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Marcelo Bielsa sitting on his cool box on the touchline at Marseille, 2015
Photo: Mathieu, Marseille · CC BY-SA 2.0
Tactx · Inside Marcelo Bielsa

Four years inside Bielsa’s Leeds

His practices, his principles and the detail behind them, for coaches who weren’t in the room. Broken down from the individual action to the collective team.

Individual → Unit → Team

For coaches, by coaches

Inside the collection

Part one is live. The rest follows block by block.

01

Introduction

Why we built this, from the inside. What we saw on the training ground, what changed in how we coach, and the thinking a coach needs before the practices make sense.

  • Why this collection: four years alongside Bielsa’s staff at Leeds
  • Marcelo Bielsa’s story, from Newell’s to Uruguay
  • The family tree: 27 coaches who worked under him
  • What Pochettino, Iraola, Simeone and others say about him
  • Pitch geography: the ten positions and the three pairs
  • The ten systems and the +1 / equal / −1 match-up rule
  • Game concepts across every phase, in his own words
Open the Introduction Read the full introduction, with the class clips behind each concept
+1 = −1 DEFENSIVE UNIT MIDFIELD FORWARD UNIT One more defender than they have forwards. Equal numbers in the middle. One fewer forward than they have defenders. THE SAME RULE, EVERY SYSTEM
02Tactical
03In possession
04Out of possession
Tactx · For coaches, by coaches
Bielsa’s own words come from six recorded classes. The account of Leeds is ours.