If I were Marcelo Bielsa, I’d hate these losers

South American football expert Tim Vickery appeared live from his fútbol bunker to talk about Uruguay before their disastrous 2-2 draw against Cape Verde. He discussed the fallout between some Uruguay players — including Luis Suarez — and Marcelo Bielsa, who had apparently taken issue with little things like Agustin Canobbio’s posture when sitting. It was enjoyable colour from the BBC’s coverage — a little insight from the smart man who appears on a screen from a cupboard in Rio de Janeiro every four years.

Suarez’s well documented public disavowing of Bielsa’s Uruguay set in motion a national direction that culminated in goalkeeper Fernando Muslera losing his mind against Cape Verde, re-enacting Kiko Casilla’s anti-heroics against Derby County in 2019, running into no man’s land and allowing Cape Verde to equalise midway through the second half. It was this exact sort of brainlessness that encouraged a groundswell of opinion to turn against Bielsa and instead in favour of a man found guilty of racist abuse once and biting opponents three times. Those people never stopped to consider whether Suarez, whose legs gave up on him several years ago, was maybe just an entitled manchild like many of his teammates and professional colleagues in general.

The recriminations of Uruguay’s World Cup are already underway, with Bielsa’s role in the nation’s perceived downfall being scrutinised, even though there’s still another group game to play against Spain. As two-time winners, Uruguay need to avoid a defeat that would send them out at the group stage for the first time since, well, the last World Cup — in Qatar, a much stronger Uruguay squad huffed and puffed through three group games that ended with Suarez crying his eyes out in the dugout, a moment that united many fans across various divides.

There’s still a mathematic possibility that Uruguay, the team who allowed both Saudi Arabia and Cape Verde to breach their defence, might stand up to pre-tournament favourites Spain, who overcame their own ignominious display against the Blue Sharks to beat the Saudis by four goals without ever having to get out of second gear. It could happen, but it probably won’t, so let’s start pointing fingers at someone other than Bielsa — even if he’d despair at the idea of others fighting his battles for him.

There’s valid criticism to be levelled at Bielsa over his team selection in the first game against Saudi Arabia, most notably playing something more of a 4-4-2 in the first half and attempting to get some meaningful contribution out of Darwin Nunez, who has been relegated to reserve status at Al-Hilal because they have too many foreign players. Nunez scored six goals in the first half of the season for Al-Hilal. In their first game after his omission, Al-Hilal scored six goals in one match, with Nunez’s replacement, the 64-year-old Karim Benzema, helping himself to a hat-trick on his debut.

Bielsa also played ‘star player’ Fede Valverde on the right wing instead of having him in the centre of midfield, where he could run around like a dog chasing a balloon, which ironically is what most of his many, many shots from distance resembled.

Bielsa reverted to a 4-3-3 at half-time in the opener and went with it from the start against Cape Verde, evidently feeling optimistic about a dominant second half in which Saudi Arabia needed a top class performance from their goalkeeper to stay in the game at 1-1.

In midfield was Scum’s Manuel Ugarte, whose performance was made only more lamentable by the fact he plays for That Lot. An empty shirt in midfield, he makes playing the game look as complicated as congenital heart surgery rather than just kicking a ball to nearby teammates. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player in a supposedly competitive World Cup side look so abject. No wonder he’s one of Jim Ratcliffe’s bright ideas, a £42m signing with all the presence of Eunan O’Kane.

Uruguay ‘keeper Muslera had a nervy opening game against Saudi Arabia and appeared no better for the run out. Cape Verde’s Kevin Pina looked in shock after his thirty-yard free-kick rolled through Uruguay’s disintegrating wall and past Muslera, who turned forty during the week. Muslera had a full three-to-five business days to make his mind up on Pina’s shot, only to mistime his dive and give Cape Verde a famous lead.

Yet two scrappy goals shortly before half-time meant Uruguay went in at the break with an unconvincing lead. They were well and truly in ‘nothing silly, lads’ territory, a dangerous place to be for a team with a penchant for silliness.

So when Mathias Olivera tried to play the ball across his own box without looking to see if anyone was around, teammate or otherwise, silliness arrived. Stray back passes are reasonably common in elite football. It happens. Defenders are expected to stop opposing attacks and build their own. But having received a daft yellow card only moments earlier, Olivera inadvertently passed the ball to Hélio Varela. Needing his goalkeeper to bail him out of trouble, old man Muslera was inexplicably hurtling towards the Cape Verde attacker, twenty yards out of his own goal and completely stranded, leaving his goal empty and ripe for an equaliser to make it 2-2.

“Organisational mistakes that a ​squad makes, they always fall upon the driver. And what I mean by that is the head coach,” Bielsa ‌said in his post-match press conference. “Then ⁠you just ask me how can I fix it? In those situations, there is no magical recipe whatsoever to fix them. They are circumstances that happen in football. And it goes without saying, we paid a very high cost for those mistakes. It is so expensive to concede goals like the ​ones that we conceded.”

Bielsa may have made winger Agustin Canobbio play the role of ball boy in training, as alleged by Canobbio himself and Suarez in one of his public outcries, but he certainly didn’t make his goalkeeper run out of his goal stupidly to try and make up for his left-back booting the ball across the face of his own area. Muslera is, at least, a creaking old ‘keeper. Oliveira? Probably just rubbish, and not helped by missing defensive partners Jose Maria Gimenez and Ronald Araujo, both unfit.

Circumstances have led Bielsa’s team to enter the tournament missing important players and in poor form, two things that have not benefitted a manager in need of patience from fans and buy-in from spoiled, entitled players. Some South American commentators suggested that Uruguay are “making Bielsa’s bed” — in other words, the players set him up to fail. I don’t believe any footballer would wilfully fail at a World Cup just to prove a point to a manager they don’t like or understand, but then again I’m not a modern mercenary like some at this tournament.

Marcelo Bielsa doesn’t need anyone to fight his battles for him — certainly not a self-confessed Bielsista to the death. But I’ll do it anyway. He could be nicer to his spoiled players, but as we learned at Leeds, not even he could stop his goalkeeper from running twenty yards into no man’s land. Stupid is as stupid does. That’s on the Uruguay players, those he won’t make beds for, nor will he throw them under the bus. That’s their job in the coming weeks and months, or should have been two years ago in the case of their most famous footballer. ⬢