Marcelo Bielsa

Marcelo Bielsa

Personal information
Full name	Marcelo Bielsa
Position(s)	Defender

Marcelo Bielsa (nicknamed El Loco Bielsa, "Mad" Bielsa) (born July 21, 1955) is a football coach and former defender, born in Rosario, province of Santa Fe, Argentina.

He played as a defender in Newell's Old Boys First Division Team, but soon retired, and developed his career as coach in that team. He led Newell's to several wins in the early 1990s.

In 1992 he moved to Mexico where he had spells in charge of CF Atlas and Club América. In 1997 he returned to Argentina to manage Vélez Sársfield.

In 1998 Bielsa was given the managers job at Espanyol but he soon left after being offered the Argentina job later that year, taking over after a four-year period by Daniel Passarella as manager. Argentina won the qualifiers to 2002 World Cup but did not go through the first round. Despite this, Bielsa asked for a second chance to lead Argentina to major success and stayed on his position. Albicelestes were runners-up in 2004 Copa América and won the 2004 Olympic Games' golden medal prize.

Surprisingly, Bielsa resigned at the end of 2004 and José Pekerman became Argentina's manager.

His brother Rafael is a politician (as of 2007, national deputy from the Capital District of Buenos Aires), while his sister María Eugenia is the current vicegovernor of the province of Santa Fe.

Marcelo Bielsa is now the coach of Chile's National team, and will attempt to lead the team to the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa.

Individual honours

The World's best National Coach 2001 [1]