Uruguay coach Bielsa, an enigma who is rated by Guardiola, disliked by Suarez
When Pep Guardiola arrived at the house in Rosario, at his former teammate Gabriel Batistuta’s insistence, he assumed he would only have a brief conversation on coaching. He was there for 11 hours instead. When Héctor and Amalia Pochettino heard a knock on their door at 1 am in Murphy, they feared one of two things: trouble or tragedy. Instead, they found a football coach, who had heard a lot about their 13-year-old son, Mauricio, and wanted to meet him. Both Guardiola and Pochettino now regard the man they met as the best coach of all time. Given their résumés — Guardiola being one of football’s decorated managers, and Pochettino being a Ligue 1 champion — you would assume their shared idol ought to be a serial winner. He is not. He is Marcelo Bielsa — a man with six major trophies in a managerial career spanning nearly four decades. One could consider Bielsa a trailblazer who transcended conventional thinking to prove footballing success has little to do with trophies. Or, is he a benefactor …
