Marcelo Bielsa Still Has Magic Touch as He Works Marseille Miracles

Anyone with more than a modicum of football knowledge will have realised that Marseille boss Marcelo Bielsa is not your average coach. How many tacticians still in the prime of their careers can point to a stadium named in their honour, as El Loco can in Rosario, Argentina, home of Newell's Old Boys? 

How many coaches can sell out a city's stock of coolers through the mere fact of sitting on one for the duration of a game? How many can count among their siblings both a governor and vice-governor of the province they call home and are capable of keeping reporters through a marathon three-hour press conference? 

Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti and Jupp Heynckes may have achieved brilliant things during their careers, but not one of those illustrious names can boast an entire school of coaching philosophy inspired by their idiosyncratic ways. Bielsismo, however, is alive and kicking, inspiring figures as diverse as Chile's Jorge Sampaoli, Argentina coach Gerardo Martino and even Pep Guardiola over at Bayern Munich. 

Somehow, El Loco can even pull off sitting on a boiling hot cup of coffee while maintaining the cool that has made him the darling of football hipsters everywhere. 

Bielsa's almost obsessive planning and preparation leaves nothing to chance, which is why his current brilliant run at Marseille is no fluke. The club from southern France were also-rans in Ligue 1 last season, finishing sixth without ever fighting for the upper reaches of the division. 

Now, eight consecutive victories have installed Marseille as comfortable leaders ahead of the oil millions of Paris Saint-Germain. It is still early but not overblown to talk about a revolution at the Stade Velodrome, which saw a record attendance of 61,846 on Sunday as the club took down Toulouse 2-0. 

Bielsa does not just take over a club. He transforms it from top to bottom, imposing his attack-at-all-costs philosophy and the need to control the ball at all times. It is not an easy process. A draw and a defeat in Marseille's first two matches suggested that the squad, largely unchanged from 2013/14, were not yet ready to translate El Loco's ideas to the pitch. But once the penny dropped, the team has been unstoppable. 

"Lose five kilos and this season you will score 25 goals" was allegedly the message Bielsa, who does not speak a word of French, managed to convey to portly striker Andre-Pierre Gignac when he first arrived at Stade Velodrome, according to (L'Equipe, via Depor). The 28-year-old had been treading water since arriving at Marseille, never showing the same form that marked him out at Toulouse.

With 10 goals in as many games, however, Gignac has earned a place in the France team and signals Bielsa as the reason.

Claude Paris/Associated Press

“Marcelo Bielsa has created a team and has given confidence to everyone. He is largely responsible for our current results. In training, he does not laugh. His method is new. It looks nothing like what I've done before," the forward explained, according to Goal.com's Robin Bairner.

The pattern is familiar. Just three years ago El Loco caused a similar stir with Athletic, taking the Basque club to the Copa del Rey and Europa League final. That team lit up European football with a no-holds-barred attack, upsetting Manchester United in one of the most memorable results of recent years. 

The big question will be how long Marseille's renaissance can last. There is a reason Bielsa tends not to last very long at any one club. His methods are so draining, his commitment to playing every minute so intense, that fatigue is almost impossible to avoid.

His second season at San Mames, in which Athletic's young stars simply could not keep up with the veteran Argentine, highlighted perfectly the dangers of such an obsessive approach. 

"We felt tired late in the game. The orders were to keep going and force the issue," defender Nicolas N'Koulou admitted after scoring against Toulouse, according to Soccerway. He was not the only Marseille players to confess that tired legs were beginning to take their toll even at such an early stage in the season. 

So will Bielsa moderate his approach? You may as well ask the zebra to lose its stripes or a shark to swim backwards. The coach knows only one way to play and will execute that strategy win, lose or draw. 

That single-minded obsession for attacking, that lack of pragmatism means that Bielsa will never rival the likes of Mourinho, Ancelotti or Guardiola in terms of trophies won. But in the grey backdrop and conformity of modern football, the game would be a lot duller without the technicolor madness of perhaps its last great eccentric character.