El Loco is not just the narrative that is made of him.
Speak about Marcelo Bielsa it’s not easy: it has become, in spite of himselfa character mainstream. Anyone who writes romantically about football or narrates it through podcasts and TV has praised his deeds, his speeches, the way he makes his teams play. Even the choice of the latter, such as Athletic Club or Marseille. Last but not least, as coach of Uruguay, he called up Walter Dominguezstriker of the Uruguayan non-professional series, sparking article after article.
Whether it’s a intellectual who decided to devote himself to this game is not known only because he was able to live in the shadow of a vast library that his grandfather had in his home. It is known, above all, from the methodology with which he prepares his teams and his tactics. He applies a real method scientific in choosing players, he is meticulous, a careful scholar of each individual particular. Nothing it is causal, although it appears entropic.
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Il case It’s not a factor that Bielsa considers as possible. He is perfectly aware of how this exists and can damn well influence a match or even an entire season. But he doesn’t care. It’s still a residual and negligible data where the method is applied consistently.
Despite having bounced several times between the two most fertile shores of football – Europe and South America – Bielsa’s way of understanding and applying football is constantly evolving. His is an endless revolution, a perpetual motion of thought and consequent action. Nothing remains on paper ready to yellow over time. This is being noticed in the America Cup in progress: the Celeste defeated hosts USA, topping their group ahead of a key quarter-final against Brazil.
This is Bielsa’s Uruguay, in numbers: 9 points in 3 games, +8 goal difference (9 scored and 1 conceded), 1st for tackles won and only one yellow card, 4 goals from set pieces and 5 from open play, 6th for ball possession (55%). Numbers are boring, they make the description of a race aseptic. In this case, however, they perfectly corroborate what we were trying to say a little while ago: chance does not exist but a maniacal education to entropy. No tactical or player movement fundamentalism, no obsession.
Bielsa embodies the fluidity because he is perfectly aware that he cannot stiffen or cage it. He can only try to give it form, channel it to extract all its potential.
All this is symptomatic of permanent revolutionexactly what Marx had predicted in 1844 (On the Jewish question), P.-J. Proudhon of 1848 (Toast to the Revolution) and the FJ Stahl of 1852 (What is Revolution? A lecture): theorizations of a revolution of which each phase is contained in germ in the previous phasewhich stops only by having the total liquidation of the company divided into classes.
Football and revolution, therefore, cannot be resolved in a single act; beyond the change in the constitutional structure – often seen to be concluded in a short time – the planned transformation of social and economic relations, the elimination of every form of exploitation and alienation, the overthrow of all traditional authorities, the profound change in culture and consciences not only require a long time but can never be considered properly concluded. Marcelo Bielsa’s football is Galeano’s utopia, it is Glauco who draws breasts on the blackboard when he explains to the scriptwriters of Boris how to make a Christmas comedy.
Bielsa is in all respects a thinkerbeyond any romanticization. He has never needed large capitals or teams maniacally equipped for the result: Bielsa only needs the realization of an ideacarried out by men with suitable physical and technical characteristics.
The “surprise” of Walter Dominguez being called up for the Copa America is nothing more than normality, for a man like that. Not a dramatic turn of events or a crazy idea. One would be tempted to call it all that. South American: this locura is a typical trait of the populations that live at those latitudes but it is extremely reductive and, if I may, redundant. Stereotypical.
The Netherlands of the mid-70s, Lazio of ’74 or Foggia of the early 90s were not tied to a defined world. They were made up of contaminationsthey were to gather together of thoughts that all converged towards a single purpose. And they were anything but South American.
Is it possible then to write a counter-narrative of Bielsa? Thinking about this coach unleashes every romantic thought and love for the game: it is increasingly only in the interpretation of the same and in the way of living it. It will be because we nourish ever deeper disillusionment towards the football system, that every time we come across a story or a character in stubborn and contrary direction it seems to us light and grace; it will be that we want to see a thought and an idea in football that does not allow us to be dragged into the populist narrative of privileged-in-socks-running-across-a-field-chasing-a-ball.
Whatever reason we want and can give is a valid justification for clinging to certain stories or characters. Yet, there is something mystical and sensual that the figure of Bielsa emanates. It leads all of us to follow him in his most disparate adventures analyzing every minute.
Probably best not to ask questions. Defining Bielsa is not easyhe himself reading these lines would disagree. After all, football does not want too many narrative superstructures or bibliographical research: simply, it must be told as it is, in its crudeness. Perhaps, the Rosarino coach does it so inappropriately perfect that it would be better to sit down, turn on a screen, see each other next time Uruguay–Brazil and enjoy the simplicity of that damn sphere that makes you lose all rationality.
2024-07-04 08:16:59
#Bielsa #Loco #narrative
