Gola, gola, goal!

Pablo Hernandez’s summer of 2020 will stand for ever as proof that inevitability doesn’t apply solely to death and taxes.

Leeds United’s talisman returned for the post-Covid lockdown Championship run-in carrying an injury and Marcelo Bielsa limited his impact to mostly substitute appearances. He came off the bench at half-time against Fulham at Elland Road with Leeds’ narrow one-goal lead under threat and played two incredible passes to unlock the opposing defence in a 3-0 win — and thus was born Lockdown Pablo.

Bielsa knew that in Hernandez he had this talismanic wizard who could do things no other Championship player could dream of. But, like an aging genie, the Leeds manager knew he had to be careful in how he used him, especially while carrying an injury in his mid-thirties and playing in a system that required footballers to be ultra-marathon levels of fit.

Leeds travelled down to Swansea for the 43rd game of the season three points clear of 3rd place Brentford, who had played one match more. Swansea were chasing a play-off spot and had beaten Leeds at Elland Road back in late August when, after 93 minutes of timewasting and tactical fouling, Wayne Routledge scored a last gasp winner and manager Steve Cooper talked of a well executed gameplan.

Pablo had been drafted in from the bench four games in a row prior to this trip back to his former club, but Bielsa resisted temptation to throw him in from the start and instead stuck with Tyler Roberts’ hard graft in the attacking midfield slot. Bielsa predictably opted for the mercurial Hernandez after 45 minutes during which Roberts flattered to deceive in the brutal July heat, the game in stasis at 0-0 as Swansea’s ‘gameplan’ of doing nothing clashed with Leeds’ frenetic attacking energy.

In stepped Pablo, the calming presence. He’d seen it all. He knew every blade of grass in the Liberty Stadium from two years there in the Premier League and had even scored a late equaliser for Leeds in the first month of Bielsa’s reign almost two years earlier.

Leeds’ first real chance came in the 66th minute when Hernandez floated a ball over the Swansea defence for Jack Harrison, whose cross Patrick Bamford could, should have buried. He didn’t and United’s inner monologue began to bargain — a draw would be fine, I guess. Little did we know an era defining goal was yet to come.

Just as the game looked certain to peter out, a half-hearted Swansea attack ended with Leeds captain Liam Cooper recovering the ball deep inside his own penalty area. What followed is quite likely burned into the brain of most United fans who witnessed it, but why not relive it?

Each aspect of this goal defines what made Bielsa’s Leeds such a beautiful football team. Six players hunt down Rhian Brewster in the 89th minute of this team’s fifth game in two weeks after a three-month enforced break due to the pandemic. Bill Ayling picks up the ball and runs forty yards with it, much to the bemusement of Swansea’s retreating players. He continues his run after laying the ball off and eventually gets it back after a precise passing triangle with Mat Klich and Helder Costa. Two years on the running track and weighing yourself every morning all leads to this moment when, with the clock winding down and Leeds needing a goal, you ignore the fact that you’ve run yourself into the ground all season and make the play that arguably seals promotion after sixteen long years for a club in desperate need.

When Ayling gets onto the end of Costa’s pass to play the trademark Bielsa cutback across the Swansea box, he can see five options inside the area. Again, it’s the 89th minute of gameweek 43. It’s mid-July and everyone’s knackered but two years of hard work culminated in Leeds creating an opportunity that only this team could. And only Pablo Hernandez could have found himself in the exact position to be able to corral a pass rolling behind him and then compose himself just enough to caress the ball beyond the goalkeeper’s reach and in off the post. Three defenders close him down and the ‘keeper dives at full stretch, but it’s not enough.

“And Pablo Hernandez scores the goal for Leeds United. Gola, gola, goal!” yelled Bryn Law on LUTV, an exultation befitting the moment. I wonder if he even knew what he was saying in that moment, having actually uttered the phrase “Gola, gola, goal!” as Pablo scored Leeds’ fourth in a 5-0 win against Stoke three days earlier.

I certainly couldn’t say I hadn’t any control over my body, mind or soul in that moment — throwing my considerable weight around the living room showing total disregard for furniture, the TV or anything else that stood in my way. It wasn’t exactly job done with Pablo’s goal — at least not mathematically — but it felt as though sixteen years of pain subsided in that moment. The Leeds players knew, as did the staff around Bielsa — who simply turned around and took his customary thirteen paces as his mind focused on the job at hand.

Gaetano Berardi throttled Bamford in the celebrations, one imagines it was involuntary. Leeds came into this game not only knowing what was on the line, but carrying the emotional weight of club legend Jack Charlton’s passing the day before the game. Losing Big Jack came only a few months after Trevor Cherry and Norman Hunter had passed away, all while the thousands of adoring supporters were forced to stay at home when all they wanted was to be at Elland Road paying tribute to heroes that had been lost.

Leeds held on to win and also beat Barnsley four days later, meaning that when West Brom lost to Huddersfield the day after, promotion was confirmed. But with the passing of time it has become increasingly clear that Pablo’s goal at Swansea was the moment promotion ‘happened’ for Leeds. A seminal event, it will for evermore sum up the greatness that Bielsa’s Leeds inflicted upon the Championship.

I would go as far to say that it influenced Leeds’ most recent promotion in 2025. Back when Pablo scored that goal, we were riddled with the failures of the past and had no real success to pin our hopes to. Even though Leeds were the best team in the 2019/20 Championship by some distance, we had no recent memory to use as a reference point for impending success.

When Pascal Struijk scored against Sunderland, there was an element of belief in it being possible more than at any point in the past. Although much earlier in the season, it was the sort of moment upon which promotions are built.

Bryn’s commentary and Pablo’s goal combined to create a moment that I’ll never forget. All there is left to say can be summed up in one tweet:

FT: Swansea 0 Leeds 1. Fuck yes. #lufc

— Phil Hay (@PhilHay_) July 12, 2020

A seismic moment from a seismic player that left us all needing a cup of tea and a lie down. We’ll drink to that this Father’s Day…