Leeds United new man's F1 Silverstone encounter and Uber talks reveal mentality impression
Lukas Nmecha's encounter with a Leeds United fan at this summer's British Grand Prix gave him an insight into the city's mentality but inside the camp it has to be different.
The striker made the move from Bundesliga side Wolfsburg this summer, becoming the first new signing through the door. Nmecha was a free transfer and has since been joined by six fellow new boys. Before the end of the window it is likely there will be up to four more, all of whom will need to quickly get to grips with what it means to live and play football in a one-club city.
It did not take long for Leeds to make a strong first impression on Nmecha. "More than anything, just the size of it," he told the YEP. "I've never been in a city where everyone has been a supporter of a club. I don't know what it's like for DJ [Dan James] or whoever to walk around town, but where I came from, it was a quiet, work based city, and here is literally, you get in an Uber and they start speaking about Leeds. You get to a restaurant, they know kind of what's going on. So that's the biggest thing I noticed."
Nmecha was in the Leeds United party invited to Silverstone by club sponsors and minority shareholders Red Bull. He, Willy Gnonto and Largie Ramazani represented the club at the start of July and even there he came across Leeds fans. The encounter told him two things - reiterating just how big the club is and revealing the demands of a fanbase that expects a team to match their passion.
"I think everyone knows the potential - sleeping giant, as they told me," he said. "I think last year it seemed that everything went perfectly. I think it will be good for us as a team internally to manage expectations. I went to the [F1] race the other day and got told, 'let's try and get the Champions League places.' I think we know what the goal is, to stay in the league. And the thing that I'm most pleased about is that it seems to be that we're not changing too many things from the approach side from last season, which as a new player, that's obviously the only thing you can look to. We have our ideas. We have our principles. And I'm quite happy with how it's going.
"I think even though we've been promoted and we know it's gonna be a very tough year we have the feeling that the mindset is one of silent confidence, I would say we know that we have good players. Think there'll still be quite a few changes. I don't know what's gonna happen, but I think from the mentality side, I've been quite pleased [with] the players."
Nmecha has now had the benefit of a pre-season training camp to get to know his new team-mates. New boy or not, when he slipped on the turf at Hotel Klosterpforte during a series of sprints, he heard all about it from captain Ethan Ampadu. Just like any other player would. Getting to know who the characters are and what on-field relationships need to look like is all part of the process of bedding in at a new club because soon they will be relying on one another to do whatever it takes to keep Leeds in the Premier League.
"I think just in terms of characters, you see that Ethan's got that leadership role already, which I would say for still a young player is quite impressive," said Nmecha, two years the skipper's senior. "I think the new guys, including myself, that have come in, we've got to grips with things really, really quick. I think the main thing is just figuring out how to integrate ourselves into the team, start taking a few pointers. DJ likes doing this, Largie likes doing something else. I think you just kind of need to figure out your players. And yeah, there's a lot of quality in the team, for sure, but I think in this league, there's quality everywhere, so it's just gonna be in them small moments that we're gonna have to be mentally and definitely physically ready to run and to make the right decisions."