The Quality of Madness: A Life of Marcelo Bielsa

Description

Marcelo Bielsa is one of football's greatest eccentrics and greatest enigmas. This will be the first English biography of one of football's most contradictory characters. He has coached some of the greatest names in world football - Gabriel Batistuta, Carlos Tevez, Javier Mascherano, Juan Sebastian Veron and Ander Herrera. He has been cited as a mentor by Pep Guardiola, Mauricio Pochettino and Diego Simeone. Yet Marcelo Bielsa remains one of the great enigmas of world football - a fabulously innovative and obsessive coach, who has transformed Leeds United, Marseille and Athletic Bilbao. He also lasted two days at Lazio and led Argentina to their greatest footballing disaster. Featuring interviews from across South America, Europe and Yorkshire, The Quality of Madness is a comprehensive and compelling biography, tracing Bielsa's story from growing up as a member of one of Argentina's most remarkable families to his revival of Leeds. Bielsa has long been known as 'El Loco' - the Madman - and yet as Tim Rich's revelatory study reveals, there is mercurial method and audacious logic to the madness.

Although he began his career in sports journalism as a cricket writer for the Sunderland Echo, Tim Rich has been captivated by football for half a lifetime. Working for The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and The 'i' Paper, he has covered Newcastle United under Bobby Robson, Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson and, latterly, Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool. On Days Like These is his third book and follows his acclaimed biography of Marcelo Bielsa, The Quality of Madness, which was shortlisted for The Daily Telegraph Football Book of the Year. He lives in Cheshire with his stepdaughter, Rose and their three cats.

A triumph. Not one just for Leeds fans, or even football nerds, Bielsa's story will resonate with anyone drawn to life's maverick thinkers * i news *