The Bielsa Burnout Theory
Marcelo Bielsa is one of the renowned influential managers of all time. He is a direct influence for Mauricio Pochettino, Pep Guardiola, Diego Simeone, and many more. He retired from playing football at age 25 to focus on management. He managed various clubs. But here we will focus on the domestic league performance of Athletic Bilbao, Marseille, and Leeds United.
Marcelo Bielsa has never been at a football club longer than 2 seasons excluding his term at Leeds United. Due to his record at football clubs, he gets accused of something called “BIELSA BURNOUT”. This term is given to the theory that Bielsa’s team suffers from fatigue in the final third of the season and the season after.
But is BIELSA BURNOUT true? Let us find out.
The reference band in the graph consists of the last 12 games of the domestic season.
Athletic Bilbao
In 2011/12 Marcelo Bielsa took charge of Athletic Bilbao. His team performed poorly in Liga BBVA but, went to the finals of EUROPA LEAGUE and COPA DEL REY.
They performed brilliantly and won both legs against Manchester United during that process. Overall, they couldn’t win any of the two finals they were in and were ultimately poor in the league over the entire season.
In his second season in charge, Bilbao never hit any run of form whatsoever and finished in 12th place. Many argued that Bielsa burned out his players and therefore couldn’t perform as well in the second season. But statistically, his team ran only slightly less than the first campaign. After Javi Martinez left for Bayern Munich, their tackling statistics went down and the team started conceding lots many goals (65).
Over both seasons, Marcelo Bielsa never got his boys to perform consistently in the league and go on any meaningful runs excluding European and Domestic runs in the first season.
Marseille
In 2014/15 season, Marcelo Bielsa joined Marseille. For 7 months (till April 2015), Marseille lead the Ligue 1 table. In the last 8 games of the season, Marseille suffered 4 defeats in a row and some against much worse opposition. But after this, they won 4 back-to-back matches to finish the season in the Top 4. The end of this season saw the departure of key players like Gignac, Payet, and Ayew.
After the pre-season, Marcelo Bielsa resigned from Marseille stating there was a lack of trust from management. Because of his departure, we never got to see his second season at Marseille.
The first season was hugely successful. Although, the only downer is not winning the league title. Their only run of losses contributed to the “Bielsa Burnout”. Looking at statistics there is no evidence of his team burning out but, there is evidence showing his team not taking/converting their chances.
After Marseille, Marcelo Bielsa went to Lazio but never managed a game for them as he took charge and left the club only 2 days after due to lack of commitment from the board regarding the players he wanted to sign before the deadline. His spell at Lille also ended abruptly in only 3 months after the season started. So, we will skip these 2 and head over to Leeds United.
Leeds United
Marcelo Bielsa has never been at a club for longer than he has at Leeds United. In 2018, Bielsa took charge of Leeds with the goal of return to the Premier League. Marcelo took charge of a team that had finished 13th in the previous season. He raised their fitness levels, set them up differently, and they were back in top form.
Similar to Marseille, Leeds were in top shape until the Christmas period but soon started losing very important games which people believe was caused due to “Bielsa Burnout” which cost them the promotion. Again there is no evidence of burnout. The team ran more and more as the season progressed failing to convert chances.
In the following season, Leeds built upon the foundations set under Marcelo Bielsa in their first campaign and once again stormed the championship until just after the Christmas period.
The losses in January and February led the fans into panic mode as they thought the club might bottle up promotion once again. After the draw at Brentford (mid-Feb), Leeds went on a 5 match winning run before the pause (Corona Outbreak). After that, Leeds lost once but then went on an 8 game unbeaten run eventually becoming champions.
There was a lot of backlash from many pundits who said “Leeds got promoted due to Covid, saving Marcelo Bielsa’s team from suffering burnout”. There is no way to truly know but with Leeds winning 5 games before the break, the comments seemed a bit harsh.
In his first season in the Premier League, Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds displayed the same attacking football as it did in the Championship. Leeds had their best form in the final third of the season. This season also has evidence of many chances which should have been converted but no evidence of burnout.
Marcelo’s Leeds United are very unique in how they play. They are applauded for the dangerous football they put on display. From all the research, In my opinion, this is not the case. “Bielsa Burnout” seems to be a narrative that appears whenever his team goes on a bad run even though they always recover from the bad runs.
This topic will always be on for debate whether Bielsa burnout is a thing or not. Please leave a comment if you feel that this theory is true.
Data for this article was taken from fbref
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