The U.S. men’s national team don’t play a competitive fixture until their World Cup opener next June, but for Mauricio Pochettino, any meeting with Marcelo Bielsa, his “hero” who is in charge of Uruguay, carries far more weight than another meaningless friendly.
Midnight had long since passed when there was a knock on the door of Pochettino’s family home one night in 1987. The then-teenager’s parents answered to find a complete stranger claiming to be a scout for Newell’s Old Boys, a team in Argentina’s top flight based in Rosario, more than 90 miles away. It was Bielsa.
The unashamedly obsessive coach was at the start of his own winding career and took on the job of searching for the country’s best talents with a typically feverish appetite. Bielsa and his assistant divided Argentina up into 70 territories and set about visiting each one in his Fiat. By the time he had made it to Pochettino’s hometown of Murphy, driving past the city limits sign which describes itself as “Ambassadors of Good Soccer,” it was 2 a.m.
Pochettino’s parents welcomed Bielsa in on the condition that he not wake up a sleeping Mauricio. That was alright, all he needed to see was his legs. “They came up to my room,” Pochettino recalled years later, “lifted up the duvet and Marcelo said, ‘He has the makings of a footballer.’” And so began a relationship which is stretching towards its fourth decade.
Bielsa would oversee Pochettino’s blossoming into a talented center back at Newell’s. It was Bielsa who then handed Pochettino his first senior call-up for Argentina. After hanging up his boots, the former Tottenham Hotspur, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea boss would model his entire managerial philosophy on the transformative pressing style that Bielsa has implemented throughout an itinerant coaching career, which has now led him to Uruguay’s national team.
As the USMNT host the South American outfit in Florida on Tuesday evening, what would otherwise be written off as little more than a delay until the real show gets going at the World Cup this summer, this friendly serves another chapter in a heartening tale of mutual affection.
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When he wasn’t hailing his team for playing their part in a bench-emptying brawl against Paraguay, Pochettino spent much of his pre-Uruguay press conference lauding Bielsa. “Always, my admiration and my respect is massive,” he gushed. “I cannot consider him like a friend. I cannot consider him like another normal person. It’s bigger respect.”
During his reverential discussions with Bielsa, Pochettino adopts the same rules which apply to speaking with royalty.
“I speak with him like a man that you admire, is your hero,” he said. “He’s this type of person that you wait [to] talk. You always wait for him to say hello and then you say hello.”
“Yes, [Tuesday] for me is a thing to enjoy, to be with him very close,” Pochettino continued. “And in the same time, we are going to suffer because all the team under Marcelo's management are so tough to play.”
Uruguay are one of the outside favorites for next summer’s World Cup, adopting a full-throttle style which has earned notable victories over Brazil and Argentina during the qualification process. Results have rarely been a factor for Pochettino in this experimental period of the USMNT’s World Cup buildup, but the occasion of sharing the touchline with his soccer idol once again will be something to savor regardless of the outcome.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as USMNT vs. Uruguay Is So Much More Meaningful Than a Friendly for Mauricio Pochettino.
