Rosario’s other chosen one — El Loco
What is the difference between winning and losing, between leaving behind a legacy and being derided as a nearly man? If you ask Marcelo Bielsa, he might tell you that it can be as little as 24 seconds.
In his six years in charge of the Argentina national team, the man they call El Loco [The Crazy One], won 42 and lost just 10 of 68 matches. That spell included the World’s Best National Coach award in 2001, after Argentina romped through the notoriously difficult South American World Cup qualifying campaign with 13 wins and just one loss from 18 matches. They finished 12 points clear of Ecuador in second. Brazil and Paraguay were a further point behind.
Unfortunately for Bielsa and Argentina, while the draw found Brazil grouped with Turkey, Costa Rica and China, Argentina had to contend with England, Sweden and Nigeria. Having scored 42 goals in qualifying — Brazil managed just 31 — Argentine were eliminated after finding the net just twice in Japan. David Beckham’s penalty proved decisive as the two European sides moved into the second round.
For Argentina, that marked the end of the post-Diego Maradona golden generation. But Bielsa wasn’t finished. He rebuilt, and a team that scored 14 goals in five matches made it to the Copa America final in Lima in 2004. Awaiting them were Brazil, World Cup winners two years earlier.
When you watch the footage, you realise how some things haven’t changed in Bielsa’s world. As a delightful backheel from Carlos Tevez sent Lucho Gonzalez through only for Luisao’s clumsy tackle to bring him down in the box, Bielsa paced up and down the touchline. By the time the other Gonzalez, Kily, buried the penalty, he was sitting on his haunches — no bucket to be found? — showing barely a flicker of emotion.
Luisao made amends on the stroke of half time, and as the second half played out, the stalemate was maintained. With just three minutes of the regulation 90 remaining, Cesar Delgado capitalised on some calamitous Brazilian defending to lash the ball home. By now, on one bended knee as though about to be knighted, Bielsa allowed himself a couple of discrete fist pumps before getting to his feet. Argentina’s 11-year wait for a major title — they did win Olympic gold in 2004 and 2008, but the world’s best players don’t always grace that competition — was almost over.
The broadcasters were already replaying Delgado’s potentially trophy-winning goal as the game entered the third and final minute of added time. Then, from a free kick in their own half, Brazil moved the ball forward. This was no silken move reminiscent of the legendary teams of 1970 and 1982. Instead, there was a hopeful punt into the penalty area, much as you’d see in a game between teams in the lower reaches of the Championship. After a couple of seconds of pinball in the area, the ball ricocheted out to Adriano.
At 22, he was in his prime, a far cry from the cruel, beached-whale jokes that overshadowed the latter half of his career. Adriano controlled, swivelled and thumped the ball home with his left foot. The switch had been flipped off on the celebratory songs and chants of the Argentine fans who had journeyed to Peru. There were 24 seconds left.
Brazil went on to win the penalty shootout. The script was wearily familiar for Bielsa. With his beloved Newell’s 12 years earlier, he lost the Copa Libertadores final to Brazil’s Sao Paulo in a shootout. In 2012, his Athletic Bilbao, who had embarrassed and outplayed Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United in the last 16, lost the Europa League final 3–0 to Atletico Madrid.
These setbacks can be used as evidence of Bielsa’s ability being overhyped. That’s the easy option. It’s far more interesting, however, to trace the direct influence he has had on the game’s evolution. The coach alongside him on the touchline for that Europa League final was Diego Simeone, the 50 year old who has transformed Atletico from tragic joke to the only real opposition to the Real-Barca duopoly.
Simeone was once the defensive midfield fulcrum of Bielsa’s Argentina sides. It doesn’t end there. His Newell’s captain, Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino, went on to coach Barcelona for a season. A young Mauricio Pochettino, who led Tottenham Hotspur to the Champions League final in 2019, was one of his centre-backs in Rosario. Eduardo Berizzo, another from that Newell’s side, has coached Bilbao and Sevilla. Fernando Gamboa and Alfredo Berti have both gone on to manage Newell’s, as has Ricardo Lunari, the forward from that 1992 side.
