Inside Marcelo Bielsa's 'toxic' Uruguay's tenure: 'El Loco's' methods under the microscope ahead of World Cup opener

Truth be told, it's something of a surprise that Bielsa is still in charge as Uruguay kick-off their World Cup campaign against Saudi Arabia on Monday - which is remarkable given how promisingly his tenure began.

Bielsa said all the right things at his unveiling in May 2023. The decision to make him one of the highest-paid coaches in international football may have raised eyebrows in Uruguay, but he insisted that money hadn't been a motivating factor in his decision.

"The AUF (Uruguayan Football Association) didn’t have to convince me; if anything, it was the opposite,” he told reporters. "My desire to be part of this project is driven by two very compelling reasons: the quality of Uruguay's players and the fact that the team belongs to the people."

Furthermore, while there was an acknowledgement among the fans that the squad needed to be overhauled after a dreadfully disappointing group-stage exit at Qatar 2022, the haste with which Bielsa seemed to want to phase out iconic figures such as Edinson Cavani and Luis Suarez quickly became a topic of national debate.

By the end of 2023, though, Bielsa was turning sceptics into supporters, as Uruguay recorded back-to-back World Cup qualifying wins over Brazil and Argentina. The 2-0 victory over the latter in Buenos Aires was as impressive as it was historic.

Uruguay hadn't beaten their neighbours away from home since 1937, while Argentina had lost just one of their 51 previous matches in all competitions. However, as Lionel Messi admitted, the reigning world and South American champions simply couldn't cope with the intensity of their opponents' pressing and the speed of their transitions.

"You can see Bielsa's hand on the way Uruguay is playing," the greatest player of all time said. "In all the national teams or clubs, including Argentina, his style was very recognisable. And he has a good generation of players [in Uruguay]."

The feeling that Bielsa was building something special was only strengthened by a third-placed finish at the Copa America the following summer - but it was immediately after that very tournament in the United States that everything started to fall apart.

Two-time Champions League winner Javier Martinez once said that every player should work with Bielsa "at least once in their life", but Suarez made it sound like he never wanted to even meet the Argentine again after calling time on his international career in September 2024.

The former Barcelona striker had played a positive part in Uruguay's Copa America campaign, by scoring a last-minute equaliser in the third-place play-off against Canada, but Suarez's experience playing under Bielsa had been nothing but negative.

Suarez claimed that team-mates had been repeatedly disrespected by a taciturn character that "wouldn't even say hello" to his players.

"There were situations that occurred at the Copa America that hurt to see, that I didn't talk about for the good of the group," the ex-Liverpool forward told DSports Uruguay. "It's going to continue to happen. The players are going to reach a limit and explode." And he was right.

On November 18 in Tampa, Florida, Uruguay were routed 5-1 by a United States side shorn of several star men. It may have only been a friendly, but it was impossible to downplay the pathetic nature of the performance and, in fairness to the always blunt Bielsa, he didn't even attempt to do so.

"There is no way to justify this result," he admitted. "I feel that what is most affected after this performance is my approach to the match, how I prepared the players.

"What occurred tonight is a result of my role as a coach and how I set up the team, and the style of play I proposed. In no way should the best Uruguayan players lose a match against the second-string group of the United States."

Bielsa sounded like a manager who had, if not lost the support of his players, then at the very least exhausted them. And not for the first time.

Bielsa teams have never been solely synonymous with pressing; they're also renowned for running out of steam, particularly during the tail end of the season. Playing with such incessant intensity is tiring, and not just physically.

Bielsa is essentially football's answer to the iconic True Detective character Rust Cohle, a man both blessed and cursed with a brilliant mind. Cohle feared he was "just not good for people, that it's not good for them to be around me. I wear them down. They... they get unhappy."

Bielsa would relate. In a two-hour press conference the coach called himself to address the Tampa debacle, he admitted, "When I arrive, the environment becomes tense. That's why I appear infrequently. I'm toxic. To associate yourself with me makes you worse off. Do you understand me?

"There are toxic types who only see the errors that they are correcting, who are demanding, who are never satisfied with anything. He talks only about the work he is doing. "When he goes out to eat, he reads the newspaper because he doesn't want to integrate with those around him, so that he doesn't have to talk about things that distract him from all that.

"Don't think I enjoy it. For me, it's karma. I am shy, obsessive. I'm a robotic person. I don't like clutter. Those are my flaws. I find it difficult to act free-spirited and friendly."

Consequently, nobody has any idea what to expect from Bielsa - or his team - in North America. A semblance of order appeared to be restored during encouraging draws with fellow qualifiers England and Algeria in March, but we've not seen anything from them since, as Uruguay haven't played any World Cup warm-up matches - which has only added to the sense of uncertainty surrounding the Celeste.

Uruguay are the tournament's great unknown quantity, a team just as likely to impress as implode, meaning their campaign, much like their contrary coach, will be utterly compelling.

Basically, Bielsa and the way in which he works are under more scrutiny than ever before. Is he still a visionary that sees things that others do not - or is he now out of touch with a modern game that he helped create?

Of course, one tournament isn't going to change the way in which Guardiola and other top tacticians look at Bielsa. He'll clearly always have their love. Indeed, U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino says that Bielsa is "special" precisely because he's a personality "very different from us, normal coaches".

However, whether Bielsa's Uruguay tenure ends in acrimony or adoration is still completely up in the air. The next few weeks will decide all. We're about to find out if 'El Loco' really has lost it - or whether there's still some method to the madness.