Former Atletic Bilbao star striker Aritz Aduriz has heaped praise on Marcelo Bielsa and labelled him as the manager who taught him the most.
The Leeds United boss spent two years in Spain between 2011 and 2013.
In that time, he managed to take them to the final of the Europa League, seeing off the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United in the process.
In typical Bielsa fashion, Aduriz enjoyed the finest form of his career, which he owes to the Whites boss.
Speaking to So Foot in France, he said: “[Bielsa] is the manager who probably taught me the most.
"With him, I progressed a lot, but I also suffered enormously. He’s so demanding, so extreme, that he manages to bring stuff out of you you didn’t even think was there. He definitely helped me go up a level. Thanks to him, I became a different player”.
As for whether or not El Loco, the Leeds manager’s nickname around the world, really is, well, ‘loco’, he said: “Bielsa isn’t crazy, he’s a football genius.
"The problem is that his hardline approach, pushed to the extreme, cannot be kept up forever. At one point, it becomes unsustainable”.
