Bielsa makes his debut with Uruguay in the Under 23 Pre-Olympic: a bet on the future that has already borne fruit in Argentina

Two decades after his only experience in a race of this type, Marcelo Bielsa will debut this Wednesday, with the U-23 team of Uruguayin the Pre-Olympic Tournament of the South American Football Confederation which takes place in Venezuela and which will assign two places for the Paris 2024 Games.

THE Blue sky At 5pm, at the Misael Delgado Stadium in Valencia, they will face Paraguay, who had drawn 1-1 against Argentina in the first match, for the second match of group B, which also includes Chile and Peru.

Bielsa’s presence in a championship in which the coaches of the senior teams of each of the participating federations usually do not give gifts (besides him, only the coach of Bolivia, Antonio Carlos Zago, is present in Venezuela) was planned since the man of Rosario accepted his relationship with the Uruguayan Football Federation (AUF) in May last year and as part of the overall project it intends to develop.

When he was in charge of the Argentine national team, Bielsa led the team that won the Pre-Olympic held in Chile in January 2004 undefeated (they achieved five wins and two draws) and which included, among others, Carlos Tevez, Javier Mascherano, Luis González and Nicolas Burdisso. Seven months later, the Albiceleste had his first gold medal Olympic in Athens.

This time, the Argentine coach will try to take Uruguay to a tournament that awarded him two of the four stars printed on his shirt (he was Olympic champion in Paris 1924 and Amsterdam 1928), but have not played since London 2012. In that last participation they failed to get past the group stage.

Bielsa and his men began preparing for this Pre-Olympic on December 11 at the AUF Celeste Complex. In these 44 days of work, they had two strong performances at the Maldonado Campus: on January 13th they beat Paraguay 4 to 1 and three days later they lost 2 to 0 against Banfield. The team took office last Thursday Valenciawhere they will play the four matches of the first phase.

For most of the members of the Uruguayan team, these six weeks of work with Bielsa were something new. “The quality of the training is very good. I had never had to experience preparation like that,” underlined the midfielder. Santiago Homenchenko.

“The demand exceeds the limits. The intensity of training, what is required on the pitch, makes you improve, makes you raise your level”, said the striker. Juan Cruz de los Santos.

“It’s a privilege to have him because he commands a lot of presence and is a world-class coach,” said the midfielder. Rodrigo Chagas.

Although none of those called up have made their debut in the senior national team, some have already participated in training cycles in the top flight. In fact, Bielsa’s first call-up, in June 2023, included a handful of players who in those days were competing for the Under 20 World Cup in Argentina and that they would end up getting the title.

Of that Under 20 team led by Marcelo Broli The basics of the squad that Bielsa brought to Venezuela for the Pre-Olympics emerge: a dozen of those called up were youth champions seven months ago, including Homenchenko, Chagas, the goalkeeper Randall Rodriguezthe side Matteo Pontethe extreme Luciano Rodriguez and the attacker Mattia Abaldowho will surely play against Paraguay tonight.

Abaldo, a Gimnasia player, is one of the two players from Bielsa’s team who play in Argentina (the other is the defender Sebastiano Bosellidel River) and one of the seven who work outside Uruguay: the others are Homenchenko (Real Oviedo of Spain), Ponte (Botafogo of Brazil), Nicola Marichal (Dynamo Moscow), Vicente Poggi (Necaxa) and the captain Cesare Araujo (City of Orlando).

Like the rest of the teams competing in this Pre-Olympic, Uruguay will not be able to count on some players who fall within the age limits to participate in the tournament (all those born after January 1, 2001 can), but those who have not been loaned by their respective clubs because the competition does not fall within the international calendar of FIFA.

Then the defender Alan Matturroof Genoa, the midfielder Manuel Ugarteof Paris Saint-Germain, and the striker Facundo Pellistriof Manchester United, among others, will miss this event.

As if that wasn’t enough, Bielsa lost in the last minute Cristian Olivera, the only player called up with experience in the top flight (last year he played three matches in the World Cup qualifiers). The striker was on loan from Los Angeles FC, but the American club last week his authorization was revoked to play the tournament. As if that wasn’t enough, he did it when the deadline for submitting the lists had already expired, so the Blue sky He won’t have 23 men at his disposal, but only 22.