You don’t even need to ask them who has been the biggest influence on their coaching careers.
Modern-day coaching is supposed to be a younger man’s game. Zinedine Zidane, the only contemporary coach to win the Champions League three years in succession, is just 48. Pep Guardiola, who has won multiple titles in three major European leagues — Spain, Germany and England — is a year older. Jurgen Klopp, who beat him to the Premier League title this season, is 53.
Thomas Tuchel, whose Paris Saint-Germain players have been able to focus exclusively on the Champions League knockout stages since the French season was cut short due to the pandemic, is just 46. Julian Nagelsmann, whose stellar work with first Hoffenheim and then RB Leipzig has put him firmly in the sights of the continent’s A-list clubs, is a 32-year-old stripling. Pochettino, who’ll be right at the top of the list for every big club contemplating a managerial change this summer, is 48.
Suddenly, the likes of the 61-year-old Carlo Ancelotti, one of only three men to win the Champions League/European Cup thrice, and 57-year-old Jose Mourinho — a title winner in four countries — seem like yesterday’s men, especially with neither part of the Champions League landscape for the upcoming season.
But stop the presses. The two most fascinating coaching stories of this elongated and bizarre season have been authored by two men in their 60s. In Italy, they don’t even need to vote for the Serie A coach of the year. Maurizio Sarri, now 61, may win the title with Juventus, but Gian Piero Gasperini, who has led little, unfashionable Atalanta into the last eight of the Champions League and back into the top four in Serie A, is a shoo-in for the top coaching honour.
Gasperini, whose spell in the big time with Internazionale lasted less than three months, is now 62, but even he will concede that the Veteran of the Year honours can only go to the man who turns 65 on July 21, the coaching sage who has restored the fortunes of one of English football’s most famous clubs.
When Bielsa was unexpectedly named Leeds United manager in the summer of 2018, it seemed a readymade chapter for Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Since their relegation from the Premier League in 2004, Leeds hadn’t finished higher than fifth in the Championship, English football’s second tier. Their average placing in the eight seasons preceding Bielsa’s arrival was 12th, the epitome of mid-table mediocrity.
The cynical might have said it was a perfect match. Bielsa, despite being revered by coaches and football geeks on five continents, hasn’t won much. His two Argentine titles with Newell’s Old Boys, his hometown club, came nearly three decades ago. His last national title, with Velez Sarfield in Argentina, was back in 1998. While those with no great reputation for tactical innovation have filled their trophy cabinets, Bielsa has become a cult figure mostly on the basis of his sheer belief in his principles and the meticulousness of his preparation — his dossiers on opponents can be as detailed as a NASA launch manual.
A fallen giant like Leeds was in some ways the perfect destination for him. After years of utter dross, both owners and fans alike were happy to give him a blank canvas on which to do as he pleased. And after the devastating low of last season, when promotion hopes were destroyed by a late-season meltdown, the masterpiece is now complete.
Leeds, the most consistent team in the land at a time when Sir Matt Busby managed Manchester United and Bill Shankly was in charge of Liverpool — they didn’t finish out of the top four between 1964 and ’74, winning the title twice — can finally dream of better days, and red-letter nights at Anfield, Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge. The title may be a bridge too far even for Bielsa — Leeds simply don’t have the financial muscle to take on the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool — but there’s no reason why the team can’t thrill fans as they did for a few seasons either side of the new millennium.
There are few football fans out there who don’t recognise Rosario as the hometown of Lionel Messi, one of the greatest players the game has seen. What they may not know is that Messi spent six years in the youth sides at Newell’s before making his way to Barcelona at 13. He has often expressed his desire to finish his career there in the red-and-black shirt.
Rosario is home to just over a million people, the third largest city in Argentina. Its most famous son has inspired millions of boys and girls to lace up their football boots. But the influence of another, older, local hero on the game is perhaps even more profound. If you love English football, the upcoming season promises to be even more compelling viewing. Not only are Leeds back to renew old rivalries, but Bielsa and his bucket should be there too, masterminding tactical plans that could discomfit more than one young pretender.
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