It’s almost unfathomable to think that Pontus Jansson is still plying his trade in the Championship, but that is the defender’s stark reality. Indeed, you’ll find the Swedish international at the Brentford Community Stadium on matchdays as he tries to keep the Bees flying and on course for the land of milk and honey.
At just 2/11 in
championship betting odds to be promoted to the Premier League, you could be forgiven for thinking that Brentford are well on course to join England’s elite in the top flight. But after four games, they currently languish in 15th having only won once this season. It’s early days yet but suspicions of a possible hangover from losing the play-off final to Fulham are growing stronger.
Having come so close to the ultimate prize of promotion to the Premier League only to be confined to the Championship for another 46-game gruelling season will take its toll on any team, and Brentford appear to be no different. Brentford’s plight does just make you wonder though, after everything that has happened, what Pontus Jansson’s frame of mind is these days given that the team that
sold him to the Bees, Leeds United, are currently flying high in the Premier League.
What makes all of this even more tragic is that Jansson was by Marcelo Bielsa’s own admission, Leeds’ best player at the time of selling him. Furthermore, the Swede was a cult hero at Elland Road and adored by every Leeds fan around the world, but ultimately, none of this was enough for Bielsa to decide against selling him.
Jansson had defied Bielsa a few times over the Argentinian's first year at Elland Road. The most infamous incident was when the centre-back refused to let Aston Villa walk in a goal after Bielsa instructed his team to let Villa equalise in one of football’s most iconic moments of modern times. What can you say other than surrendering a goal disturbed something deep inside Jansson's competitive nature? Regrettably, this resulted in the 29-year-old defying his manager in front of the watching world.
Bielsa did hint at this possibly being a moment that the two may struggle to recover from during his post-match press conference, but the 65-year-old does have a habit of speaking in abstract terms which, with the help of a translator, can leave you wondering if what you’ve heard is what he actually meant.
You were left in even further doubt as to what Bielsa may have been getting at as Jansson did also play the week afterwards in Leeds' last game of the season against a relegated Ipswich, which ended in a
3-2 loss. The inconceivable play-off semi-finals against Derby were to follow, but Jansson would be declared injured for both ties. As it turned out, he had indeed played his final game for the Whites after the Swede told Bielsa he wanted a longer holiday during the 2019 summer that followed international duty.
Bielsa had seen all he needed to and then sold him to Brentford two weeks later. Enough was enough.
Had Pontus Jansson fallen into line and adopted the slogan on the side of Elland Road’s east stand - ‘side before self every time' - he would have achieved his goal of being a Premier League player, and undoubtedly gone into Leeds United history.
Instead, he dug his heels in and pushed Marcelo Bielsa one step too far; a decision that means his sentence in football’s version of Alcatraz, the Championship, goes on indefinitely.
The Swede will turn 30 on the 13th of February 2021, a time when footballers begin perhaps the most productive spells of their careers, but also undoubtedly start the final chapter of their careers. Should Jansson’s final day in football arrive without ever having played in the Premier League despite being more than good enough, you would imagine when he looks back he will be full of regret at the reasons why.