re: Leeds United 2022/23 Season-Long Thread: Let’s Farke shite up

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Radrizzani, the Italian businessman who bought Leeds from Massimo Cellino for £45million ($55m) in 2017, is on the cusp of his sixth season as the club’s chairman and majority shareholder. He is also moving on from the harshest of them, a year in which all that was gold at Elland Road no longer glittered with the same sparkle. May 22 was like a toss of a coin for Leeds: heads they stay up, tails they go down. The club’s status and value of half a billion pounds staked on one match. “It was a mix of emotion between hope and fear in the 90 minutes,” Radrizzani says. “But I was confident.”

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Bielsa was committed to seeing the season out, gritting his teeth as results eluded him.

“I told him face to face,” Radrizzani says. “It was very different to every meeting I had with him. In every meeting normally, he was open to a long conversation. In this case, he probably didn’t expect it because I always supported him unconditionally. I saw him hurt and speechless for the first time.”

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“The moment I started to have a doubt was (at Villa) when we drew 3-3. I remember the media talking positively about our performance. The reality for me, at half-time I almost wanted to leave the stadium because I was so disappointed by the lack of discipline on the pitch, how easy it was to score against us. That was the first moment I realised maybe something’s wrong and the team cannot execute anymore what he’s been asking for the last years. They had started to become tired, mentally more than physically.

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Radrizzani is hopeful of meeting Bielsa again and Leeds have written to him asking permission to name their training ground after him. The club promised a permanent tribute to him in the statement they released when they sacked him and, having talked at first about creating something outside Elland Road, have settled on the training ground plan instead.

“I also have an idea that I shared with him, that one day I would love to build a university of football with his name (on it),” Radrizzani says. “I hope he will still be open to that idea. My respect and my consideration will never change.” It was, for so long, the best of times.

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“We already had Jesse in mind,” Radrizzani says. “When the crisis hit we talked to him and, to be honest, I’m very grateful he took the challenge because it really was a challenge. He came in the most difficult way, to come after Marcelo, a legend for this club, and in a difficult situation on the football side. I love the man. I think this year, he will have time to show me he’s a great coach, but the man has already got me completely.”

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“Last year it wasn’t his team,” Radrizzani says. “It was a job he did excellently in terms of motivation, keeping the group together, keeping them focused. I’m very, very pleased with what he delivered. He was brave and he has been a leader, absolutely a leader. Now it’s his team. There are similarities with Bielsa but maybe it will be more vertical and also we defend differently. We don’t defend any more man-to-man. There’s more flexibility. So we’ll see and I’m excited to see.”

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“These two deals, Raphinha and Phillips, are important, not only to give us the opportunity to buy but also to be perceived by other talented players as a destination before they go to the big club,” Radrizzani says. “That’s what we need to be now, I think. The fact you can come here, play for two or three years and go to Madrid or Barcelona or Manchester City, that is something to be proud of. We need to be realistic. We cannot be at that level.

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Radrizzani tells The Athletic that Leeds were in agreement with Club Bruges over a £33.5million fee for De Ketelaere and that at one stage, his decision between Leeds and Milan was “50-50”.

“He was our icing on the cake, the special player,” Radrizzani says, “but we were competing with AC Milan. They won the title, they have the Champions League. The fact that he was watching our documentary and was 50-50 about Milan or Leeds for a period makes me proud that we are in the right direction. Maybe I should have gone to Belgium 1o days (earlier) to close the deal. We had a period when I knew Milan were sleeping because of the change of ownership and I hesitated. We were agreed with Bruges on €40million.”

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“I have a lot of confidence in ‘Joffy’ Gelhardt and Patrick Bamford coming back this season but we’re actively monitoring and discussing with Jesse and Victor,” Radrizzani says. “We don’t have to do a deal at any cost. Charles De Ketelaere was a special player. We were all in agreement to make a big effort. With other players, unless we are convinced 100 per cent that we improve, we don’t move.”

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“Yes, true, but we are discussing a lot about a striker,” he says. “If we bring (in) a young one, we tend to kill a space for Gelhardt, who I believe is one of the most talented strikers in the country for his age. His numbers talk. Every time he plays he has an impact. It’s not an easy decision. But if we find the right player and we’re convinced, we’ll bring him in.”

As for Jack Harrison to Newcastle United, Radrizzani kills the link stone-dead. “Absolutely not,” he says. “There is no way. Jack stays here.”

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“There is no need to change,” Radrizzani says. “I’m happy. I dream to bring this club to play in Europe and then I’m happy to leave — so still some work to do here. We are very good friends with the 49ers, they are a solid partner, they let you work in peace and they are supportive. In this moment, there is nothing under discussion. They have, as you know, an option to take a majority in 2024. Maybe before or at that moment, something will be discussed. At this moment, we are super happy.”

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The Bielsa era drove huge growth in the interest in season tickets at Leeds. The growing American presence at Elland Road, meanwhile, has given the club scope to angle for a new audience of supporters in the States, a market many Premier League clubs have tried to tap into. Radrizzani says the wealth of US links at Leeds is “a pure coincidence” but they have American shareholders, an American coach and two US internationals on their books. Awareness on the other side of the Atlantic has increased steadily.

“We now see a massive gulf in all things America,” he says. “Obviously we need to react in terms of marketing and off-pitch activities, PR, merchandising. But to be honest, the way we built this triangle between the part-ownership structure, the coach and the players is a pure coincidence. Aaronson was a player we decided to have with Bielsa, before Jesse.”

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State of trying to take it easy on tBooze

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Klich with a fantastic cameo

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