What is it like to play against a Marcelo Bielsa team? — The Athletic 30/6/24
By Nancy Froston
Huddersfield Town manager Danny Cowley’s assessment of his
team’s defeat to Leeds United in March 2020 was simple. “If you are going to be
outmanaged, then be outmanaged by a genius.”
The genius in question was Marcelo Bielsa. He was in the
middle of masterminding Leeds’ first promotion to the Premier League in 16
years. The Argentinian is still beloved for his achievements at Elland Road but
admiration for him extends far beyond West Yorkshire — he is revered by fans,
players and a generation of fellow managers alike for his work at Athletic
Bilbao, Newell’s Old Boys, Argentina, Chile and now Uruguay.
His teams have a blueprint in their style of play: one of
intense pressing, hard work and rotations. ‘Bielsaball’ is notoriously
difficult to play against at either domestic or international level. Teams at
this summer’s Copa America now have the challenge of stopping one of the
greatest tactical minds of his generation.
After two group-stage wins and an impressive first year of
results under Bielsa, Uruguay next face the USMNT. So, what is in store for
Gregg Berhalter’s players?
“Every team has passing patterns and so on but their desire
to win the ball is scary,” says Paul Warne, who came up against Bielsa’s Leeds
while managing Rotherham United in 2018-19. “The biggest thing about (Bielsa’s)
Leeds was their work off the ball. People talk all the time about how good they
were on the ball — and I’m not saying otherwise — but the reason they
controlled possession so much is because they press you so hard out of
possession.
“You get the ball back and they’re on you immediately,
forcing a mistake. Before long it starts to get into your head and it tires you
out. If the ball runs to your full-back, he either has to be sure to pick the
perfect pass there and then or they nick it back and they’re on top of you
again. It becomes exhausting. You don’t get time to breathe. What’s even worse
is that you’re in the dugout and you’ve got Bielsa next to you, sat on his
bucket like the calmest person in the stadium. You’d never see anyone else do
that. He reminds me of a rugby union coach.
“By Saturday, his work’s done. Everything’s been prepared so
meticulously through the week that he’s got the confidence to sit there and let
his team play. It’s like going on the X-Factor and being backstage next to
Elvis Presley with his collar turned up. You’re wearing jeans and a white
T-shirt and psychologically you fear the worst. That sounds awful but it’s also
the reality.”
Bielsa has long been famed for his preference to sit on a
bucket or water cooler in the technical area, pensively watching his team in
action. It adds to his mystical quality.
As the former Tottenham and Chelsea manager Mauricio
Pochettino, who played for Bielsa at Newell’s Old Boys and for Argentina, said
when he faced Leeds in the Premier League: “I faced him in Spain. To play
against his teams is always a beautiful challenge. For me, he’s a person I will
always admire. People call him ‘El Loco Bielsa’, but for me, he is not crazy at
all. For me, he’s a genius. A person with charisma and a personality very
different from us normal coaches, and that’s what makes him special.”
Pochettino is one of a generation of self-proclaimed
coaching disciples of Bielsa. His tactical nous is unrivalled. The side he
created that won the Championship title was unlike any the division had seen
before.
“We knew how intense they were — that’s what they set up to
be. There was no time on the ball for the opposition,” says former defender
Luke Chambers, who played against Leeds in 2018-19 while captain of Ipswich
Town. “Everyone was really fit, strong and athletic. He had those players so
well drilled that at that level it was difficult to stop them. They had pace in
wide areas, physicality through the middle of the team and goals from all over
the place. He set them up to be all-out attack and they didn’t really come away
from that, especially when they got promoted.
“You could tell he was a different level, the fact that he
got his team to play in that way in the Championship was one of the first teams
like that we’d seen with players coming inside and rolling in or full-backs
becoming wingers. If you set up with two up front, they would go with three at
the back. They would always have an outlet in relation to how you set up but
they were never that focused on you as a team. If we played one up front they
would have a back four, it would be two against one in the middle and they
would always have that confidence to switch.
“Bielsa always had his players knowing specific roles within
each position. When you look at some of the players they had there and what
they’ve gone on to, he improves his players. We tried to nullify certain areas
but they would change so quickly in game. He’s sat there and you can see he’s
watching so intensely that he’s so far ahead of people tactically, he can make
a change before it’s even needed.”
Ipswich lost once and won once, with the win coming on the
final day of the season as Leeds fell into the play-offs in 2018-19. In the
first fixture at Elland Road, they targeted Leeds with intense pressing out
wide but suffered with transitions through the middle. It is a problem other
teams faced when trying to play Bielsa at his own game as the former Luton Town
manager Graeme Jones described Leeds as “cutting through teams at will” when
playing them in 2019-20.
“The way they ran and the speed they played at was a massive
problem for us that night,” says Alex Pearce, who played for Millwall in a 3-2
defeat to Leeds in 2020. Leeds were 2-0 down at half-time but scored three
after the break to secure the win.
“The attacks keep coming when their tails are up and as it
goes on it forces you into mistakes. You lose sight of this player or you
forget to mark that player. You get distracted for a second and the ball’s in
the net. I wouldn’t quite put Leeds at the level of Wolves (who won the title
in 2018) but that game at Elland Road is one of the most powerful performances
I’ve come up against in the Championship and I’ve played a lot of games in this
league.”
Bielsa’s patterns of play and attention to detail — down to
rigorous fat testing of his players — have remained consistent throughout his
career. Goals scored by his Leeds, Chile and Uruguay teams can easily be mapped
on top of each other with incredible similarity. There is a manner and speed
with which players move the ball up the pitch from front to back.
“I know players that have played for him and they say how
demanding he is,” says Chambers. “That can only last so long in a team
environment but that probably suits an international environment because he
only sees his players sporadically. You can get that buy-in for two or three
years at a club but if things go a bit wrong and you’re still asking the same
group of players to do the same things it can be a struggle. He might suit
shorter-term spells at clubs but it’s an intensity that can work internationally.”
As Uruguay power on under Bielsa, the intense methods and
tactical intelligence that have made him a defining coach of his generation
appear to be working again. When opposition managers think they know how to
exploit weaknesses in his teams, Bielsa has an answer. Warne’s Rotherham tried
to send crosses from the right wing to the near post but had no luck.
“Here’s the problem,” Warne says. “First of all, you have to
get yourself into a good position down the right. Then you need your striker to
make a good run off the ball. Then the delivery needs to be spot on and the
final touch needs to be perfect. So even though you have this idea, in practice
Bielsa’s team make it so hard to pull it off. I felt like we competed well in
both games. But I also understand exactly why we lost.”
To play against Bielsa, lose and respect that loss because
of his tactical prowess is not rare. It could be an uncomfortable night for
Berhalter and the U.S. if Uruguay are singing from the Bielsa hymn sheet.