Leeds United 3-1 Stoke City: Ascension
United's triple-action coaching, three t-shirted tenors taking cues from their conductor and delivering an opera of instructions to all parts of the pitch, was augmented by a claque of coaches strung across the front of the East Stand, so that the word of God was heard all across the field.
There were huge cheers when Marcelo Bielsa's name was read out to the fans before kick-off, not diminished by the discontented murmuring a few moments before, when the name of Mateusz Klich had been read out to the same fans. Elland Road was ready to love its new coach, even if it didn't love his first decisions.
Stoke City had arrived with the sort of team — even the sort of bench — that has Andrea Radrizzani complaining about the unfairness of the Championship. How can Leeds United compete with parachute money that allows clubs like Stoke to go on believing and acting like they're in a different league? No wonder Radrizzani has thrown up his hands and announced he is leaving promotion up to God. Fortunately, God is now on the staff.
Marcelo Bielsa's first team selection didn't look like chosen ones, but then it was said that the meek shall inherit the earth, and so Klich inherited the midfield place that should have been Adam Forshaw's, or at the very least Ronaldo Vieira's. If the presence of last season's most enigmatic tweeter in the starting eleven felt like a downgrade, elsewhere was an infuriating lack of upgrades; Patrick Bamford, Jack Harrison and Lewis Baker stayed on the bench, so that Kemar Roofe, Ezgjan Alioski and Samu Saiz could reprise their efforts from the end of last season, if that's what they were. Barry Douglas came straight in, a player to solve the left-back position, which is what we said about Tony Dorigo in 1991, but I don't think anyone expected the solution to the problems in central defence to be Liam Cooper and Gaetano Berardi, helped out by Kalvin Phillips.
Those three stood, but not still — Bielsa wouldn't stand for that — high, high up the pitch, Bailey Peacock-Farrell a few yards behind, challenging Stoke to play into the wide yards of fresh grass that lay beyond. Has a goal ever looked so easy to attain, but stayed so stubbornly out of reach? There was no way for Stoke to get to the golden valley, because Douglas and Luke Ayling were doubling up out wide with Alioski and Pablo Hernandez and then tripling up with Klich, and crosses were flying into Stoke's penalty area, where every close-thing-Kemar Roofe-shot had Bamford edging further down the bench and into Bielsa's thoughts, only for Roofe's energy and running to make sure he stayed sat the hell down, and Stoke stayed pressed the hell back.
In the middle of it was Samu Saiz. We spent three months watching a shadow of Saiz in spring, when he returned from his ban with a dry mouth, a bruised ego and a forlorn expression. On first sight Bielsa is, for Saiz, a feast and a fiesta. Saiz is the Enganche, the number ten, the free player, the spirit and the dictator, and from the start he played with the freedom that Bielsa's rigorous framework allows one special little boy. Saiz pointed into space, ran there, looking eagerly over his shoulder and spinning round and round like a dog excited for the ball to be thrown; if it didn't come, he would turn and point and run in another direction, tail wagging, tongue hanging out. I have never been so pleased to see Samu looking so pleased, and all he was doing was chasing non-existent through balls.
When he did get the ball, he twinkled, and was unselfish. Twice in five minutes he dictated and dribbled, and the second time Leeds scored; he danced past a tackle with one flick and kept control with a super-quick 'nother, that meant he could drag his through ball through the slow Stoke offside trap to Klich, who miscontrolled, gave the South Stand a heart attack, then slid and scored, and made the South Stand cheer him with relief and surprise. It was amazing that Leeds were playing so well and scoring. It was fantastic that Klich, who brought the move forward in the first place, was the player to score the goal.