Leeds United have already mastered 'burnout' and break for Covid was a potential hindrance, not a help - Daniel Chapman

People are still making the mistake that burnout is a thing that happens rather than a way of being, whether or not Marcelo Bielsa is shouting ‘Again! Again!’ at you.

You’re probably feeling it.

The pandemic, working or not working, schools, childcare, families, relationships, loneliness. 2020 added and amplified so many stresses it’s a wonder we didn’t all burn out long ago.

Dear reader, there’s the answer: we did. Maybe even before the coronavirus happened.

Many of us start every day, in whatever circumstances, needing to do too much, and end it feeling like we haven’t done enough.

That mounting feeling of being overburdened is burnout, and you might have been feeling that way for months, years.

And you’ve kept going, which is the point people keep getting wrong.

Burnout is a constant that many of us are coping with, and will go on coping with.

You didn’t do everything today but you’ll go again tomorrow. Burnout isn’t an ending.

This is as true for footballers as for anyone, and once you crack that, you crack Leeds, for Leeds have cracked it.

The focus on the idea of ‘Bielsa burnout’ misses that footballers in general are tired, broken and injured people, coping with physical and mental strain.

There was some surprise when Leeds announced that Robin Koch was injured in the season’s opening game but had kept playing, hoping to delay surgery.

But we only found out because it went wrong.

Koch will be far from the only player in the Premier League managing an injury, and it’s nothing new.

Training is not a corinthian-spirited hour spent practising trickshots.

Time between matches is first of all about rest, recovery and recuperation, massaging thighs and sending players to sit in oxygen tents and hydrotherapy pools, patching them up so they’ll get through another 90 minutes at the weekend, or murderball in midweek.

The niceties of practising keepie-ups have to wait.

Medical science has changed since the days when David Batty would put an extra pair of socks over his broken foot and run out to play after a painkilling injection, but the underlying principles remain.

The idea of the 100 per cent fit player is a myth, and the physio’s job is to keep as many players as possible fit enough to play.

In this, Leeds are one of the top clubs, or else Mateusz Klich would have broken long ago.

This is where there is something to be said about last season’s coronavirus break, and the influence it had on the fate of the Championship title.

Leeds were in title-winning form before the shutdown and there was no reason why that should have changed.

Far from help, the suspension was a potential hindrance.

United’s achievement was not that they used the perceived ‘rest’ period to their advantage, but that they didn’t let it disrupt their season.

The medical staff at Thorp Arch saw the pandemic coming and prepared for it, and were delivering exercise bikes and individual fitness plans to players while other clubs were still locking down their training grounds.

Believing games might restart at any moment, Leeds kept their players as near to match fitness as they could throughout the lockdown.

Jack Grealish, to use one handy example caught on CCTV, did not appear to be maintaining a similar condition.

There was never any question of Leeds’ players ‘burning out’ with or without the league’s suspension, because of how the medical staff managed their condition.

Rather than an advantage to Leeds, the break was a disadvantage to other clubs, who didn’t manage their squads through lockdown as effectively as Leeds.

Perhaps Bielsa’s experience helped.

Athletic Bilbao and Marseille may have faltered at the end of his time in charge, and you can find ex-players talking about exhaustion.

But he arrived in those jobs after a decade working in international football, where workloads are very different, and left them five years ago.

It’s possible Bielsa made mistakes about conditioning at his former clubs.

It’s inconceivable that he hasn’t learned from them, or from the five years of new ideas, technologies and concepts around player fitness that have developed since.

The persistent idea about ‘Bielsa burnout’ is that history will doom Leeds by repeating.

But history only repeats if you let it.

Bielsa, acutely aware of the lack of trophies in his history, is a coach engaged in outrunning his past.

His willingness to stay at Leeds is a sign of what he thinks he can achieve by staying here longer than at any past club.

Thousands of miles from home, continuing a long career in the public eye, demanding everything of himself and striving for the rewards, few people in football can tell Bielsa much about feeling burned out.

And nobody knows better than Bielsa, and Leeds, about how to cope with it.

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/sport/football/leeds-united/leeds-united-duo-amongst-europes-elite-creating-chances-top-15-including-lionel-messi-and-rodrigo-de-paul-3085046

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/sport/football/leeds-united/kalvin-phillips-suspension-explained-leeds-united-team-mate-also-walking-yellow-cards-tightrope-3083941

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/sport/football/leeds-united/yorkshire-evening-post-launch-leeds-united-only-digital-subscription-ahead-premier-league-campaign-2967964

A message from the Editor:

Leeds has a fantastic story to tell - and the Yorkshire Evening Post has been rooted firmly at the heart of telling the stories of our city since 1890.

We believe in ourselves and hope you believe in us too. We need your support to help ensure we can continue to be at the heart of life in Leeds.

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/why-yorkshire-evening-post-needs-your-support-laura-collins-yep-editor-2913382

Subscribe to our website and enjoy unlimited access to local news and information online and on our app.

With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content.

Click here to subscribe.

For more details on our newspaper subscription offers click here.

Thank you Laura Collins