Marcelo Bielsa's craziest mess

I n 1985, a coach knocked on the door of a 13-year-old footballer's family home in the middle of the night. The boy's father opened the door, the coach went into the house and went to the player's room, where he was already dozing. He saw the boy's legs and that was enough to recruit him for Newell's. This is how Marcelo Bielsa and Mauricio Pochettino met . Now they are in charge of Uruguay and the United States. This week, in a friendly with consequences, the Americans humiliated their rivals 5-1, a defeat that has left Bielsa on the brink of the abyss before the World Cup.

To tame the earthquake, Bielsa, (Rosario, 1955), called a press conference that lasted almost two hours, another concession to explain his nickname of 'El Loco'. In that appearance, on which a book could be built, the coach defined himself as "toxic. Relating to me makes the person who relates to me worse".

A wall for the press

With Uruguay qualified for the World Cup, there were some who predicted his resignation. Well, no, the Argentine coach admitted to being "shy, obsessive and mechanized". This clarification was not necessary given his personal and professional history, which is a delight for professionals and fans alike.

For Bielsa, a man glued to a tracksuit, there are few new situations that frighten him . Identification with his method is close to messianism. It is there, in this fortification, that he does not admit dissent. He himself is the first to punish himself if he does not feel that he is following his own script.

If there are disputes at home, let's not open the windows for others to see how we fight

Uruguay is currently debating whether Bielsa is the right commander to go to the World Cup with guarantees. The media does not harass him. He has not given personal interviews since before the invention of communications, despite the fact that he owned a kiosk and likes to keep himself informed.

Controversy with Luis Suarez

That distancing from the media was also clarified in recent days. "If there are disputes at home," Bielsa suggested, "let's not open the windows so that others can see how we fight." That's why the criticism of Luis Suarez, Uruguay's goal-scoring apostle, after what happened in the last Copa America, demolished his philosophy.

The striker commented that in this Uruguay "you see that the players go and do not enjoy themselves. You see that in their teams they have fun, they smile and they don't do it in the national team, they are not enjoying it. It hurts me what the national team is going through, and there are teammates who are not going to come out and say it, and it is understandable."

Bielsa stated that "throughout my career, I was always valued by the players. In this period is where I am most badly treated, in some specific cases such as Suarez and in other potential cases".

In those narrow registers, Bielsa demands total commitment. Something he admits he has not achieved in three years in Uruguay. "Humanly I have not yet achieved acceptance from this group that I lead,"

The 7,000 videos and the trash

That privacy boundary is one more point in his personal and professional commandments, if they can be separated. Wherever he goes, he travels with a backpack full of habits, manias and traditions. He went to the World Cup in Korea and Japan (2002) as Argentina coach with almost 7,000 videos of his opponents. His audiovisual addiction is unlimited: he had a video installed in his van to watch matches on the road or had 51 matches of Leeds United's rivals reviewed to edit a 15-minute video.

On a human level, I have not yet achieved acceptance in this group

He is repelled by luxury. His favorite home is the training centers, where he is content with a room with a bed and two chairs. That's how he lived as Argentina and Chile coach. In Bilbao, he resigned himself to a hotel room and in Leeds to a house far from the city that those who saw it described as "grandma's little house". If he was given a car, he would give it to someone on his coaching staff.

Another day, to bring his Leeds footballers down to earth, he ordered them to pick up litter for several hours so that they would know the sacrifice that the fans made to go to the matches.

Grass and spies

Their training grounds are a collection of cones, ropes and other objects. Anything goes to believe that there will be no surprises. "I tell them what I prefer to happen," says Bielsa, "but that doesn't mean it's going to happen." To have everything tied up, he defended in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa that a member of his coaching staff should break FIFA's ban and sneak in as a spy in a Honduras training session. He paid the fine.

In that same World Cup, he learned that a stadium was going to be played with a modern mix of natural and artificial grass, something that is now common. Bielsa had a similar surface planted on Chile's training ground.

For Bielsa, there is nothing worse than cheating, something that breaks his code of honour. Leeds scored a goal with an Aston Villa player on the ground. The coach ordered them to let in a goal in response. That action won all the sportsmanship awards.

In Bilbao, in just two seasons, he established a new way of looking at football in which touch replaced a more direct style of play. He seduced a large part of the fans, so much so that the chant 'A lo loco se vive mejor' was placed in the throats as a password for happiness.

The Lezama operator

However, his addiction to control led him to controversy. Eager for improvements to be made to the facilities at Lezama, Bielsa called a worker to reproach him for the state of the works. The conversation became so tense that the coach grabbed him by the lapels and expelled him. "It was a scam and a robbery," explained the coach, who admitted that he behaved "like a savage". This incident buried much of his appeal with the Athletic environment.

In the midst of the storm, Bielsa told the Uruguayan press another of his maxims: "I like losing controversies more than winning them. Every time I lose a discussion I feel better than when I win it". Meanwhile, Uruguay, a country where soccer is a religion, hopes that Bielsa will cling to another of his slogans: "I try not to make the good ones worse".