The English Premier League has seen two of the most famous names of modern football in Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino; next season it would get a taste of the best of the best.

Leeds United gaining promotion to the Premier League by virtue of winning the Championship means Argentine coach Marcelo Bielsa has done what he is known to do — do the unthinkable in his inimitable style.

As Guardiola through the Twitter handle @PepTeam posted: “The best arrives at @premierleague.”

Premier League would be fun to watch with El Loco — the Mad Man they call him — strutting down the touchline shouting instructions.

Bielsa’s idea of football has been reflected in Pochettino’s sometimes-brilliant-sometimes-brittle Tottenham Hotspur or Guardiola’s exhilarating Manchester City. Now the chance has come to have a first-hand experience of a style of football where results do not matter, what matters is leaving a mark.

While Guardiola has long identified Bielsa’s intricate and innovative tactical plans as a major influence on his own approach, Pochettino has been groomed by the Argentine since he was 14 years of age in Newell’s Old Boys.

“Bielsa is a very special coach who has given professional football a very different and personal view. His way of working is respected worldwide. I think Bielsa’s philosophy (of football) brings a fresh air to professional football,” ATK Mohun Bagan FC coach Antonio Lopez told The Telegraph from Madrid.

In a world where the number of trophies won is often the barometer for success, Bielsa, who turns 65 on Tuesday, is an antithesis. Probably that’s why last season during a crucial Championship match in April, he instructed his Leeds United players to allow Aston Villa to score the equaliser into an empty net.

The reason being when Leeds had scored, one Villa player was lying injured and the ball was not kicked out of play. The match finished 1-1 and with that ended Leeds’ hopes of automatic promotion.

Bielsa got the fair play award for his decision, but for Leeds it was heartbreak as they lost to Frank Lampard’s Derby County in the ensuing play-off.

In January 2019, Bielsa had admitted to sending a club employee to spy on Derby County’s training session. He then said he has been doing this since the qualifications of the 2002 World Cup in Argentina. FA fined Leeds but Bielsa paid the amount from his own pocket. “The sanction (the EFL) gave us of £200,000 — it is a financial sanction against the club, not against me, but I am responsible for it,” Bielsa had said then.

“That is why I paid it from my pocket, the financial sanction.”

Lampard, quite taken in by Jose Mourinho’s one-upmanship from his Chelsea playing days, may have accused Bielsa of spying but the Argentine came out of the mess as a man of integrity.

That’s the reason why he is still revered in Chile where he was the national coach. A team known for its dour defensive style, Bielsa changed the approach, did wonders with a bunch of young talented players and took them to the 2010 World Cup. That Chile won the 2015 Copa America was much due to the foundations laid by this man.

In his coaching career, the most poignant sight was probably of a crestfallen Bielsa sitting on his knees after pre-tournament favourites Argentina bowed out of the 2002 World Cup after drawing 1-1 against Sweden in their final group game. But in that June 12 match, Argentina produced an unbelievable display of attacking football. But the goal eluded them. It did come through Hernan Crespo in the 88th minute, who cancelled out Anders Svensson’s strike, but by then it was too late. A nation crippled by economic downturn had hoped for a World Cup triumph to lift the sagging spirits. Instead what they got was a first-round exit for the first time in many years.

But these things seldom matter. Probably that’s why Barcelona got Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino, another Bielsa pupil, for continuity of Guardiola’s style of football. After losing out to Liverpool this season, Guardiola has brought in Juanma Lillo as his No.2 in Manchester City. Lillo, who in 2011 had given an interview for the Indian national team’s technical director’s post, is also in the Bielsa mould. Branded as a failure by people to whom results mean everything and not the style.

Style, that’s what English Premier League would see from Leeds next season. And it will be through Bielsa’s vision and tactical brilliance.

From Alex Ferguson to Arsene Wenger, Pochettino, Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, the Premier League comes full circle with Marcelo Bielsa.