The 'Murderball', the murderous session of Bielsa that causes a furor

That Bielsa is a flamboyant coach is no secret. That he likes to go outside the norm, either. This maxim is put into practice especially in his workouts. One of these eccentricities is known as 'Murderball' (killer ball), an exercise that he usually only puts into practice once a week due to its strong intensity and which his own players named after him.

Exercise, on the surface, is not a big deal. A soccer game divided into four parts of five minutes each. 20 minutes total doesn't seem like the kind of exercise that exhausts a soccer professional. That seemed to Jamie Carragher, who joked with the Leeds captain after yesterday's draw against Newcastle. “Is that all?”, Snapped the former Liverpool when Liam Cooper explained what the exercise consisted of, to which the footballer responded with an invitation to participate in it.

But beyond the jokes, the players speak of a brutal and chaotic exercise, far more complicated than the competition matches themselves. The rules are simple. The intensity must be maximum, the pace frantic and there are no referees. No throw-ins. The entire technical staff of the Argentine is in charge of surrounding the field and introducing a new ball as soon as the one being used leaves the field of play. In short, players cannot stop at exercise of terrible intensity. Now it remains to be seen if so much effort is reflected in the moment of truth, in which it is difficult to start this Leeds.