Why Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa sits on a bucket during games

Leeds United are back in the Premier League – and that means an unusual sight will be appearing on the touchlines.

Marcelo Bielsa, known as El Loco, will forever be remembered as the man who has guided the club back to the promised land.

He is also known as the man who snubs the dugout in order to watch games from a bucket on the touchline.

Bielsa raised eyebrows when he first brought out a bucket to sit on at Elland Road, but the item has since gone on to be sold in the club shop and become part of his character.

The manager believes sitting on the bucket gives him a better view than the Elland Road dugouts, which are sunken below the level of the pitch.

When at Marseille he sat on a cooler box before upgrading to a bucket in the technical area to give him a close up view without standing.

When asked about his unusual habit early in his time at Leeds, Bielsa replied: “You want me to tell you more than what it is?” he said. “It’s just a bucket.

“I have nothing to add. It’s a comfortable bucket.”

But, on a BBC documentary last year, Guillem Balague claimed Bielsa’s bucket was inspired by more than just a better view of the game.

Balague said: “He [Bielsa] walks the four miles from his home to the training ground.

“His intense walking during games and his moments of crouching down on what looks like a plastic bucket is his way of dealing with constant back pain that has not left him since his time as a player.”

When Leeds played Rotherham early in Bielsa’s reign, opposition boss Paul Warne, was left “a little nervy” when he first encountered the bucket.

And it is unlikely to be something the likes of Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer have regularly encountered before.

“Sitting down on that thing’s a bit weird,” Warne said.

“To be honest, when it started, I can’t lie, I was a little bit nervy and I’m thinking, ‘phh, how’s it going to go today?’

“I thought ‘I just need a little sit down for a minute’, but because he’s sitting down, I’m sitting down and I’m waiting for the press to go ‘oh, he’s copying him!’.

“So I thought I’ve got to stand up, stay standing up. I jumped up straight away. But his looks more comfortable than my ice box. It’s a class bit of kit that. I’m pretty impressed.”

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