Marcelo Bielsa is known to be generous with his time when it comes to engaging with his former players and colleagues.
The latest demonstration of Bielsa's memory, humility and openness comes from his native Argentina where former Velez Sarsfield winger Lucas Castroman is starting out as a manager.
Speaking to the Como Te Vá radio show, translated by Sport Witness, Castroman explained how he thought Bielsa would have forgotten him after spending just a single season together in 1997/98.
However, as it turns out, Castroman could not have been more wrong, and completely underestimated the extent to which Bielsa remembered his influence.
The pair won the 1997/98 Argentine Clausura title, losing just once and conceding 14 goals - the lowest in the entire division.
Castroman revealed that he and Bielsa had spoken recently on the phone, with the veteran manager giving up 40 minutes of his time to impart knowledge and wisdom to his former player.
“Through a mutual friend, I was able to pass my phone [number] on to Marcelo Bielsa," Castroman said.
"He rings the phone and my wife answers, who usually filters [for] me, and she says: ‘Marcelo’. ‘What Marcelo?’, I ask her.
"'Bielsa’, she tells me. I pick up the phone and the most beautiful thing about the anecdote is that he told me that he was putting together the Leeds team and that he put me as a starter because they have a footballer from their squad, I don’t remember the name, who had very characteristics similar to mine."
It transpired that the player in question was Jack Harrison, according to Infobae. Bielsa had named Castroman in his line-up on a tactics whiteboard for his Leeds players because Castroman possessed similar qualities to that of the English winger.
"It was a beautiful talk of more than 40 minutes talking about football.
"What I wanted to talk to him about was personal issues and thanks more than anything to a career that I was able to build thanks to everything he gave me.
“Then he sent me a photo of the team where he showed me that he had made me the starter. ‘It was to show you I’m not lying to you,” he told me."
