Marcelo Bielsa’s impact means Leeds fans are now all Uruguay, aren’t they? — The Athletic 10/6/24

By Nancy Froston

The dream sequence for most Leeds United fans probably goes something like this:

Marcelo Bielsa, down on his haunches in the technical area, casts a steely gaze over the top of his glasses. His team, playing in a brilliant-white kit, carve through their opponents with startlingly efficient speed. From back to front in five passes, with the centre-forward turning home his third goal, and the team’s fourth, of the game. It is lethal, intense, a joy to watch for their supporters who rise in celebration.

The dream is real but, sadly for Leeds fans, the team in white is not theirs.

But Bielsaball has crashed back into English football’s consciousness, although heady memories of the recent past never really went far away at Elland Road. Instead of his great Premier League promotion-winning Leeds team of the 2019-20 season, the moment captured in the clip doing the rounds on social media is of the Uruguay national team he now manages as they stormed to a 4-0 lead after 49 minutes of a pre-Copa America friendly against Mexico this week.

It makes football look easy. And so, with a long, Leeds-free month ahead until the players return to begin pre-season training, maybe the best thing for the Elland Road faithful to do is lean into getting behind Bielsa’s boys in white (and sometimes light blue) as they head off to contest the Copa America in the U.S.

In Bielsa’s latest managerial project, and first since he was fired by Leeds in February 2022 as relegation back to the EFL loomed, Uruguay have enjoyed a remarkable transformation under the 68-year-old Argentine, winning seven and drawing two of his 11 games, including impressive 2-0 victories over both Brazil and reigning Copa America and World Cup holders Argentina.

Only the second non-Uruguayan to lead their national team, in his year in the role Bielsa has been able to transform an ageing side into a dominant force when in possession who offer plenty of punch in attack.

There is a reason Bielsa has the nickname ‘El Loco’ and transitioning national-team stalwarts Luis Suarez, Fernando Muslera and Edinson Cavani out of the side — amid reports of him calling up forward Walter Dominguez, who plays in the country’s amateur leagues — did little to help that.

As it turned out, the Dominguez stories were not correct, but the decision to breathe new life into the team was an entirely sound if unpopular one. After a disappointing group-stage exit at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Bielsa called up 14 uncapped players and scouted at grounds up and down the country to build a team capable of challenging at this summer’s Copa America.

Cavani announced his international retirement last month at the age of 37, having not added to his 136 caps since the World Cup 18 months ago, and while 138-cap fellow striker Suarez, now playing alongside Lionel Messi with Inter Miami in MLS, earned a recall in November, the 37-year-old does not look to be part of Bielsa’s plans for the tournament. Goalkeeper Muslera, 37 and with 133 caps, called time on his Uruguay career in April, having also not figured since Qatar 2022.

As an international manager, Bielsa explained to the questioning Uruguayan media that he cares about three factors when it comes to player selection: what they have done in the past, what they are doing now and if they are available for selection. Case closed, in true Bielsa fashion and against a backdrop of a team performing well having rapidly taken on his ideas.

He has got the best from a maligned striker in Liverpool’s Darwin Nunez, who has fitted perfectly into Bielsa’s 4-2-3-1 system. Sound familiar?

Patrick Bamford’s tallies of 16 and 17 goals in 2019-20 and 2020-21 (the latter in the Premier League) under Bielsa represent two of the three best league seasons of his career, and are comfortably the best ones of his six years at Leeds.

Nunez, who has not reached the heights many expected of him since moving to Anfield from Portugal’s Benfica in a €100million (£84.9m/$108m at the current exchange rates) deal in summer 2022, became the first player ever to score in five consecutive appearances in a Bielsa team that night against Mexico. The 24-year-old’s hat-trick of goals in that game all came on first-time finishes as Uruguay completed their warm-up schedule before they face Panama, Bolivia and the United States in the group stage this summer, with the first of those matches on June 23 (the early hours of June 24 in Leeds).

Uruguay are aiming for their 16th Copa America title this summer. They are level with Argentina for most wins with 15 each, but have fallen short in the past four tournaments since being crowned South American champions in 2011.

The Bielsa blueprint is easy to see in the goals scored against Mexico.

The first, scored by Nunez after an overlapping run by right-back Nahitan Nandez, who plays his club football for Cagliari in Italy’s Serie A, is a movement seen so often in the manager’s days at Elland Road when Luke Ayling advanced up the wing to create overloads.

Goal two by Facundo Pellistri, the Manchester United winger who spent last season on loan to Granada in Spain’s La Liga, has all the familiar moves of one scored by Liam Cooper in a similarly impressive rout when Leeds beat Stoke City 5-0 late in that successful 2019-20 promotion campaign. The checked runs by both Cooper and Pellistri to withdraw and receive the ball then turn it home show the identity Bielsa has managed to give his new side.

And just as Uruguay now look like Leeds did then, Bielsa’s Leeds scored goals just like Chile did when he was manager of their national team from 2007-11.

Pablo Hernandez’s first of a brace in a 3-2 Championship win against Millwall in April 2019 bears an incredible resemblance to one by Fabian Orellana in a 1-0 defeat of Argentina in World Cup qualifying over a decade before.

Bielsaball is alive and well once again.

All Uruguay, aren’t we?