It is an extravagant and perhaps sacrilegious claim given the reverence with which he is treated. roast It is celebrated in Uruguay and Argentina, two meat-loving countries, but there has never been a bigger barbecue than the one that took place in Máximo Paz in October 2006.
Marcelo Bielsa, in the midst of a lengthy footballing hiatus following his departure from the Argentina national team in 2004, welcomed Pep Guardiola to his ranch in Argentina’s Santa Fe province for food, drinks and endless football chatter.
Guardiola, at the end of his decorated playing career and considering a move into coaching, embarked on a voyage of discovery in Argentina, speaking to figures including 1978 World Cup winner Cesar Luis Menotti and former Mexico coach Ricardo La Volpe.
Former Argentine striker Gabriel Batistuta insisted to Guardiola that if he really wanted to stay in charge, he should look for Bielsa. And so a meeting was arranged that has become part of football folklore through numerous stories.
David Trueba, the Spanish filmmaker and writer, accompanied his friend Guardiola and, after his own argument with Bielsa about cinema, ended up being used as a dummy in tactical demonstrations.
“There were complicated questions,” recalled Trueba in an article about the meeting for The country“Bielsa asked him: ‘Why do you, who know all the rubbish that surrounds the world of football, the high degree of dishonesty of certain people, still want to go back there and dedicate yourself to coaching?’. Pep didn’t think twice. ‘I need that blood.'”
A wonderfully scripted anecdote, as you might expect, although Guardiola told DAZN in 2020 that Trueba could have cleverly rewritten the moment.
“The story didn’t go like that. When we were talking about the media, I was the one who said to him: ‘If we complain so much about a world that sometimes doesn’t let us live, why don’t you train a youth or more amateur team and forget about the professional world?’. It was he who answered me: ‘I need that blood.'”
Here we are, almost two decades later, and Bielsa is still here looking for blood, most recently Brazilian, in search of the primal emotions that his football at its best always provides.
Marcelo Bielsa’s tactics
Bielsa’s approach, as Brazil experienced before being eliminated from the Copa America in a quarter-final penalty shoot-out, is defined by a frenetic and relentless high press. During the early stages in Las Vegas, the Seleção found themselves propped up and battered like an outclassed contender in a boxing title fight.
A second-half red card for Nahitan Nandez demonstrated how, for better or worse, Bielsa’s style is one that operates on the edge both out of possession and with the ball, where his teams play high-tempo, expansive attacking football.
“If you ask me if there are risks [with my playing style]”There are risks,” he said before the match against Brazil.[But] “If you ask me how to attack better, taking risks or not, it is better to attack by taking risks. You cannot tell a player: ‘You have to go out and play, but it is impossible for you to make a mistake.'”
While that sounds intense, Bielsa has mellowed considerably. During his transformative spell in charge of Newell’s Old Boys between 1990 and 1992, his boyhood club suffered a 6-0 defeat to San Lorenzo in the Copa Libertadores group stage.
“I locked myself in my room, turned off the light, closed the curtains and realised the true meaning of an expression that we sometimes use lightly: I wanted to die,” Bielsa recalled, according to Jonathan Wilson’s anthology of Argentine football history. Angels with dirty faces“I burst into tears. I couldn’t understand what was happening around me. I suffered as a professional and I suffered as a fan.”
After heart-to-heart talks with his wife Laura and his Newell’s players, Bielsa concluded that he still had a future in football and doubled down on his bet. It’s no exaggeration to say that decision has proven to be an almost priceless gift to the sport. In 2021, when “El Loco” was in charge of Premier League side Leeds United, The Telegraph He estimated that of the 280 retired former players who had worked with him, 163 were working as coaches.
Marcelo Bielsa manages teams and manages players
After a modest playing career, Bielsa worked as a youth coach and scout for Newell’s in his native Rosario. He led the second team before becoming first-team coach in 1990.
Aside from the deeply introspective episode recounted above, Newell’s won the Primera División Apertura in 1990 and the Clausura in 1992. In the latter year, they lost the Copa Libertadores final on penalties to Sao Paulo.
In defence, the team featured its most famous disciple outside of Guardiola and a more direct pupil of his methods. Mauricio Pochettino played alongside Lionel Messi’s current coach at Inter Miami, Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino, and Eduardo Berizzo, who has since followed in Bielsa’s footsteps by taking charge of Athletic Bilbao and Chile.
“The most important thing everyone should know is that he is a very special man.” Pochettino told Sky Sports in 2020“He’s a very different character and a very different coach who believes in a different way of playing, a method of his own that he created for training.”
That very different approach and Bielsa’s signature 3-3-3-1 formation would gain further recognition when he moved into international coaching. After spells in Mexico with Atlas and Club América, he took charge of Vélez Sarsfield and led the Buenos Aires club to the 1998 Clausura.
