Marcelo Bielsa is a coach who has transformed the theory and practice of those who influenced
him, not least two of the great figures of Argentinian football, Carlos Bilardo and Cesar
Luis Menotti, and, in turn, gone on to influence a huge number of managers and coaches himself.
Bielsa’s synthesis of preparation, hard work, rigid training techniques, fast, vertical
football, and pressing, can be seen across the modern game. Indeed, as Jonathan Wilson
said in an article in 8by8:
“Since the back four spread from Brazil in the late 1950s and early ’60s, no South
American has had such an influence on how the world played as Bielsa…has had in the
first decade of the 21st century.”
So what is his influence? And who is it on? Alongside the methodologically rigorous training,
opposition analysis, and emphasis on commitment, hard work, and fitness, it’s worth laying
out a basic sense of Bielsa’s tactical style. Jed Davies, a coach who has worked extensively
on analysing Bielsa’s approach, puts it like this:
“Bielsa’s preferred approach is one that looks to overload the defensive third with
his ‘spare-man philosophy’ when in possession and in the final third Bielsa is known to
employ an un enganche y tres punta (one playmaker and three forwards) system. [Bielsa] also
looked to cut the time taken in transition (the time in between the two formations – defensive
and attacking).”
This is achieved with verticality, transitioning at pace between defence and attack, employing
midfielders as defenders to ensure that he has ball-players capable of passing from deep
and moving intelligently to create such overloads, and emphasising rotation among positions.
To this is added Bielsa’s fierce pressing approach, and it’s clear to see how other
managers have been influenced by the combination of a form of intense, vertical positional
play and pressing.
While the 3-3-1-3 that Bielsa has advocated for and had success with is fairly unusual
in modern football, the idea of having an attacking, linking midfielder with a striker
and two wingers ahead is common among Bielsa followers, even if the team’s defensive
shape doesn’t show it as clearly. Mauricio Pochettino has employed variants of this at
Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur, while also preaching the press, and, by necessity, adhering
to the same levels of intensity in training. Pochettino, like many of the coaches who cite
Bielsa as an influence, played under the coach at Newell’s; indeed, Bielsa seems to have
marked Pochettino out early as a natural leader and intelligent analyst of the game, getting
him to produce and present opposition analysis even as a teenager.
One manager who has perhaps most purely followed Bielsa’s tactical approach is Jorge Sampaoli,
who achieved success at Universidad de Chile after a less than stellar early career. Jonathan
Wilson has said of that side, “For a time in 2011, La U were easily the best side in
South America, and on form one of the best in the world…The principles were overtly
Bielsista: high pressing, triangles of passes and vertical attacks down the flanks. And,
like Bielsa, Sampaoli is a great researcher of the opposition.” Sampaoli, a self-confessed
Bielsa disciple, went on to follow his mentor in managing the Chilean and Argentine national
sides and is now at Santos in Brazil.
Another manager who did not play for Bielsa but has been hugely influenced by him is Pep
Guardiola. Guardiola, who has refined positional play into an almost overpoweringly dominant
style during his tenures at Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and Manchester City, visited Bielsa
in Argentina in 2006 for advice. Guardiola has stated that Bielsa is the best coach in
the world:
"It is important for me to say this about Marcelo because it doesn't matter how many
titles he had in his career. We are judged by that…But that is much less influential
than how he has influenced football and his football players.”
Indeed, while Guardiola has the perhaps curious trait of not signing players he’s worked
with at former clubs, he has signed former Bielsa players a number of times, including
Benjamin Mendy, Javi Martinez, and Aymeric Laporte, a testament to how highly he values
Bielsa’s input on a player’s development.
And Bielsa’s former players have certainly gone on to embody many of his traits, often
with far more success in terms of titles. Those former players include, along with Pochettino:
Marcelo Gallardo, already River Plate’s joint-most successful manager, who has won
the Copa Libertadores twice, as well as other trophies with the Argentinian side and the
Uruguayan top flight with Nacional;
Diego Simeone, the Athletico Madrid who has won two Europa Leagues, La Liga, and two titles
in Argentina, and whose assistant manager German Burgos is also a former Bielsa player;
Tata Martino, who has won domestic leagues in Argentina, Paraguay, and the United States,
as well as managing Barcelona and coming second in the Copa America twice with Argentina;
Matias Almeyda, currently with the San Jose Earthquakes and a former CONCACAF Men’s
Football Coach of the Year who won five titles with Guadalajara;
and Eduardo Berizzo, the former Atheltic Club de Bilbao coach who is now in charge of Paraguay
and has won the title in Chile with O’Higgins.
There are less well-known managers or coaches who played under Bielsa, too: Gabriel Heinze,
in charge at Bielsa’s former club Velez Sarsfield; Constantin Galca, now manager at
Vejle BK in Denmark, who also managed Espanyol and had a very successful spell at Steaua
Bucharest ; Walter Samuel, current assistant manager in the Argentina set-up; Pablo Aimar,
the Argentina U17s boss; Esteban Cambiasso, assistant manager of Colombia; and Andoni
Iraola, in charge at AEK Larnaca in Cyrpus. The list goes on and on – Bielsa’s influence
is extraordinarily wide-ranging, and that is just when you consider those who have played
for him.
Bielsa’s influence ranges across the tactical, analytical, and preparatory. Many have tempered
Bielsa’s attacking intensity and added a degree of caution, but the foundations of
today’s Tottenham Hotspur, River Plate, and San Jose Earthquakes are overtly rooted
in the philosophy of Marcelo Bielsa. That breadth of influence, among so many coaches,
surely marks out Marcelo Bielsa as one of the most important figures in the modern era
of football.