Outside of the great Johan Cruyff, there has arguably been no greater influence upon Pep Guardiola’s generation-defining coaching career than Marcelo Bielsa.
It was no surprise, therefore, that a warm tribute to the recently unseated Leeds United boss was first on the agenda for Guardiola at his Monday press conference to preview Manchester City’s FA Cup fifth-round trip to Peterborough United.
“I’m so sorry for him. His legacy is there, in the Leeds city and club, and I'm pretty sure with the players,“ Guardiola said.
“His influence is massive. Unfortunately, all managers are subject to results and maybe they were not good but the games played in three or four seasons at Leeds were spectacular to watch and I wish him all the best in future.”
Guardiola’s common ground with Bielsa primarily relates to their footballing vision.
Pep operates with a diluted and more refined version of Bielsa’s extreme and revolutionary high-pressing, hard running template - a tactical vision that has elevated Leeds far higher than the sum of the parts at his disposal at Elland Road, while also being an element in the implosion of recent weeks.
But the veteran Argentine is also a rare breed in the modern game insofar as he never seeks excuses behind the cover of refereeing errors, an area where whataboutery generally abounds.
It was refreshing therefore to hear Guardiola - perhaps inspired by just speaking about Bielsa - concede that City got away with one in the 1-0 win over Everton, where Rodri was not punished for what appeared to be an incredibly blatant handball during the dying minutes.
“The pass of Dele Alli looks offside but if Richarlison is not offside, it’s a penalty,” he said after a cacophony of post-match complaints broke out and Everton made a formal complaint to the Premier League.
Now, Guardiola is far from faultless in this regard. He has grumbled, overtly or with heavy sarcasm (hello, Antonio Mateu Lahoz!) in the past over perceived refereeing errors.
Perhaps we’re setting a low bar to praise a manager for admitting, two days after the event, that his team deserved to have a penalty awarded against them. But the temperature of discussions around these matters is frequently absurd.
Jurgen Klopp was a picture of delight after Sunday’s Carabao Cup final, where Chelsea had three goals ruled out by VAR before Liverpool prevailed on penalties.
Klopp's main post-match VAR thoughts still related to events on Merseyside a day earlier and it is not hard to imagine what his post-match interviews might have been like had he ended up on Chelsea's side of the Wembley equation.
“I don't know what his problem is with me,” he said after Paul Tierney sent off Andy Robertson and failed to dismiss Harry Kane for a dangerous challenge during Liverpool’s 2-2 draw with Tottenham earlier this season.
It was a typically over-the-top reaction to human error to take attention away from his own team’s shortcomings. Klopp is a brilliant and passionate football manager but, in these situations, he falls cringingly short of any decorum.
Tierney was also the man at the heart of the action at Goodison Park. Maybe he’s just generally not good enough at a tough job, rather than a man wielding agendas. Frank Lampard had some alternative thoughts.
"Absolutely no understanding [of the Rodri decision],” he told reporters afterwards. “At best incompetence. At worst, who knows."
No, Frank, we do know. It’s incompetence. Put the tinfoil hat away - there are more than enough conspiracy theorists knocking about nowadays on Twitter alone.
Sometimes it’s best to just hold your hands up and accept mistakes have always been and will remain a part of football.
In the heat of what promises to be a brutal title battle, there is every chance Guardiola will say some stupid stuff. But it was refreshing to hear him hold his hands up here and not try and justify City’s huge slice of fortune.
It might be tricky to persuade Lampard of the wisdom of taking a lesson from his old rival Bielsa but he and Klopp could do a lot worse when it comes to their attitudes towards refereeing mistakes.
