Football

I was thinking about this last night, with the lack of intelligent comment on Bielsa, during Bilbao's match with utd, apart from the commentator talking about his obsession with football, rather than the pilgrimage that Guardiola made to see him in Argentina and where they sat and talked football for seven odd hours.

Despite statements that the Premiership being the best league in the world, the standard and knowledge in the managers/coaches seems sorely lacking. I think AVB was a victim of his own intelligence and honesty. Not sure if that is a case of there being partisan papers for specific big teams in spain/italy/portugal, but I'm pretty sure managers over here wouldn't be able to get away with saying...

"We worked so hard at this, it was a total victory. My shoes are destroyed: the soles are worn through and they're covered in chalk. My suit is ruined. But I don't care. We can't go around trying to be handsome. Besides, that's what dry cleaners are for – there's a need for employment in Spain, so let them clean it. We played without fear, with effort, with desire. The players are so exhausted they can't even talk; there are stairs going up to the dressing room; they had to haul themselves up them. That is what we must do now."

"We are down the bottom because we should be down at the bottom, this is not a problem that comes from now; it comes from many, many games ago."

-Manolo Jiménez

full article below
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/mar/05/real-zaragoza-sid-lowe-blog

or

"If I lose against Espanyol, maybe they will sack me. If I lose against Levante too, it's possible. And if I lose all of the next three games, I'll shoot myself in the head. But I'm not thinking of losing."

• Manuel Preciado
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/jan/30/manolo-preciado-survivor-sporting-gijon
  
  

the press would be all over them, the feeding frenzy would mount and the manager would be ousted sooner than you can say Abramovich. AVB didn't seem to do anything but be honest about his situation, and the players at his disposal. I'm pretty sure he'll have a better career for this experience and as every manager knows, sacking is the rule rather than the exception...

So back to the Bilbao match, rather than give passing mention to Bielsa's eccentricities, maybe a discussion about the attention to detail and his involvement in how to play football,
see below

When he arrived, Bielsa had watched their 38 league games last season, writing all the details on colour-coded spreadsheets. And that really is all the details – he says: "There are 36 different forms of communicating through a pass." He watches thousands of games, building a footballing taxonomy, like some kind of botanist. If a player does something new, he labels and stores it, learning from it. Teaching from it, too. Few are so didactic: he once drew on his shoes to show players exactly which part of their foot to use, wearing them for days after. Video sessions can last five hours and players joke that they do not dare make a mistake lest the green laser rest upon them and Bielsa demand a convincing explanation.

Training is intense, even when Bielsa takes children from the crowd and gets them to deliver instructions for him. Stopwatch in hand, he preaches high pressure, constantly interrupting and demonstrating. Gangs of players sprint from pole to pole, hunting as a coordinated pack, their errors revealed to them on a laptop. There is an almost childish wonder about Pep Guardiola's description of Athletic: "They all run up … and they all run down again. Up, down, up, down, up, down. They're fascinating."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/mar/07/marcelo-bielsa-athletic-bilbao-manchester-united

Maybe when we produce managers one half as intense as Bielsa, we can have conversations/discussions about football, which aren't tabloid headlines, given verbal form... And we'll have coaches who are capable of winning things, whilst producing teams which play with verve and panache as well as bustling industry...