It was a case of so near yet so far for one particular player and a switch to Leeds United.
Football transfers are notoriously complex these days and it’s not uncommon to find players even going so far as to posing in their ‘new’ club’s shirt, only for a transfer to break down at the 11th hour for any number of reasons.
For Noa Lang, now at PSV Eindhoven, a move to Elland Road was evidently on the cards, only for it to be scuppered by then manager, Marcelo Bielsa.
“The media wrote that I had agreed with AC Milan but I was previously close to a switch to Leeds,” the player said on the Pingelaars podcast.
“Leeds wanted to buy me for 40 million euros from Club Brugges. In the end, the deal fell through and then I was really mentally exhausted. Marcelo Bielsa doubted how much work I could do without the ball…”
For a potential £35m spend, everything has to be correct as far as a manager is concerned, so Bielsa was well within his rights to pull the plug on the deal.
After all, it’s the manager’s neck that’s on the line if things don’t work out, so the Argentinian can’t really be blamed for being over cautious in this instance.
Of course, should a player go on and do wonderfully well elsewhere, clubs can end up being made to look a little foolish, but that isn’t a reason to buy them in the first place.
Bielsa wasn’t convinced and that should be enough of an explanation.
