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I’ve always been essentially agnostic but I’ll admit that I’ve been mulling over the fact that some of the principal architects of our Championship winning season are religious - Radrizzani, Bielsa & Pablo among others. It’s made me think about the nature of faith. #lufc
There have always been obvious parallels between football & religion. Both are often inherited from our immediate family when we’re younger & is thus intertwined with our sense of culture & identity. Sometimes the boundaries between the two are somewhat blurred. #lufc
Last season I wrote a Twitter thread ostensibly about the January transfer window, in which I hypothesised that Bielsa’s methodology relies to a degree on harnessing the power of true belief. He needs people to buy into his ethos to succeed & results speak for themselves. #lufc https://twitter.com/tommy_lufc/status/1082881444907761664
It’s easy to think of Bielsa as a God-like figure because he does seem omniscient, inscrutable & occasionally wrathful. His methods are not always apparent to us but they seem to have an enormous & sometimes profound impact. His relative distance only emphasises this. #lufc
I don’t actually know what motivated Marcelo Bielsa to answer the phone on that fateful day but in doing so he instigated a chain of events that has made us all deliriously happy this season & presumably beyond. Delivery to the promised land is also the stuff of deities. #lufc
Marcelo Bielsa decreed that Kalvin Phillips would be become the best holding midfielder/centre-back in the land & lo, it was so. He saw that the prodigal son Mateusz Klich had been cast out & offered him a chance at redemption. Our Messiah Pablo Hernandez was reborn anew. #lufc
Of course, the pragmatic attitude is that modern football is a game of near endless statistical analysis & the goal is to leave as little to chance as humanly possible. Bielsa is himself an advocate of this theory & the level of preparation he insists upon is legendary. #lufc
Bielsa asks his players to trust in the process & believe in themselves. After losing to Forest in February, it seemed as though the collective belief powering us towards promotion wavered. Thankfully he was able to redress the balance & we gradually found our form again. #lufc
Leeds Utd fans are wounded beasts, weary from years of mistreatment & disillusionment. We’ve been subconsciously conditioned to believe that we can’t ever have nice things. As such, it’s hard not to be perpetually, instinctively bracing for the latest hardship to arrive. #lufc
As such we’re often wont to pessimism. Fan driven stats accounts run the numbers over & over, looking to reassure themselves that the league table is not, to quote one ex-Leeds player, lyin’. It’s sometimes hard to believe even when the proof is right in front of your eyes. #lufc
On a personal note, until the moment it happened I’m not sure I ever believed we were going to win promotion. Throughout the season fellow Leeds fans have been alternately amused or frustrated by my lack of optimism. Somewhat appropriately, I have been a Doubting Thomas. #lufc
I was sceptical not because I didn’t think we were good enough (quite the opposite) but because I’m often resigned to the worst case scenario. It seems increasingly true in the wider world that the good do not prosper & we’re too frequently at the mercy of the worst of us. #lufc
In the modern era it’s hard to believe anything & by association even harder to believe *in* anything. I can only marvel at the fans, players & staff of Leeds Utd who believed in something - be it a process, each another or a higher power - sufficiently to see us through. #lufc
I made a gif of Pablo’s goal against Swansea & found myself watching it on a loop, wondering if this time it wouldn’t go in - that the post would somehow creep an inch towards the keeper’s outstretched hand & deny us the ecstasy of the moment. #lufc
Objectively, Pablo’s foot is guided by decades of training & more recently by the mind of Marcelo Bielsa. We know the science but there is something to be said for losing oneself in the beautiful correlation of a billion concurrent actions, the giddy high of the ineffable. #lufc
I was reminded that Cuthbert Hicks’ poem ‘The Blind Man Flies’ is in some ways an allegory for the complicated relationship we all have with existence & causality. The protagonist cannot see but survives on the sheer strength of his faith & the rewards are considerable. #lufc
“But I learnt from the air today
(On a bird’s wings I flew)
That the earth could never contain
All of the God I knew.
I felt the blue mantle of space,
And kissed the cloud’s white hem,
I heard the stars’ majestic choir,
And sang my praise with them.”
#lufc
(On a bird’s wings I flew)
That the earth could never contain
All of the God I knew.
I felt the blue mantle of space,
And kissed the cloud’s white hem,
I heard the stars’ majestic choir,
And sang my praise with them.”
#lufc
“Now joy is mine
through my long night,
I do not feel the rod,
For I have danced
the streets of heaven,
And touched the face of God.”
#lufc
through my long night,
I do not feel the rod,
For I have danced
the streets of heaven,
And touched the face of God.”
#lufc
