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.
