‘No bitterness’ – Dallas on Bielsa contact, drinking with Grealish and his kids’ Man City brace
Leeds United’s Stuart Dallas speaks about his retirement from football and the contact he has had with Marcelo Bielsa and Jack Grealish since breaking his leg,
Contact had already been made with Stuart Dallas from South America in the two years since his career-ending injury at Elland Road. Marcelo Bielsa has never been one to forget the relationships he formed with those players between 2018 and 2022, but he can now expect a phone call of his own.
Like so many members of that transformational squad, Dallas feels he owes an immense amount to the Argentine who took him and his friends higher than they may have expected of themselves. Much in the way Kalvin Phillips spoke with Bielsa during his difficult early days at Manchester City, their former head coach reached out to Dallas after the injury, which came only two months after his sacking.
“He’s been in touch,” Dallas told LeedsLive . “He’s a man of few words, as you’ll know, but, obviously, when he gets going he can talk for a while when he’s trying to get his point across.
“He has been in touch with me, his staff have been in touch with me and whether now the announcement’s out, he gets in touch with me I don’t [know], I haven’t even looked at my phone since because the messages will be unbelievable.
“He was great for me. Whether he gets in touch with me, I’ll get in touch with him because I’ll thank him, obviously personally for what he’s done for me.”
By the time you’re reading this, it’s unlikely Dallas will have even scratched the surface of the correspondence he has ahead of him. One quick look at social tells you everything about the standing Dallas is held in throughout football.
Drinks will be had in time too. It is only right a career like Dallas’s is celebrated appropriately, especially if his team-mates go on and seal promotion next month. One drinking partner you might not immediately think of is Jack Grealish.
