Why Leeds United fans may be denied manager wish once again as Daniel Farke under pressure

Carlos Corberan has been linked with Leeds United every time their managerial vacancy has come up since Marcelo Bielsa’s abrupt and unpopular dismissal in February 2022 – and that’s no coincidence.

Bielsa’s popularity among Leeds fans cannot be overstated. He ended their long, long wait to return to the Premier League, led them to an impressive ninth-place finish in their first season, and did it all with a style of football previously unseen at Elland Road.

Crucially, that style of football has also been unseen since Bielsa’s departure. Even as they romped to promotion with 100 points and 95 goals scored last season, there was an unmistakable sense that it just was not as fun under Farke as it had been under Bielsa.

Leeds' fans yearning for Carlos Corberan goes back to Marcelo Bielsa links

Looking at it from the outside, that may be slightly unfair. Farke arrived with a huge burden of expectation set by Bielsa’s successes and the new money that has poured into the club over the past few years.

For Farke’s side to finish third in his first season at the club and then lose in the play-offs was seen as an under-achievement. When Bielsa had done the exact same thing five years earlier, it was a triumph for a club that had not finished in the second tier’s top six since 2006.

So it’s perhaps inevitable that Leeds fans would still yearn for those magic years under the Argentinian – and that they would cling on to any possibility that a key member of his coaching staff might one day return to the club and bring those days back.

Corberan is that man. The Spaniard was already at the club when Bielsa arrived, coaching their youth team, but was quickly promoted to serve as one of his first-team assistants. A short move up the road to neighbouring Huddersfield ended with Corberan leading the Terriers out to an ultimately unsuccessful but entirely unexpected play-off final in 2022.

Sure enough, with Farke under pressure, Corberan’s name is doing the rounds once again. He is now the joint-favourite to be the next permanent Leeds United manager.

Corberan’s success in driving Valencia away from the relegation zone after taking over on Christmas Eve last year, ultimately finishing solidly in mid-table, only adds to the Spaniard's lustre, given the situation Leeds currently find themselves in.

But Leeds fans who want Corberan to make a return should Farke get the boot may end up disappointed. As Sport Witness relay, reports in Spain suggest that Corberan’s job is not considered to be at risk despite Valencia’s slow start to the La Liga season.

It seems unlikely that Corberan would want to walk away from that job. Part of the reason he left West Bromwich Albion to take it in the first place must surely be that it has moved him to his family’s doorstep.

Corberan is originally from the Valencia region and came through the club’s academy as a goalkeeping prospect. He now has a young family with his wife, a Spaniard who he met in Leeds, and rarely saw his parents when he was working in England – particularly as, by Corberan’s own prior admission, both he and his father are terrified of flying.

As such, there is more than simply professional ambition keeping Corberan tied to Valencia. He may also be mindful of the need to build back a reputation of loyalty to his clubs having previously walked out on Huddersfield (an entirely reasonable if very awkwardly-timed decision, in hindsight) and West Brom.

Leeds fans should also be aware that although Corberan started out at Huddersfield trying to use something like Bielsa-inflected methods – to a fault, given the squad he inherited there proved not to be capable of playing that way – his successes since then have been built on his pragmatism and ability to tailor a gameplan to a specific opposition on a game-by-game basis.

There’s a definite appeal in that for Leeds right now. Throughout his time in charge, just like at Norwich, Farke has been criticised for being inflexible and unwilling to deviate from plan A.

But whether Corberan would be interested in making a return to help turn things around is by no means a certainty. Apart from anything else, he has always been determined to be his own man and his own manager.

He has struggled to escape the topic of Bielsa’s influence since departing Leeds. Going back would only lead to yet more comparisons to his former boss – and at Elland Road, that might just be an impossible standard to live up to.