Mateusz Klich offers heartfelt verdict on Marcelo Bielsa's Leeds United reign amid Premier League 'trouble'

Mateusz Klich would have baulked at being called a Premier League regular before meeting Marcelo Bielsa, who he believes is among the world’s best at what he does.

Klich’s Leeds United turnaround typified the magic Bielsa worked at Elland Road, going from outcast to icon in the eyes of supporters. A costly slip on his first start against Cardiff City saw the midfielder shipped off on loan to FC Utrecht in January 2018 but by the time August had come, he was at the core of Bielsa’s plans and scored the first goal of his reign in an exhilarating 3-1 win over Stoke City.

That was the first of 92 consecutive Championship games he would play under Bielsa right up until the point at which promotion was secured, with the Polish international going on to make his mark on the Premier League as Leeds finished ninth, earning plenty of praise in the process. It’s a trajectory that no one expected after that Cardiff error and least of all Klich, who owes so much to his former boss.

“He’s probably one of the best coaches in the world to make you a better player,” Klich told The Athletic of Bielsa. “He made every one of us 200 per cent a better player than we were before we met him. He’s really good at doing this and our group was special. We had a good connection between us, we had a good team with no egos. We worked really hard.

“Not many of us had ever played in the Premier League, so we wanted to give everything we had to do it. We trusted in the manager and it worked out well. It was a good time. It was very intense because he is that way and there weren’t many days off. Before Bielsa, if you’d said I would play 80 games in the Premier League, I would never have believed that could happen. 

“We caused some trouble in the Premier League and we surprised a lot of teams. It was a good season, but from the first season to the second season was hard. We managed to stay up but the third season, I only played the first half of the year, and then I moved to the U.S. [with D.C United].”

Following Bielsa’s 2022 exit, Klich found minutes hard to come by as new manager Jesse Marsch attempted to put his own stamp on the club, with the midfielder failing to start a single Premier League game before that January move to D.C United. The promotion hero is still a much-loved figure around Elland Road and remains an avid Leeds follower, with the midfielder often interacting with supporters or former teammates on social media.