‘The most overqualified man in Ligue 1’ and the rest of Marcelo Bielsa’s trusted backroom staff profiled

Marcelo Bielsa was finally confirmed as Leeds United manager on Friday morning after a protracted period of negotiations between the two parties.

The former Chile and Argentina boss has signed an initial two-year deal at Elland Road, becoming the club’s highest-ever paid manager as Leeds secured one of the managerial coups of the summer.

Bielsa is due to fly into England shortly and get cracking in the role, alongside his sizeable team of backroom staff.

While the make-up of his assistants has not been confirmed it is believed that the likes of Pablo Quiroga, Diego Reyes, Diego Flores and Salim Lamrani, who worked with him at Lille will all be involved.

With Bielsa so meticulous in his preparation, this support team is vital and his staff must prove to be just as hard working as Bielsa, with Chilean outlet Inafhost claiming that Bielsa and his staff have tasked hopefuls with analysing 150 matches in video form as part of the interview process.

We will know more about the exact make-up of Bielsa staff in the coming days, but here is a look at four of his most trusted assistant, which include some typically fascinating characters.

Pablo Quiroga – coach, video analysis

Pablo Quiroga first linked up with Bielsa in Chile

The 36-year-old Argentinian has worked with Bielsa since his days in charge of the Chilean national team and specialises in video analysis and physical training.

Originally a PE teacher, Quiroga met Bielsa through a mutual acquaintance and quickly struck up a working relationship, with Quiroga even acting as Bielsa’s own personal trainer tasked with helping his boss lose weight, according to a report in Le Phoceen.

Has followed Bielsa in every job since their days in Chile and also acts as generational link between Bielsa and his players.

Diego Reyes – coach

Perhaps Bielsa’s most trusted lieutenant, the 37-year-old Chilean introduced himself to Bielsa at the Chile training complex while doing research for his master’s degree in 2008, with Bielsa assisting Reyes with questions about French technical directors and youth training.

The pair got talking, built up a relationship and the Nacimiento-born coach soon began to edit Bielsa’s precious video clips.

Reyes is described as a serious, hard working and professional student of the game, which is likely why him and Bielsa got on, with Reyes soon working his way into the Argentinian’s inner-circle, becoming a close collaborator on the tactical side, following him from the Chile job into Europe, working with Bielsa at Athletic Bilbao, Marseille and Lille.

Chilean newspaper El Mercurio describes the pair as ‘inseparable’.

Diego Flores – coach

Another assistant coach, and another much younger associate of Bielsa’s. The 37-year-old Flores is another Argentinian, who had a stint studying in Ireland before he linked up with Bielsa at Marseille and has remained part of his entourage since.

Expect to see the laptop out on the Elland Road bench

Flores will often provide spend matches glued to his laptop, handing Bielsa in-game notes.

Salim Lamrani – translator

Descirbed by Le Monde as ‘the most overqualified man in Ligue 1’ during Bielsa’s time at Lille, Lamrani is as fascinating a character as you’d expect Marcelo Bielsa to associate himself with.

Lamrani has no background in either football or translation, but is instead an academic, specialising in relations between Cuba and the USA. A prolific author with a number of published books to his name, Lamrani has also spoken in Cuba, England, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Boliva, and the USA alongside the likes of Noam Chomsky, Kev Livingstone and Howard Zinn.

A multilingual Marseille fan, Lamrani had written extensively about Bielsa and his admiration for the coach during his time at the Velodrome and would chose to leave his position as a lecturer at the University of Reunion to work with Bielsa at Lille after the pair had previous met in South America and clicked.

Bielsa is extremely guarded in his relationship with the media, refusing to do one-on-one interviews, with this quote from Romain Laplanche’s 2017 biography on Bielsa, The Mystery Bielsa, explain the importance of having a trusted translator: “It is no wonder that he is appealing to him. Bielsa’s language is very precise and precise, it is cultivated and has a particular rhetoric.

“I think he wants this rhetoric to be respected. When Bielsa speaks to the press, he considers that he speaks to supporters through the media, so he wants to be clear that his speech is not distorted.”

As well as being at Bielsa’s side for every press conference during his spell at Lille, Lamraini also acts as a translator for Bielsa and non-Spanish speaking players.