‘Finished’: Pascal Struijk opens up on Marcelo Bielsa’s ruthless Leeds mentality test | OneFootball

Leeds United defender Pascal Struijk has described the ruthless training checks Marcelo Bielsa set for youngsters, recalling how a single failed drill could see him sent back to the Under-23s.

“[Bielsa was] amazing,” Struijk said. “Very intense, but skills-wise I feel like he’s the best I’ve worked with for developing players. You could see where we started as a group - I was there from around the first training session - he was very strict on how we performed in training as well.” He was speaking on the Official Leeds United podcast.

“There was this drill and if you didn’t do it well enough, especially as an Under-23s player coming over to train with the first-team, if it was not good enough he'd just say ‘Pascal, finished’, and I’d have to go back to the Under-23s again. This was a big part about how you get that mental strength and resilience from.”

“It tests your character,” Dallas said. “Bielsa was clever because, in a way, he wasn't doing it to kill your confidence. He wanted to see how you’d react.”

“If he’s seen your reaction he’d have thought ‘this kid wants it’. But if you’d have shirked away from it and maybe not wanted to come back the next day, he’d learn a lot about you. There were a few that were sent back quite a few times but Pascal wasn’t one of those.”

Source: yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk