New Marcelo Bielsa, Raphinha claim made that will interest Leeds United faithful | OneFootball

The ex-Leeds winger is now on his way to winning the most prestigious individual award in football.

The story of how Leeds United accidentally scouted current Ballon d'Or favourite Raphinha has been revealed.

On Wednesday evening, Raphinha was, once again, showing off to the world why he is in pole position to win the coveted French award for the 2024/25 campaign.

He looked to have scored an absolute beauty of a goal in the Champions League semi-final for Barcelona to level their first-leg match with Inter Milan at 3-3, although the goal has gone down as a Yann Sommer own goal. The Brazilian needed to pull off something spectacular to score from the position that he did, and to steal some of the shine away from his 17-year-old teammate, Lamine Yamal.

That strike inadvertently took him to 20 direct goal involvements in the European competition for the season, and 52 across all competitions; mind-boggling numbers for someone that was involved in a Premier League relegation battle just three years ago.

How Marcelo Bielsa accidentally discovered Raphinha

When Leeds sold the now-28-year-old to Barca in the summer of 2022 for £55 million, few could have predicted his meteoric rise to the pinnacle of the sport. There was immense talent there, that much was clear to see, but not quite so much that people expected him to go on to compete for football's biggest honours.

It was actually by pure chance that Leeds' manager of the time, Marcelo Bielsa, found the winger, according to The Telegraph. They were looking to sign RC Lens left-back Malang Sarr and the Argentine was watching some footage of him, but the Brazilian was the one that stood out to Bielsa.

He had just helped Rennes to reach the Champions League for the first time ever. Such was his importance to the club that, when Leeds' offer of £17 million was accepted for him, the manager, Julien Stephan, and a number of the club's board members did not want to let him go.

The Telegraph have said that Raphinha was locked in the club's dressing room in order to delay his departure and limit his decision time on whether to leave for Elland Road to just 20 minutes. It's safe to say he got that one right.

Raphinha will always hold a place in Leeds' heart

The Brazilian often stated the joy that he had living in Yorkshire during his two seasons with the club. He was loved by fans and teammates alike and cemented himself into the club's history books when he scored away at Brentford on the final day of the 2021/22 season to help Leeds avoid relegation.

All football fans love to see one of their former stars go on to achieve great things elsewhere, and nothing would make the Whites' faithful more proud than to see Raphinha lift that illustrious golden ball.