Marcelo Bielsa remains undecided on when he plans to retire from football management, but did not rule out matching Roy Hodgson’s age in the job.
The Crystal Palace manager is eight years Bielsa’s senior and has 44 years in the profession behind him.
Leeds United’s head coach has 30 years in frontline senior management on his CV, but when asked if he could see himself working at Hodgson’s age, Bielsa was open-minded.
Enthusiasm, motivation, desire and will are the key motivations for Bielsa to continue and when he will decide to call it quits.
“There’s still eight years for that to happen and eight years is a long time in a person’s life,” he said.
“What’s admirable is, in this kind of job, you can’t do it if you don’t desire it and to be able to do the job of the manager you need to have a lot of will, a lot of desire to be able to do it.
“There’s a lot of jobs you can do without a lot of desire. If you work as a manager and you don’t have any enthusiasm then automatically you are excluded.
“It’s admirable, the enthusiasm he (Hodgson) still has.”
Bielsa said he did not have a date in mind for retirement, but told Thursday’s press conference he was open to suggestions.
Bielsa’s first major job in football management was with his beloved Newell’s Old Boys, where he started in 1990.
Since then, the Argentine has rarely been out of work. Bielsa’s longest break was the near three years between the Argentina and Chile national jobs.
That longevity, rather than an asset or strength, Bielsa described as a defect and a fault in his character.
Bielsa bemoaned what management had deprived him of in his life when asked why he and Hodgson were able to outlast younger coaches who burn out in their 50s or 60s.
“More than a virtue, it’s a defect. The job of a manager impedes you from living out other activities worth doing,” he said.
“Sometimes when you are in a job for so long you become a specialist in that subject and it doesn’t let us see there are other things worth seeing, worth doing other than football.
“I give a lot of attention to my family life and my married life, but at the same time I have less time for some friends and I haven’t been able to do other things which are worth doing.”
Bielsa’s current contract expires at the end of the season.
