To get the players to the technical and physical levels he required, Leeds had to make changes. Those changes have helped head of the academy Adam Underwood to deliver Category One status and have the Thorp Arch operation recognised as elite by the Premier League, well ahead of the club’s schedule.

“The plan was always to move to Category One once we had achieved Premier League status because the level of investment required is more achievable for a Premier League club,” said chief executive Angus Kinnear.

“Moving up to Cat One almost happened by stealth. Adam and Marcelo work well together to embrace the higher standards Marcelo wanted for Thorp Arch in terms of the totality of the environment.

“Bit by bit with the investments we were making because of the requests Marcelo was making and because Adam was pushing us, we actually found we were knocking on the door of the level required to get to Cat One.”

The investment of ‘several hundreds of thousands of pounds’ from club owner Andrea Radrizzani has helped make Bielsa’s wishes a reality and, at the same time, given the academy the necessary infrastructure to achieve Category One status for the first time in club history, grant the Under-23s and Under-18s access to the elite games programme and unlock new funding from the Premier League.

“It has been further investment from Andrea, an investment not many Championship clubs would have made,” said Kinnear.

“It has been a marriage of fantastic foundations Adam has built over many years, combined with Marcelo being pretty demanding.”

Underwood said Leeds took great pride in the pathway they had developed for youngsters even before Bielsa arrived, but the Argentine has only augmented their programme.

“As an academy, because we’ve had success for a number of years in terms of being good at what we do, we always felt we had high standards,” he said.

“When Marcelo arrived that made us reflect and look at what we were doing from a different perspective and has helped us push on many fronts, whether that’s on the pitch, how we play and train, or off the pitch with our culture and how things work around the training ground. There’s been lots of adaptation and we’ve grown with it as an academy, which is why the first team and the academy work so well together. Everything is structured around that collaboration. It doesn’t mean necessarily mirroring and copying, it means doing it in an appropriate way.”

The former Argentina, Chile and Athletic Bilbao boss has said that he has gained more from Leeds than he has imparted and Kinnear pays tribute to Bielsa’s willingness to play a full part in the club’s tradition of prioritising youth development.

“Marcelo has coached all over the world, he has a very international perspective in terms of seeking player talent,” said the chief executive. “But actually he’s bought into the fact that part of the Leeds DNA is having local talent in the first team, he understands that’s important for the fans and important for how the team plays.

“It’s interesting when we’re sitting down with Victor and going through some truly international scouting reports, [Marcelo] is spending time talking about Robbie Gotts, Alfie McCAlmont and Jamie Shackleton and what they can bring. That’s been pleasing for us, that you hire one of the world’s best coaches but actually he really wants to develop talent on the doorstep which has been part of our heritage for years.”

The club’s director of football Victor Orta, who says the long history of academy players making the first team shapes how he views the importance of Thorp Arch, also went on record earlier this season to predict a Bielsa legacy at Leeds that would last years.

Underwood agrees. He says the ideas and the approach of a man who has experienced football management in seven different countries has helped nudge the academy into areas of unchartered territory that will benefit young footballers at Leeds for years to come.

“How Marcelo works, certainly from my experience in the game, is certainly very different from what we’re used to culturally in this country,” said the academy chief.

“Seeing something so different just prompts you to challenge your own beliefs and assumptions in the game.

“Being exposed to that has enabled us to tweak what we do when it comes to physical development, nutrition, some of the cultural stuff, how we work around the building and collaborate between 18s, 23s and first team. It’s been a real boost for us and a real help.

“There’s lots of things there that we’ll carry forward for many years.”