-
Tim Vickery, South America correspondent
Soccer’s pied piper is again in enterprise, able to enchant his subsequent group of younger gamers and lead them ahead, all the time ahead — Marcelo Bielsa has been named Uruguay‘s new coach by means of the 2026 World Cup.
It implies that an astonishing seven of CONMEBOL’s 10 nations at the moment are coached by an Argentine — together with Chile‘s onetime Bielsa assistant Eduardo Berizzo. Brazil, nonetheless with no coach, will stay an apparent exception. The opposite two — Ecuador and Peru — had been solely just lately coached efficiently by Argentines. Certainly, after the respective resignations of Gustavo Alfaro and Ricardo Gareca, each of those nations had been rumoured to be all for hiring Bielsa.
However the 67-year-old has lengthy felt an affinity with Uruguay — its excessive cultural stage, its gentility off the sector and its dedication to the trigger on the pitch — and as soon as they got here knocking he was open to the concept. It’s a place the place he feels at house. This isn’t a job the place a translator shall be needed. The nuances of Bielsa’s florid, idiosyncratic Spanish will simply be understood.
Premier League followers will primarily know Bielsa from his time with Leeds United — and should recall his spell in Spain with Athletic Membership. He was reportedly in negotiation to take the Everton job. However it’s definitely controversial that his finest work — and the place he actually made his title — was with South American nationwide groups.
He was not a very well-known determine when he took cost of Argentina in 1998. True, a very powerful second, the 2002 World Cup, was a convincing flop. However his workforce had been excellent in qualification, sweeping all earlier than them. Come the event, like a lot of the favourites, Argentina had been merely not recent sufficient to present their finest — a large downside in a method of play depending on dynamism. However Bielsa stepped down on a excessive, quickly after profitable the gold medal on the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
His four-year spell with Chile (2007-2011) was most likely much more spectacular. He took over a gaggle of extremely promising children — Chile had reached the semifinals of the 2007 Beneath-20 World Cup — who had been bold and eager to study. Chilean soccer had lacked a historic id, nevertheless it was splendid spot for Bielsa to implement his concepts of high-intensity, high-pressing, high-line, proactive soccer.
Chile had been the neutrals’ favourites within the 2010 World Cup, and by reaching the second spherical they loved their finest event apart from 1962, which they hosted. As successor and self-confessed Bielsa disciple Jorge Sampaoli acknowledged, it was Bielsa who laid the foundations for Chile’s first ever silverware, the Copa America triumph of 2015.
There are specific similarities with the state of affairs wherein Uruguay at the moment discover themselves. The reboot carried out within the epic reign of Oscar Washington Tabarez (coach from 2006-2021) introduced Uruguay again to soccer’s prime desk. A gaggle of gamers who got here during the Tabarez years and the quick tenure of Diego Alonso at the moment are making ready to depart the scene after 4 straight World Cup appearances. And the emphasis positioned by Tabarez on the Beneath-20 facet means that there’s a conveyor belt of expertise — in extraordinary numbers for a rustic with a inhabitants of simply 3 million — prepared to exchange them.
Bielsa, then, has loads of expertise to work with. Some would possibly suppose that Bielsa and Uruguay is a wierd match, that La Celeste would somewhat take refuge in blanket defence than observe Bielsa’s attacking lead. That is half fact, half stereotype. In 2003, Juan Ramon Carrasco had a quick however fascinating ultra-attacking spell in cost, and a lesson from the Tabarez years is that the workforce is able to tactical flexibility.
As so typically with Bielsa, the check is the response after the detrimental outcome which is all the time a risk in such a excessive danger mannequin of play. However it’s not arduous to think about him developing a workforce across the midfield dynamism of Actual Madrid‘s Federico Valverde, with Liverpool‘s Darwin Nunez forward of him and Barcelona‘s Ronald Araujo patrolling the backline.
And he could have an extended, arduous take a look at the approaching era. Bielsa is eager to take cost of the Beneath-23s for qualification for the 2024 Olympics in Paris, which is a crucial event for Uruguay.
The beginning of the trendy age of soccer can virtually definitely be dated from the 1924 Video games, when the little identified South Individuals astonished all comers on their method to the gold medal. When Uruguay repeated as gold medalists in 1928, the concept of a worldwide soccer event turned needed and inevitable.
Uruguay give the identical weight to these two gold medals as to their World Cup titles — the inaugural 1930 event as hosts over Argentina and their historic upset over favourites Brazil in 1950 — which is all symbolised by their 4 stars on the crest.
Subsequent yr in Paris would be the centenary of that first gold medal, again in the identical metropolis the place historical past was made. Teaching the workforce hoping to win a spot is an enormous duty — and additionally it is an opportunity for Bielsa to sift by means of the kids and quick observe a few of them into the senior squad.
And so the pied piper stands able to play his favorite tune, within the hope of main Uruguay on a merry dance all the best way from the southern cone, by way of Paris, and presumably glory on the 2026 World Cup.