In the summer, Huddersfield Town set a secret test for potential signings.
Players they were interested in were sent to a meeting room on an industrial estate in Cleckheaton that was difficult to find for their first meeting with club recruitment staff.
The idea was intended as a litmus test for new recruits: did they and their agents have the wherewithal to find it? Would the venue put them off?
As it turned out, none got lost. All of them turned up half an hour before Head of Football Operations Leigh Bromby – who had worked with psychologists to pitch those recruitment meetings to weed out characters who wouldn’t fit into the group they were building.
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Powered by what they call “Terrier spirit” – a unity that reflects the town they represent and gives them the ability to punch above their weight – they are currently mounting a good case to be English football’s biggest overachievers.
Before a ball was kicked, they were 50-1 long shots for the Championship title, but they can move into the automatic promotion places if they beat Peterborough on Friday.
You wouldn’t bet against them. They have not lost for 15 matches under the astute tutelage of Carlos Corberan, a disciple of Marcelo Bielsa whose methods bear the hallmarks of his obsessive mentor.
For Lewis O’Brien, the midfielder who has been at the club since he was 10 years old, through the good times and bad, it is proving an enjoyable ride.
“We’re in a good place now, we’re on this run and it’s bringing an extra 10 to 15 per cent into the dressing room,” he tells i.
“Possibly we had a better team last year but the players have knuckled down so well. The club have made a real effort to get that chemistry and it’s working.
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“We are driven, we’re honest with each other, we’re all on the same level, we’ve all got the same aim.”
O’Brien has been one of the main beneficiaries of Corberan’s second season success. Encouraged to free himself from the defensive shackles of previous seasons, he scored his third goal of the campaign from midfield in the 2-0 defeat of Birmingham.
“In the last two seasons I ran around a lot but probably into the wrong positions, to be honest,” he says.
“I think he just moulded me as a player, got me a bit more composed on the ball and thinking a lot more about my attacking phases and getting into the box.”
Corberan is a football zealot. “He just lives and breathes football – everything is about football and you can’t have a normal conversation with him about things,” O’Brien says.
“That’s what makes him unique. He watches numerous videos of the teams we’re playing and sometimes, when you’re playing Friday – Monday he ends up watching five videos of both teams. It sounds impossible but he gets to the nitty gritty of what we need to know and seems to find out every single weakness of our opponents and where we can exploit them.”
A critical moment for the club was a summer decision to turn down a bid from Leeds for O’Brien, the club’s down-to-earth talisman whose energy in midfield makes him a crucial part of Corberan’s plan.
Instead he penned a new long-term contract in a sign the club was regrouping after the brush with relegation in the 2020-1 season.
“I just think it was the right option to extend the contract. There was a lot of buzz about other teams and bids coming in and getting turned down but I was focused on my career,” he said.
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The campaign did not start well with a crushing defeat at home to Fulham, but they have not looked back. “It’s just taken time for his methods to start paying off,” O’Brien says.
Those who pay attention in the world of Academy football have long earmarked him as a Premier League player in waiting. He may now get there with Huddersfield – not that Corberan is allowing the players to dwell on the possibility of promotion.
“We don’t think about it. Carlos is very strict on not letting us speak about promotion, about going game for game. Our aim is just to improve – and get Carlos’ ideas and theories out of the field.”
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