No wonder they call Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa… El Loco!

During one of Marcelo Bielsa’s first visits to England, Jorge Valdano, the former Real Madrid manager, realised the extent of the Argentine’s obsession with winning football matches.

As the pair flew over for Euro 96, Bielsa turned to his friend and said: ‘After losing a match, have you ever thought about killing yourself?’

If that seems extreme, it might explain the time and thought that the Leeds manager devotes to his job. For those versed in Bielsa’s beliefs, the presentation at Wednesday’s press conference was no surprise.

Earlier this season, he took his former Athletic Bilbao midfielder Ander Herrera and his Manchester United team-mate Juan Mata for a meal. As the trio sat down, Bielsa grabbed the salt and pepper grinders and proceeded to demonstrate to the pair his 14 different strategies that he believes can be used to finish a move and score a goal.

This is Bielsa. ‘A bueno loco, a good crazy guy,’ Herrera said. ‘He should never stop coaching. Training can be very long, until he is happy, two hours rehearsing the same thing but when you go out onto the field and it translates into a show-stopping display, how can you argue?

‘This guy takes notes from every match. So if he was watching Wayne Rooney and Anthony Martial dovetailing for United, he will take the clip, simulate it and you will practice it until it is right. You’re thinking “Same again, same again” but it works.’

To many, Bielsa’s work ethic and creativity make him the best face of football, but over the past week a debate has raged over the ethics of Spygate. One of Bielsa’s helpers — still unidentified — was found at Derby’s training ground the day before their visit to Leeds last week.

During an extraordinary press conference on Wednesday, Bielsa admitted he has performed the same trick on every Championship side this season.

It is probably easier to infiltrate MI6 than Bielsa’s network of spies and two former Bielsa stooges — one from his days at Newell’s Old Boys and another from managing Chile — both preferred not to speak about their methods when contacted by Sportsmail on Thursday.

One of those men is Francisco Meneghini. He was only 20-years-old and a close friend of Bielsa’s eldest daughter Ines, when Bielsa recruited him in 2008. Meneghini now manages a team in Chile and has worked as assistant to former Chile boss Jorge Sampaoli.

Another former Bielsa spy is the head of talent identification for a major Argentine football agency.

Some will have relished Wednesday’s show. During his best days as Chile manager, supporters launched a political party called the Bielsista Revolutionary Party that rapidly garnered thousands of likes on social media. Others would have seen Bielsa blowing a raspberry at his critics.

Yet stable is not the order of the day with Bielsa. This is the man who became known as El Loco as a young coach at Newell’s when he told defender Fernando Gamboa that he’d chop off his own finger if it meant a victory. This is the man who needed to be locked in a toilet by his assistant Jorge Griffa to stop eruptions when his team lost matches in Argentina.

When he was coach at Newell’s in 1992, the club lost a match 6-0 and a group of ultras turned up at Bielsa’s home to complain.

Legend has it that when he opened the front door, Bielsa was holding a grenade in his hand and he threatened to pull the pin if the fans did not leave. When the supporters did flee, Bielsa then chased them down the street. His former Argentina goalkeeper Pablo Cavallero recalls an episode from 2001 when Bielsa went running through the national training complex at 2am.

This was during a period in which kidnappings were worryingly frequent. The armed guards saw a camouflaged man running and he did not hear their orders to stand down as he was listening to his own tactical tapes. When he saw the guns staring at him, the panic set in and he bellowed: ‘Don’t shoot me, I’m Bielsa.’

Yet this is a man capable of extreme generosity. In March 2008, Bielsa was the Chile manager and attending a match between Universidad Catolica and River Plate to watch Alexis Sanchez. While walking to the stadium, he saw two children playing football on the street and donated his tickets.

Bielsa went to a bar to watch the match and when workers at the stadium were told off for failing to seat him in the ground, Bielsa made a statement supporting them.

Bielsa retains an obsessive thirst for knowledge. His first managerial job, after retiring as a player at the age of 25, was at a university side. He scouted over 3,000 players before selecting his 20-man squad. He was the football analyst in the days before analysis truly began.

His former player Gerardo Martino said: ‘There would be so many arrows on the whiteboard that you thought the Indians were coming.’ Bielsa was once on holiday with the in-laws and spent the weekend watching video tapes instead of heading to the beach. At one point, the father-in-law was even said to be recruited to take notes.

Gamboa, who played under Bielsa both in the youth teams at Newell’s and first team alongside Mauricio Pochettino, recalled: ‘I once said to Bielsa, “Do you know the problem, Professor? You live football 24 hours per day and the rest of us have another life outside of the game”.’

A product of the Argentine middle classes, Bielsa has always been inspired by difference, rebelling against the norms of his social circles. As a young footballer, he is said to have been ordered to leave Newell’s academy lodgings after only two days when he point-blank refused to leave his bike outside.

It is little wonder, therefore, that when news broke on social media on Wednesday afternoon that Bielsa intended to hold an impromptu press conference, panic set in among Leeds fans.

This is the man who walked out on Lazio after two days and is said to have resigned from Newell’s after his board refused to fine players for staying out at a wedding party until 5am when he had set a 1am curfew.

He is unpredictable, but at Leeds the dressing room has lapped up this episode. They adore the man who sits on a bucket and has a habit of walking around in his technical area in exactly 13 steps.

He works long days, sometimes sleeping at the Leeds training ground. One former assistant confided: ‘My biggest challenge was keeping my marriage alive.’

Everything is monitored. Players are weighed every day and one player who arrived for pre-season 10 kilos overweight has not reclaimed his place.

Those who play do it Bielsa’s way. And what a way it is.