Leeds United boss Marcelo Bielsa sounds supporter warning to football 'business'

The Argentine doesn’t recall an experience quite like the empty Cardiff City Stadium he and his team operated in last Sunday, in their first game back after the three-month suspension of football.

Even before travelling to Wales, Bielsa had gone on record to express his distaste for the prospect of football without fans.

And now that he’s sampled the atmosphere, or lack thereof, it has reinforced his feelings on the matter.

The game needs its supporters, those he has described as the most important involved.

At Elland Road 15,000 ‘crowdies’ – images of fans or loved ones – now adorn seats that will lay empty until football can safely welcome back what should be its most prized asset.

Bielsa, with a wry smile, voiced concern that football might find a way to make the new normal more financially viable than bums on seats.

“You can see this in different ways,” he began, when asked about artificial crowd noise to compensate for the lack of atmosphere.

"You cannot replace supporters.

“Sometimes the people who are not there like to put a flag to be represented in the stadium, that is a good thing to do.

“But what I wish is that the business of football doesn’t discover that it can play without fans. How technology has progressed a lot to unexpected places, maybe one possibility is that the fan leaves his place to virtual fans.

“That could be better in the economic point of view for football. I don’t want that. The best thing is trying not to imagine this scenario, I wouldn’t like that to happen.

“It’s better to imagine one possible option, in case it’s possible to exist. We say that we don’t agree with this situation. Everything that is around football has changed a lot, not just in this period, before as well. Sometimes it is good to think that impossible things can happen.”

The absence of supporters appears to have at least one profound effect on football – the diminishing of home advantage.

Bielsa believes that to be the case, but should the trend pick up another victim tomorrow afternoon at Elland Road, he won’t seek to use it as an excuse.

The ability of the Elland Road crowd to play a tangible part in a game is something the head coach recognises, yet he insists that the significance of tomorrow’s game against third-placed Fulham will be sufficient to motivate both teams.

“Of course playing without supporters is not the same as if you play with the fans, playing at home or away without fans there is also a different there,” he said.

“The feeling I have is the obligation that the home team has disappears here, the home team is not forced to win because the fans are not there. But on the other hand, this match is so important so both teams are going to go for the win.

“It could be unfair if we don’t evaluate what the fans mean for every team. Even more for a team like Leeds that has fans who everyone knows the characteristics of.

“But having said that, it just describes one reality, saying our fans have a big impact, we have no excuse to say we will perform worse because the fans aren’t in the stadium.

“Some questions are very difficult to answer because I can’t ignore the impact our supporters have on us.

“At the same time, I think that the necessity, the possibility and the wish to win is the same. Our obligation to win is the same.”

Sports psychotherapist Gary Bloom, a Leeds fan, put forward a theory this week that the crowd, once packed into the old ground at LS11, can both intimidate opponents and turn on their own side through a rising anxiety when things don’t go well.

Their removal from the equation ahead of arguably the biggest game of the season might have ramifications for both sides.

But with the pressure on and the potential consequences for the Championship table, the absence of fans will not be the prevailing narrative, if Leeds are to lose their second game since the restart.

The theme will, of course, be yet another airing of the failings, perceived or real, of last season and the suggestion that the Whites cannot finish what they start.

Just don’t expect Bielsa to nod along with that narrative if it comes his way for the umpteenth time.

“We cannot link this match with the disappointment of last season,” he said on Thursday.

“I didn’t think that last season the team couldn’t cope with the situation.

“If there is something distinct that shows every time the team plays it is character.”

Leeds will be on their own against Fulham.

Character is exactly what this game calls for.