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.
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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.”
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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.
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“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.
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“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.
(Top photo: Getty Images)
