The crate was crammed with bottles but Daniel Farke made light work of hoisting it on to a table and inviting everyone to help themselves. It was a little after 10.30 one night in April last year, an already-promoted Leeds had just beaten Bristol City, and the manager was offering journalists an end-of-season beer.
Such gestures are increasingly unusual in an ever-more corporate and sanitised sport, but Farke brings a human touch to proceedings. Indeed, his refreshingly down-to-earth approach is reminiscent of an illustrious title-winning predecessor. Behind a blunt exterior Howard Wilkinson was a caring manager who, spotting a journalist stranded outside Elland Road late one night, drove him home to Sheffield. It seems the sort of thing Farke might also do.
Coincidentally, Wilkinson and Farke are lovers of literary fiction who toyed with the idea of becoming novelists in their own right. While Wilkinson ultimately took a different path to his hero, DH Lawrence, Farke – a Gabriel García Márquez fan – wrote several chapters of a book before deeming it “crap” and shoving the manuscript in a drawer.
If all coaches represent a blend of romanticism and pragmatism, Farke offers a more intriguing amalgam than most. “I’m a football romantic who has learned that romanticism shouldn’t blind you to reality,” Farke says.
With Premier League survival all but secured and Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea at Wembley beckoning, a coach whose two promotions to the top tier with Norwich were followed by immediate relegation seems to have hit the right balance. This time, the joy of a third Championship title, secured with Leeds last spring, will not be tarnished.
“My brand of football normally suits teams who dominate possession, who like to attack,” Farke reflects. “But I’m always switched on to what’s necessary and I’ve had to make sure a just‑promoted team survives.”
It is a measure of how far Leeds have fallen in recent decades that this is only their fourth top-tier season in 22 years. Given Sunday’s game will be the club’s first FA Cup semi‑final for 39 years, Elland Road directors have reason to be grateful they twice resisted very real temptations to sack Farke in the past 12 months.
There was the moment, shortly after promotion was secured, when a sliding-doors boardroom argument apparently raged before the Leeds chair, Paraag Marathe, finally declared: “Daniel’s our man.”
A second potential watershed arrived in late November. With results dismal and relegation looming, Leeds travelled to Manchester City with their manager on the ropes. At half-time they were 2-0 down but Farke used that interval to replace his trademark back four with a 3-5-2 formation spearheaded by the substitute Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Although City won 3-2, a dramatic revival involving Calvert-Lewin scoring seven goals in six games and Leeds collecting 28 points from the next 20 games was under way.
It is easy to understand why Pep Guardiola devotes long telephone conversations to debating, among other things, tactics, with his Leeds counterpart. And why, when asked the identity of the two coaches he would want alongside him on a desert island, Jürgen Klopp’s instant response was: “Pep and Daniel Farke.”
Thomas Tuchel is another friend, dating from the days when Farke was reserve-team coach at Borussia Dortmund and Tuchel was the manager. The pair’s bond was fortified by a brand of humour often evident in Yorkshire, where Farke memorably declared he would celebrate last April’s promotion by becoming “a fire beast”.
He has subsequently explained he is “95% coffee and cake on the sofa and 5% fire beast” but, if “relaxing with a good book” on that couch is his preferred antidote to stress, the 49-year-old German never envisaged a working life spent patrolling technical areas.
As a lower-division striker, mainly with Lippstadt in his native North Rhine‑Westphalia, Farke was an excellent finisher betrayed by a pronounced lack of pace. “I was the slowest striker in all Europe,” he jokes. He was also very disciplined. Not content with eschewing alcohol until he retired from playing, Farke combined football with academic studies, ending up with an MA in economics. That was followed by a diploma in sporting directorship, the career Farke identified as providing a potentially ideal balance between football and family life with his wife and children. The only problem was that, when he became sporting director at Lippstadt, there was no budget to employ a manager, so Farke combined both jobs. Once the team rose from the sixth tier to the fourth, destiny called.
While Farke’s ability to improve players was emphasised when, in 2024, Leeds sold Georginio Rutter, Archie Gray and Crysencio Summerville for more than £100m, Leeds’ class of 2026 is a triumph of team building. If Ethan Ampadu’s captaincy has proved inspired, the manager’s determination to keep faith with the now-influential Brenden Aaronson and Calvert‑Lewin in the face of considerable initial criticism from supporters is paying dividends.
Leeds’ former Milan forward Noah Okafor highlights his manager’s capacity for winning hearts and minds. “I needs loads of confidence to perform,” he says. “He has given me that. When I need to improve he tells me straight, but he makes hard work fun.”
When Farke quit Krasnodar after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, his parting message was: “We wanted to pursue sporting goals with joy and fun but life’s serious side took over.” Four years on, the wider world is even messier but, as the critics he continues to confound would surely agree, Farke has reintroduced Leeds fans to joy.