On Sunday, Feb. 27, the day after Leeds United were drubbed 4-0 at home to Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League, Ashleigh Ross asked her nine-year-old son Riley to sit down in the living room for an important conversation. She had been dreading it all day.
Riley has a very rare condition called Wieacker syndrome, and is one of a small handful in the U.K. to have it. Similar to cerebral palsy, Riley uses a metal frame to walk and needs to be fed through a tube in his stomach. He is also non-verbal, using a special iPad at school that reads aloud what he wants to say. At home, his mother can understand his noises. He has such a positive disposition that he would smile after his surgeries.
Riley is a Leeds season-ticket holder, going to games both home and away. His attention span is short, and teachers at his school have begun teaching him maths using the Premier League table. Ashleigh learned at a recent parents’ evening that his school has also password-protected his iPad — instead of using it to respond to teachers, he would surf news websites looking for who Leeds United would sign next, or read stories about the club’s iconoclastic Argentine manager, Marcelo Bielsa.
The 66-year-old coach and Riley have a special bond, beginning with a chance meeting at a preseason game at York City in July 2019. Ashleigh and Riley had been walking back to their car, and Bielsa had spotted them from across the car park. He pushed through a crowd to say hello to the boy, picking him up. The moment, captured in photos by bystanders, overawed Ashleigh.
They have met plenty of times since, and Riley, who can’t stand without his frame, would often lean back on Bielsa for balance — now everyone in Riley’s family calls him “Grandad Bielsa.”
But on this bright Sunday afternoon, bad news was on its way. Leeds, who had enjoyed four monumentally happy years under Bielsa — including sealing promotion to the Premier League — had conceded 19 goals in the past month, and were…
Source : espn
