On winning promotion to the Premier League in at the end of the 2019/20 season, Marcelo Bielsa hailed the contributions of his assistants, saying they made a 'bigger contribution for the team to grow' than he had done himself. He went on to use the fact that Carlos Corberan had been offered the role as manager of Huddersfield Town thanks to his work with Leeds as proof of this.
He said : "Carlos Corberan has been chosen by one Championship team to be the manager of his first team and it is a team that one year ago was in the Premier League. This proves what I am saying is true."
Two seasons later, Corberan is one match away from taking Huddersfield back to the top flight, after his side defeated Luton Town 2-1 on aggregate in the play-off semi-final. That feat is all the more remarkable, given that the Terriers finished 20th in the division last season and they didn't spend a transfer fee on a single player this summer, making free transfers and loans only.
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The Spanish coach described working under Bielsa at Leeds as a 'once-in-a-lifetime opportunity' in an interview with Coaches Voice. However, staying as one of Bielsa's assistants in the long-term was never Corberan's plan and he spoke about the moment he knew the time was right to take the next step in his career:
"I had been given a great opportunity and I wanted to pay them back [with promotion] in the best possible way. In football, it is fundamental to give the best of yourself to people who believe in you. There is nothing more important than the club you are at, otherwise you are at risk of valuing what you have only when you lose it. So you have to try to make the decision to leave on your own terms, and not ever have that decision taken by the people who hired you to be there.
"Every decision has a level of risk and fear. But, if you are able to put those aside, then you can go through the situations and challenges that you need to move forward. What really matters is seizing all that each opportunity can teach you."
Corberan has certainly seized his opportunity this season but he has done so after making several tweaks from his first season in management. Last season, his Huddersfield side had the worst defensive record in the division, conceding 71 goals. The former Leeds assistant had initially tried to carry Bielsa's man-marking system over to Huddersfield, to no great effect. They conceded a high number of goals from crosses and struggled for a reliable goalkeeper.
In the summer, Corberan appeared to have learnt from some of the things that went wrong last season and changed his defensive system to a zonal one with more of a mid-block (where a team holds a defensive shape around the halfway line and presses at specific moments). Defensive signings were made in the shape of ex-Leeds man, Tom Lees and Chelsea loanee, Levi Colwill, as well as a new goalkeeper in Lee Nicholls. Those changes led to only 47 concessions this season. Only six Championship teams conceded fewer.
Another area that the Spaniard has harnessed this season is set-pieces. Huddersfield have some good forwards for the league, but not those that would generally be associated with promotion winners. Jordan Rhodes would have been in the past, but he is now in the twilight years of his career. Corberan seemed to notice this and realised that his sides' best chance of scoring enough goals to push up the table was to maximise their ability to score from corners and free-kicks. It was a clever routine which allowed Rhodes to score a back-post winner to send Town to Wembley. That was the Terriers' 21st set-piece goal of the season.
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However, that's not to suggest that Huddersfield have been overly direct or poor with the ball at their feet. There are hallmarks of Bielsa's possession style in the way they try to build with the ball and Daniel Sinani's first-leg goal came from the kind of counter attack that Leeds often scored in the Championship.
Corberan was said to have been one of the men on Leeds' shortlist to replace Bielsa at the end of the season but Leeds shifted that timeline forwards wen results took a bad turn in February. Jesse Marsch was appointed instead and the Whites face an uncertain fate, with the threat of relegation hanging over them ahead of the final day. It's possible that Leeds and Corberan swap divisions in the coming days, which many would never have expected before a ball was kicked this season. However, Leeds fans - and Bielsa - will surely wish their former coach well and perhaps hope to see him in the Leeds dugout in the future.
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