Back when Squid Game was all over the telly, I got into a discussion on a Leeds United podcast about who in the club’s squad would have the best chance of winning it.
You’ll have your opinion, but the right answer was Stuart Dallas. Avoiding the many ways to die relied on an ability to do many different things well, and doing different things well was Dallas’ superpower. He never played in goal and he never played as a No 9, but he made of fist of almost every other position, so who’s to say he couldn’t have tried? Time and evolution allowed him to master the most niche of roles: the hybrid 8-stroke-10 midfielder Marcelo Bielsa loved.
The irony as Dallas announced his retirement today was that, alongside his versatility, he acquired a reputation for being unbreakable: 45 starts in Bielsa’s second year at Leeds and ever-present in his third. It was Dallas limping out of a 3-0 defeat at Everton in early 2022, the only player in the dressing room who had not been injured by that stage of the season, which confirmed that life was conspiring against Bielsa.
But fate can be cruel and it found him this afternoon, his career over long before it should have been.
Tributes to Dallas at a game against Arsenal in 2022 (Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)
I saw Dallas at Leeds’ training ground a few weeks ago, his demeanour the same as ever: upbeat but philosophical, crossing fingers but not kidding himself, feet on the ground. One glance at the femur which was badly fractured in a collision with Manchester City’s Jack Grealish two years ago told you how much surgery he had dealt with, and to look at the scars and the physical trauma, it was amazing that Dallas had made it as far as a return to training earlier this season. Getting back on the grass was a big step forward but still left too much road in front of him.
There are numerous ways of capturing Dallas’ career at Elland Road: nine years, 266 appearances, promotion in 2020, three seasons in the Premier League, a personality and a thick skin which made him and Leeds a good fit. But what should be said first and last about him is that in 2021, he was Leeds’ player of the year. The pale-as-a-sheet-of-paper, skinny-as-a-rake winger who became a full-back and then moved into midfield — who took time to find his niche — stood out as the natural pick of a bunch which included Raphinha, Kalvin Phillips and a 17-goal Patrick Bamford. It was not one of those years when Ross McCormack won the trophy by being the only candidate worth talking about. This was Bielsa’s Leeds at their peak, the best they would ever be.
No coincidence, then, that in an open letter today, Dallas referred to Bielsa specifically. Dallas was someone for whom the penny dropped immediately when word first spread around the dressing room that Bielsa was on his way as head coach in the summer of 2018. He likes the occasional Guinness, but he and Liam Cooper did their background on Bielsa and rapidly clocked the boot camp ahead of them. They chose to cut out alcohol completely to help make sure that when Bielsa started cracking the whip, it did not cut them in half. Cooper was Bielsa’s man from the off. Dallas took a year to properly break in. Once he did, Bielsa was positively hell-bent on finding a place for him.
Over time, Dallas learned how to manipulate a midfield and dictate play as Bielsa required as much as Mateusz Klich could. He had the legs and the pace for the third man-run from deep which proffered his killer goal in a ridiculous win at Manchester City in April 2021, three years ago today. There was the proof that Bielsa made people like Dallas go further than they ever had before. To quote Dallas’ letter, pre-Bielsa “Premier League football seemed a million miles away at times”. But there was the proof, too, that people like Dallas were willing to take themselves further; to live like monks, to hit the weight targets, to train themselves to a standstill. Thriving under Bielsa needed a certain amount of talent. More than that, it took an impenetrable attitude.
Dallas celebrating his goal at City (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
So many in Bielsa’s dressing room had it. And it was never going to last forever. But whereas others found themselves slipping out of Leeds naturally, Luke Ayling for one, Dallas was halted in his prime. He might be 32, but in all his years, he had never looked more sure of himself than in that first season in the Premier League. He had never played better and never been better. Confidence bred confidence and life growing up in Northern Ireland had seen to it that he wasn’t short of a healthy amount of it anyway. He was influential, he was popular and he was a guaranteed pick. There are very few ways to rationalise the mistimed tackle which inflicted an impossibly complex injury on him.
Last season I bumped into him in Thorp Arch’s reception and asked him if he was doing OK. “Aye,” he said. “I’m just sick of going up and down these stairs every day,” pointing to the staircase that led from the dressing rooms to the canteen. The walls around him were understandably claustrophobic. The fight was on to get him fit, but there were no promises, no concrete timeframes and no delusional dreams on his part. The injury was a bad one and he knew what that might mean. It was the only barrier too resilient for a player who smashed his perceived ceiling at Leeds and earned the right to a far sweeter ending.
(Top photo: George Wood/Getty Images)
