Liam Cooper is desperate to recover Leeds United’s ‘stolen’ moment

In top-level football, thinking time is not always a good thing. Leeds United have had plenty over the last couple of months.

In the frenetic Championship in particular, professional footballers train very little at the end of seasons. Play, recover, repeat is the pattern and when teams get into a good – or bad – groove, staying in it is not that difficult.

By early March, after stumbling worryingly into 2020, the Whites had hit their rhythm, winning five matches out of five without conceding.

Title races can often be played as much in the head as on the pitch, and of all the promotion contenders, arguably none need to go up as badly as Leeds.

Like most, they have invested heavily, their wage bill jumping up once they pushed the boat out to bring in world-class coach Marcelo Bielsa and equip him with the tools to do the job.

West Bromwich Albion and Fulham have recent Premier League experience, and badly want to get back, whereas for Brentford, Preston North End and Bristol City it would exceed the expectations they set off with in August. As two-time European Cup winners, Nottingham Forest have got uncomfortably settled in the Football League, mired there throughout the 21st Century.

Leeds were “only” relegated 16 years ago, but for a club of their size it is far too long. They have not had a better chance to put it right.

Bielsa has made them the Championship’s best footballing team but mental fragility – and, some believe, physical fatigue – saw them miss out in last season’s play-offs. It is hard to imagine them persuading even the unpredictable Bielsa to come back for a third Championship season.

All season captain Liam Cooper, a boyhood fan, has dreamt out loud of being remembered forever at Elland Road.

“It is life-changing,” says the centre-back. “As a boy you always dream of playing for your club and taking them into the Premier League, never mind being able to captain the club. It would be unbelievable to get the club back to where we belong.”

After the fifth of those straight wins, it was starting to look very promising once more. With third-placed Fulham held at Bristol City, beating Huddersfield Town plumped up Leeds’s cushion to the play-offs to seven points, with nine matches remaining.

Ever since they have had time to think about the enormity of what awaits. Too much, perhaps.

“You do have a lot of time to sit and reflect on things but the aim has never changed,” insists Cooper. “We’re on the brink of something special and hopefully we can deliver that and be remembered at this club forever.”

May 2 was particularly difficult for Cooper. It was supposed to be the day a sold-out Elland Road held the mother of all parties. Cooper should have paraded the famous old trophy Billy Bremner and Gordon Strachan lifted. It no longer means the holders are the best team in England, but after the pain of the last 16 years, its importance to Leeds would not have diminished much.

Instead, Cooper was locked up indoors. Even if Leeds see the job through, their fans will still have to be at home when they do.

“It was very difficult, it was very tough,” admits Cooper. “It felt like it had been stolen from us a bit. That could have been our day, our moment to enjoy with the fans and our families.

“We’d sacrificed so much but we just have to sacrifice more, sacrifice playing in front of our fans, our families being able to watch us (in the ground), but the goal never changes.”

Despite lost momentum, the omens are reasonably good.

Only once in the past decade has a team in the Championship’s top two with nine matches to go been unable to close out automatic promotion. The problem, of course, is it was Leeds – essentially this group of Leeds players – who faltered, dropping into the play-offs whilst Sheffield United came up on the rails.

Just because it happened once, does not automatically mean it will again, but the Whites need the mental resolve to believe that.

Assuming they are played, the Football League gave a provisional June 20 return for the Championship last night, the last nine games will be as much a test of psychological strength as Leeds’s footballing skill.

They have the comfort blanket of knowing if the matches do not go ahead, the league their fans are so suspicious of want Leeds to go up as champions, not to mention the reassurance they are widely viewed as the best team in the Championship, and certainly one of the two best.

Cooper is confident they can see the job out, as underlined by the club’s consistent public stance that they want to get back onto the field, not fall back on an asterixed achievement.

“It’s just, let’s call it a big bump in the road,” he says, “but one we’ll be looking to get over and finish the job.”

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