Somewhere is West London last night a fat ex-footballer fell of their chair as he heard Marcelo Bielsa and Leeds United had been awarded FIFA’s Fair Play Award for 2019 at the Best Fifa Football Awards in Milan for letting Aston Villa score an uncontested in our match last season. The award is given out annually by Fifa for as recognition of ‘exemplary behaviour that promotes the spirit of fair play and compassion’, to put Bielsa’s win into context it has been awarded in previous seasons for hardships endured through natural disasters, lifesaving actions on and off the pitch and working with refugees in war torn countries.
But the award only confirms what we already knew, Marcelo Bielsa is a fair man, an honourable man, a compassionate man and someone who cares deeply about the game and its reputation. The British football media may have tied to whip up a spyagte frenzy of ill feeling towards Bielsa last season as Frank Lampard sat there crying and lied to the world. ‘They were in the training ground’, No they weren’t Frank. ‘They were arrested’, No they weren’t Frank. ‘They had wire cutters’, No they didn’t Frank! But the Fifa judging panel clearly recognise Marcelo Bielsa’s true character, that of a man more honourable than anyone else in English football.
Giving their justification for the aware a statement on Fifa’s website read;
Some residents of planet football consider winning the ultimate. The only purpose of playing the sport. For others though, there are values which need to be held even higher than those which bring victory.
In April 2019, Marcelo Bielsa and the Leeds United squad were chasing automatic promotion to the English Premier League. They faced Aston Villa, and went 1-0 up. However, Mateusz Klich’s goal was scored while a Villa player lay injured. Bielsa ordered his side to allow the opposition to equalise.
The game finished 1-1, ultimately allowing their promotion rivals Sheffield United to guarantee their automatic spot in the Premier League, at Leeds’ expense. What was at stake makes Bielsa’s act of sportmanship all the more remarkable.
We’ll forget for a minute that the game didn’t actually mean anything, it had no bearing on automatic promotion at all but it was still a gesture Bielsa didn’t have to make. Mateusz Klich’s goal was perfectly good, and he was perfectly entitled to score it. The scenes after the goal were a disgrace, from the Villa players and management. Hourihane strangling Klich, Dean Smith and John Terry shouting and gesticulating on the side-lines. Honor and integrity needed restoring to the game and Marcelo Bielsa did that with his actions, even if he didn’t need to.
The fact it English football has never seen a manager like Marcelo Bielsa before, a manger who has his Sunday coffee in Costa and does his shopping in Morrisons without fuss or fanfare. A manager who makes the players pick litter to get a feeling of how much fans have to work for to buy a match ticket. A manager who takes time out to pose for photos with kids, who writes back to fans and signs birthday cards. A manager who pays the clubs £200,000 fine because he is so hurt about the reputational damage he had unknowingly done to the game.
In truth he is too good for the English game. Too good for Sam Allardyce and his backhanders, Harry Redknapp and his tax evasion, Jose Mourinho hiding in laundry baskets, Alan Pardew headbutting opponents, Chris Sutton spitting in peoples faces, Jack Grealish jumping on the floor at every opportunity or Liverpool hacking into Manchester Cities scouting system. Nobodies like Mark Chapman may snigger at the news Bielsa had been given the award but they just don’t realise how lucky the game is to have men like Marcelo Bielsa.
It’s a good job us Leeds fans do! Vamos Leeds Carajo!