One of the most damning signs that things are going badly at Leeds United is when pints are in short supply during my post-match debrief with friends in the pub. Even though Wednesday’s 3-0 defeat to Chelsea kicked off slightly earlier than usual, we all just wanted to go home. As we gradually reunited in the beer garden, there were only two pints on the table. A couple of mates braved halves. Discovering the rare delicacy of cans of Dandelion and Burdock behind the bar was the highlight of my night.

The conversation never strayed too far from, “Doomed, aren’t we?” When it did, it was usually to fall into silence, occasionally punctuated by groans or sighs. We desperately needed something to lift our spirits. We needed some words of comfort from a wise Argentinian man we love with all our hearts who knows what better times at Leeds United look and feel like.

That’s when I scrolled through Twitter, and read a tweet from Luciano Becchio:

In bad times I love you even more.
🤍💛💙 Always Leeds 💪🏻

— Luciano Becchio (@becchioluciano) May 11, 2022

It’s not like this tweet erased the previous two hours inside Elland Road, but it sure did help improve the mood. There’s something about knowing Luciano Becchio is supporting Leeds and going through the same emotions as us that makes life feel better. Everyone on the table started laughing at the beautiful bastard’s resilience. He might know what some of the best times at Leeds in recent years were like, but he also knows what some of the worst were like too, and he’s not giving up. He’s even flexing his bicep emoji to prove it.

During the match, a supporter on the row in front of me, who let’s just say wasn’t afraid to let it be known he wasn’t happy for the entire ninety minutes, criticised Rodrigo by comparing his first touch to Becchio’s. Don’t get me wrong, I gave up on Rodrigo a while back, given he runs like Michael Tonge (although Jesse Marsch did say before Arsenal that he isn’t a number 9, before playing him as a number 9 in the two games since). But comparing Luciano Becchio to our club-record £27m Spain international? I felt insulted on Becchio’s behalf!

The last time Chelsea played at Elland Road in front of fans, the visitors won by an even bigger margin. The English Jesse Marsch was in the dugout, and Leeds’ squad was always going to be outgunned by a team of Champions League winners. But with Becchio in the side, we still got one moment of elation, the type desperately needed to generate hope in these last two games: a cross from out wide, a striker in the box, a finish made to look like the easiest thing in the world. A moment when Leeds United provoked a roar from the stands in celebration rather than duty.

Becchio was in the best goalscoring form of his Leeds career, but the football Neil Warnock was asking Leeds to play was making Luciano unhappy. As he told Phil Hay in The Athletic:

“When [Simon Grayson] was fired I was annoyed and a bit ill about it. I didn’t think it was time for a change of coach but a club makes those decisions. Maybe they thought that by changing the coach other things would change too.

…

“[Under Warnock] a few things were different from what we had been doing but the next season [2012/13] was a good one for me. I had a very good goal streak. But at the same time I was frustrated because I saw again that we needed more to fight for promotion.”

A month after scoring against Chelsea, Becchio had been swapped for Steve Morison, and Warnock clung to his job until the season had been wasted. Given the choice back then, would you have preferred to keep Warnock or Becchio? Since retiring he’s been an assistant at Atletico Baleares and he sure knows how to manage a restaurant, so if you gave me a similar choice now, I’d probably go for a similar answer. At least Luciano knows how to make the debriefs in the pub a lot more fun. ⬢