It remains his last major honour, but Bielsa’s reputation as a visionary has only blossomed since. His domestic success led to him being appointed Argentina’s head coach after an abortive spell in Spain with Espanyol. Bielsa’s tenure ultimately failed to bear fruit, amid much glitter and promise.
At the 1999 Copa América, the Albiceleste lost 3-0 to Colombia, amid the ridiculous situation of Martín Palermo missing three penalties. The Albiceleste topped CONMEBOL’s qualifying phase for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, although they were unlucky not to make it through a tough group alongside England, Sweden and Nigeria.
A heartbreaking penalty shoot-out defeat to Brazil in the 2004 Copa America final preceded what would prove to be Bielsa’s swansong with Argentina, leading his under-23 side to a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics. “I have the influence of several coaches. Bielsa was the one who taught me the most,” said historic Atletico Madrid manager and then-Argentina midfielder Diego Simeone of their time together.
He then spent some time away from the game and in front of the barbecue before being joined by Berizzo to coach Chile between 2007 and 2011. A different football culture and more minds were won over, but the promise of an appearance in the last 16 of the 2010 World Cup was extinguished when a conflict with the national board led him to resign the following year.
One of Bielsa’s greatest achievements in building his reputation came when his team, Athletic Bilbao (under the now highly-rated Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola), reached the finals of both the Copa del Rey and the UEFA Europa League. The romantic fatalism of his footballing odyssey was reinforced by the fact that he lost both finals 3-0 – the first to Guardiola’s Barcelona and the second to Simeone’s Atlético.
In the 2014/15 season, Bielsa had a similarly exciting season in charge of Marseille. Following defeat in the opening game of the following season against Caen, he resigned citing conflicts with the board. At least, the French giants got a good deal out of Bielsa. He resigned three days after being appointed head coach of Lazio in July 2016, having concluded that the Serie A club would not support him as he wished in the transfer market.
Less than half a season at Lille brought another resounding failure. By now, Bielsa’s reputation as a difficult and inflexible ideologue (and that affectionate nickname used back in the day) had begun to undermine him as a viable candidate for top-flight positions.
The legacy of Marcelo Beisla: “The best coach in the world”
Given Bielsa’s rarefied status in the game, it seems a little odd that he would take charge of a northern English side that had not been in the Premier League for 15 years when he arrived.
But his fall from popularity coincided with perhaps his greatest advocate racking up trophies in unprecedented style at Manchester City.
“My admiration for Marcelo Bielsa is enormous because he makes players better, much, much better,” Guardiola said in a May 2017 eulogy that would long outlive Bielsa’s appointment at Lille to which he was responding at the time. “I have yet to meet any former player of Marcelo Bielsa who would speak about him.” [badly] about him. They are grateful for his influence on their careers and on football. He helped me a lot with his advice. I feel that he wants to help me.
“It doesn’t matter how many titles he won in his career. We are always judged by the success we had and the titles we won and that is less important than the influence Marcelo has had on football and on the players. That is why he is for me the best coach in the world.”
When Guardiola, a pioneer in his own right, proved those who doubted his model of play in England wrong, many were driven to seek their own version. Leeds United opted to lay the foundation stone.
While his previous appointments were less than successful, the unlikely partnership between a bespectacled Argentine and a club that wears its Yorkshire heritage on its sleeve quickly seemed a perfect one. Fans saw Bielsa make Guardiola’s words a reality as a team of moderate Championship players blazed a trail to promotion.
In true Bielsa fashion, Leeds were beaten in the play-off semi-finals by Derby County, a team they had beaten three times in four games and whose manager Frank Lampard was furious that a member of Bielsa’s staff was caught spying on his training ground earlier in the season.
Surely, that would be it, as it all went downhill after the initial boost under Bielsa. But Leeds came back under their maverick leader and claimed automatic promotion as champions. Not only did they stay in the Premier League, but they achieved a brilliant top-half finish in the 2020/21 season as a big man lived up to his lofty reputation. In the eyes of Leeds fans, he rose above it and became a sporting immortal. Murals of him still adorn walls across the city.
That is the blood Bielsa needed and still needs. Much as he is admired by those working in the more rarefied spaces of football, his best work has been with underprivileged and marginalised teams: winning the Argentine title with a club from outside Buenos Aires, wowing a proud Basque club and restoring the pride of the fans at a struggling Leeds side.
Uruguay has that combination of being a fringe team with a historic streak of glory. The two-time World Cup winners have a higher level than any other nation in international sport, considering their population of just 3.4 million.
The physical toll of the Brazil game means it cannot be savoured alongside Bielsa’s more iconic victories. However, as Colombia await in the semi-finals before a possible Copa America final against Argentina, their biggest triumph of all could be just two games away. Even if such trinkets do not motivate Bielsa, it would be a victory appreciated around the world.
