Bielsa's strangest season: the fine, the goal, the award

In February 2019, Leeds United were fined 200,000 pounds by the EFL. The breach was of Regulation 34, which requires each club to behave towards the others with the utmost good faith. A Leeds employee had been caught watching a Derby County training session before the two clubs met on 11 January. Bielsa admitted it immediately—and went further, saying he had done the same to every opponent that season. Leeds won that Derby match 2-0. The EFL subsequently introduced a formal rule making it an offence to watch another club's training session within 72 hours of a fixture between them.

That is the first fact. The second arrived on 28 April 2019.

Leeds hosted Aston Villa at Elland Road in a Championship match with automatic promotion to the Premier League still in reach. In the 72nd minute, Jonathan Kodjia of Villa went down injured after a foul. Villa's players had asked for the ball to be put out of play. Nothing in the laws of the game requires a team to stop—putting the ball out for an injury is a convention, not a rule. That distinction is the whole story.

Tyler Roberts did not put the ball out. He played Mateusz Klich through, and Klich scored. A confrontation followed on the pitch involving players from both sides. Anwar El Ghazi was shown a straight red card for an apparent push in Patrick Bamford's face; replays showed no contact. The sending-off stands in the record. What the replays showed stands alongside it.

Then Bielsa instructed his players to allow Villa to equalise. Albert Adomah ran through and scored, effectively unopposed—effectively, because one Leeds player did not comply. Pontus Jansson tried to tackle Adomah and failed. A manager can instruct, and a defender can still refuse. The match finished 1-1.

Bielsa said afterwards: "We gave the goal back." On the convention itself, he said: "English football is known for its sportsmanship, so I don't need to comment on this kind of thing, which is common in English football." He credited the convention to English football rather than to his own decision.

The draw meant Leeds could not take an automatic promotion place. Sheffield United went up automatically instead. Leeds entered the play-offs and were not promoted that season.

In September 2019, at FIFA's annual awards ceremony in Milan, Leeds United and Bielsa received the 2019 FIFA Fair Play Award—for giving the goal back, not for scoring it. That ceremony took place seven months after the EFL fine.

Fined in February for gaining an advantage he was not entitled to. Recognised in September for surrendering one he had already taken. Both are the same man, the same club, the same season.