Marcelo Bielsa

Bielsame!

After watching the diminutive under-13 Quick Boys go toe-to-toe with squads in the JV division at YSC this winter, some of which had boys bigger than myself, the notion that size, strength and speed are trumped by technical ability feels particularly true.

Chile has lately shown flair and style (and success) including this absolutely eye-catching abuse of the Three Lions (those loyal sons of the nation that implores defenders to "get stuck in") :

Anglophiles will rant on about pragmatism and results, but while English clubs have had success, no one is going to argue that Bayern and Barca aren't the class of the game.  Even more tellingly is the trend in stodgy old England toward technical play - Arsenal (of course), Man City, Swansea, Southampton, Everton (under Martinez) and Liverpool (more than ever under Rodgers).  The broader trends of the game indicate the shift, too.  Remember Blackpool's memorable EPL stay?  Brief, surely, but they came out and played, and played well, with even the biggest clubs.

Makes it all the more interesting the foreign owners with big bucks want to play attractively as well as win...and Man U. hire Moyes, a classic get-it-wide-and-serve-it coach (born and bred in the UK).  

Jonathan Wilson offers these thoughts in an article attempting to explain why every league in Europe has seen more goals scored over the past few years:

That correlation seems relatively easy to explain: more passes and better pass completion would suggest easier, probably shorter, passes are being attempted; more teams, in other words, are attempting to play possession-based football. That theory seems to be confirmed by the fact that the percentage of passes played into the final third has shown a steady decrease in recent seasons, from a high of 38.8% in 2007-08 to just 32% last season and 30.9% so far this, and that the number of crosses per game has dropped, from over 40 a decade ago to 34.52 last season and 35.81 so far this.  And because teams are focusing more on passing the ball, they are focusing less on winning it back. Tackle statistics only exist from 2006-7, when there were 47.5 per game. That figure has fallen in every season to a low of 37.67 last year. So far this year, the average is 38.74

Furthermore, Wilson targets one coach in particular- not Cruyff, Guardiola, certainly not Ferguson...but the idealogue, Marcelo Bielsa.  He is the tipping point.  Attacking full-backs, high pressure defending, adherence to a philosophy over pragmatic adjustments, flexible players and unrelenting work rate across the team.  Of course, many teams feature some of these, even many of these characteristics...but almost none share them all.  Furthermore, Bielsa has been Bielsa with multiple teams, including the Chilean national side.  No other coach has been universally successful, confounding and brilliant at the top two levels.  Mourinho?  No international experience.  Ferguson?  Ditto.  Guardiola? Ditto, ditto, ditto (though if he remains as inventive and successful at Bayern Munich as he was at Barcelona, he's breathing down Bielsa's neck).

A few others have caught on, both managers past and present, and the game has been forever changed by managers such as Bielsa.  Bielsa's demand that his players use tactics and technical ability to execute his elaborate (and risky) philosophy has proven that athleticism is a third pillar upon which the game rests.  This should be a surprise to American readers, as our fetish for size and athleticism has long been the foundation of soccer talent evaluation.  

Here's hoping he takes over at Marseille as reports indicate he will at the end of this season!  It would be fun to watch him match wits with the powerhouse PSG has become and other classy sides like Lyon and Lille.