FEATURE: Marcelo Bielsa - Madman or Visionary

In the context of Uruguay and the World Cup, Jon Bonfiglio takes an in-depth look at the life, thinking and choices of footballing auteur Marcelo Bielsa. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Marcelo Alberto Bielsa Caldera, born on July 21, 1955, in Rosario, Argentina, where many of Argentina's footballing grades were born, including, of course, Leo Messi himself. As with many other individuals and especially footballing individuals in Latin America, Bielsa also has a nickname. And whilst for most people these nicknames are something of an accident and relates to, I don't know, height or something they wore as a child, or a physical quirk, for Bielsa, his nickname relates directly to his character and his management style. He is known both in fear and adoration as El Loco or the Madman. And at this World Cup, Bielsa may well have taken that term to a new level. As a player, he played in defense for a variety of Argentine clubs, including Newell's Old Boys, Instituto, and Argentino de Rosario. And he also represented the Argentina under-23 national team in 1976. But the real richness of his story begins off the field, where he rapidly became known as one of the game's great thinkers, and his aura spread even faster than his jobs, gaining him roles not just in Argentina, but also in Mexico with Atlas, then Globo America in the 90s, Espanol in Spain, and on to the Argentina national side between 1998 and 2004. Then the Chilean national side between 2007 and 2011, Athletic Club in Bilbao, Lazio in Italy, Lille in France, and then Leeds United between 2018 and 2022, where he has something approaching mythic status, having returned them to the Premier League after 16 years away. In all of these cases, the choice was deliberate. I mean, in almost all, maybe America is an outlier there or the Argentine national side. But in all of the rest, he never took a top job, but took on a challenge at a club which had some kind of, in his mind, moral purpose or historical moral purpose, and which he could shape in his image. The Uruguayan national side of today is no different. Trapped between the bigger siblings at its borders of Brazil and Argentina, it is a coaching role which is distinctly against the odds. And as with many of his other teams, the identity is one which is necessarily collective. Even if Uruguay regularly produces good, not to say great players, the collective Uruguayan football identity is to fight always and together. With Uruguay ahead of this World Cup, Bielsa achieved a historic 2-0 win over Brazil, ending Brazil's 22-year unbeaten streak against Uruguay in official matches, and also beat world champions Argentina 2-0, ending their 10-year unbeaten run against Uruguay. Until a pre-tournament lull, in fact, in which results started to go against him, and rumors of discontent began to emerge from the Uruguayan dressing room. As is Bielsa's way, though, for good or for ill, he pays no heed to external factors and he chose to double down. Rather than conceding space to player power, and it won in what was a counterintuitive, a thoroughly counterintuitive mood, uh move, especially in these days of player primacy over coach, he hardened and drove them further, distancing himself into a role of harsh, disengaged parent, the sort of role which is often regarded in the modern world as being close to abusive. He just does not praise his players, but demands more of them. In the draw with Saudi Arabia, for example, he could have lauded the second half reaction of his side to adversity, a side uh who had played in that second half an incredible dominating period. But instead, he simply chose to say that they just should have won, that it was expected of them. At the same time, at the official World Cup photo shoot, Bielsa refused to look at the camera, stared at the ground, and when asked, simply said that he was not a model. Bielsa, you see, has a history of doubling down. During his time at Leeds, a staff member was found observing Derby County's training session before a match. Rather than deny it, Bielsa admitted full responsibility and then held a press conference revealing he had done the same for every opponent that season, presenting detailed analytical dossiers on each team. Leeds were fined £200,000, and a formal rule was introduced making it an offense to watch another team's training within 72 hours of a match. Bielsa is not at the World Cup for anything outside of the football. And it's a statement he is making very clear to his players by his own actions. There is nothing else. He is obsessive, so they too must be obsessive. There is one chance, and there is nothing else. It's no surprise that many of his players don't like it, but will they get fully behind El Loco? There were signs in the second half against Saudabia that they just might. It's a really crazy move, but Bielsa is no fool, and he knows that Uruguay at their best need to dive into their everything is against us street dog qualities. He is, it seems, deliberately antagonizing his players into what he hopes is collective purpose and action. It's a high-risk move, little doubt, and one which could, if he fails, taint his reputation. But you know, his reputation was not built on caring about his reputation, but about making whatever decision he felt he needed to make to get the best out of the people, the collective, and the identity of who and what he was engaged with at that moment in time. Bielser is no footballing poet, but he is a highly unusual marshalling general, at his best with limited resources and a bigger, greater, better resourced foe waiting on the horizon. With Uruguay at this World Cup, he is making no friends and is risking his entire reputation on an outlier strategy with no recent historical track record of success. Can he pull it off? Well, that's a big, big question.