Marcelo Bielsa once said of Mateusz Klich that he could play in all the best teams in the world. For a time, watching Leeds under Bielsa felt like we really were watching the best team in the world. Klich, with all his running, craft, goals and self-entitled Klichousery, was the player who perhaps embodied the Bielsa era more than anyone, playing the most games (157) and starting the most games (142) during Bielsa’s time at Leeds, his 22 goals bettered by only Patrick Bamford and Jack Harrison, his 21 assists surpassed by only Pablo Hernández, and a run of 92 consecutive starts interrupted only by an overindulgent evening at Elland Road when promotion was secured; he was straight back in the starting XI for the next game.
The early days for Klich at Leeds weren’t easy, with Thomas Christiansen handing him just 131 minutes of league football in 2017-18, fewer than Chris Wood, whose final league appearance of the season came on August 15th. His only league start, away at Cardiff, ended with a second half substitution and he played just 21 more minutes of league football for Leeds that season, as a substitute at Birmingham, before going out on loan to FC Utrecht in the Dutch Eredivisie. In one game, against Heracles, Klich created 11 chances, the most by a player in an Eredivisie game since 2012 (Christian Eriksen for Ajax) and a total matched just once since in the Dutch top-flight – by Cody Gakpo in a game for PSV in October 2022, who could have been a teammate of Klich’s by then had things worked out differently at the end of the summer transfer window.
The arrival of Bielsa in the summer of 2018 didn’t automatically mean a new opportunity for Klich, who played at centre back in one friendly at Bootham Crescent against York City (the other players who started alongside him that day would make a combined total of 24 league starts under Bielsa, with 18 of those accounted for by Jamie Shackleton), but with options in midfield dwindling, he was given the opportunity to play against Las Palmas in a friendly and never looked back. Starting with the Stoke City game in August 2018 and ending with the nail-biting 1-0 win over Barnsley in July 2020, Klich appeared in 92 consecutive league and play-off games for Leeds, a record run of starts for a player this century and surpassed by only seven outfield players in the club’s entire history, an incredible feat given the level of intensity demanded by Bielsa.
Klich scored the first goal of the Bielsa era for Leeds, the opener in a 3-1 win over Stoke in August 2018, which seems fitting given Klich then went on and played the most games under Bielsa in his entire managerial career. He made the most appearances and appeared in the most starting XI’s during Bielsa’s three-and-a-half year stay at Leeds, leaving him linked intrinsically to the era forever.
Bielsa managed 158 league and play-off games for Leeds United and Klich appeared in all but nine of those games (and was in the squad for all but three), Klich’s fitness and reliability making him one of the automatic picks. Among managers to take charge of at least 100 league games for Leeds, only three have used a player in a higher percentage of those games than Bielsa did with Klich (94.3%), with two of those coming in the 1950s.
Klich scored 24 goals for Leeds, many of them extremely memorable and spawning the chant “it could be 20 yards, or 30 yards, everywhere we go, 40 yards or 50 yards, Klich is scoring goals” following some excellent long-range goals early in the 2018-19 campaign, particularly against Derby and Sheffield Wednesday. Ironically, after scoring with two of his first nine efforts from outside the box in the 2018-19 season, his next 52 efforts from range were either saved (11), blocked (15) or missed the target altogether (26). It was over a year after the chant was created that Klich finally scored a league goal from outside the box, curling in a fantastic effort at home to Middlesbrough in a 4-0 win. Although 12 yards didn’t make the chant, Klich was also reliable from the spot, scoring five penalties, only one fewer goal than he managed from outside the box for Leeds. It could be 12 yards…
Following promotion to the Premier League, Klich appeared in 36 of 38 league games in the 2020-21 campaign, appearing in each of the first 30 games until he was an unused sub against Man City. It is unsurprising that the top-two distances covered by a Leeds player in that campaign in the Premier League were by Klich, against Crystal Palace in February (12.6km) and West Ham in December (12.4km). Klich covered, on average, 11.8km per 90 minutes in the Premier League that season, the sixth-best of any player to appear for at least 2,000 minutes that campaign.
Klich completed 90 minutes in 15 Premier League games in the 2020-21 campaign and was top of the running in 12 of those games, only beaten in three games by Kalvin Phillips (twice) and Luke Ayling once, with the Pole a vital cog in the Leeds running machine that comfortably topped the charts for both distance covered (4,296km) and sprints (6,450) in that first season back in the Premier League.
Since Leeds returned to the Premier League, only four players have created seven chances in a Premier League match for the club, the first of which was Klich against Burnley, also assisting Stuart Dallas’ goal in that match.
After considering Klich is the only player this century to start 90 consecutive league matches for Leeds United, it seems a shame that the end of his time at the club saw his final 15 league appearances all come from the bench, including all 14 in the 2022-23 campaign. That is the joint most by a Leeds player in a single season without starting a league game that season, along with Ian Poveda in 2020-21 (others with 10+ league appearances in a season without any coming in the starting XI are Derek Lilley, Aaron Lennon, Mike Grella and Tresor Kandol), while he has played the most minutes in the Premier League of any player in the current campaign without starting a game (266). Despite that, he did score twice in the League Cup in August against Barnsley when given a start, becoming the oldest player to score a brace for Leeds in a domestic cup game for 86 years and the oldest ever in a League Cup game. That was also his last ever start at Elland Road, becoming only the fifth player to score twice in his last home start for Leeds, along with Jack Hargreaves (1939), George Ainsley (1947), Allan Clarke (1978) and Billy Paynter (2012).
Mateusz Klich’s departure in January wasn’t overly surprising, given his lack of gametime in recent months and the opportunity to play more regular football in America. One by one, the key components of the title-winning team of 2020 depart Leeds; Alioski, Berardi, Hernández, Phillips and now Klich. Many players have passed through Leeds United, but not many have made the mark or impression that Klich did – both on the pitch and outside Elland Road, with the mural spray-painted by Klich outside Elland Road following promotion revealing his artistry wasn’t just restricted to the football pitch.
