The term, philosophy is one word that has been around for so long in the world of football, as such there is no manager who dishes out instructions from the dugout without his own approach towards the game, some go with a more defensive approach, while others apply a more attacking approach, some even bank on the skills of their players, while others relied on their player’s physicality.
Managers are like a demigod that clubs can’t do away with because without them the clubs can’t win trophies on its own, taking a look at the life of Osvaldo Zubeldia, an innovator, motivator, and mentor, a man who has the geniuses of countering any styles been adopted by any manager.
Zubeldia will always remain one of the finest and best innovators and philosophical manager, he was well respected and admired back in the 70s in South America. He was also seen as one of the most disdained managers in soccer and he marked a transition in Argentine football, although his style is aggressive and brutal, his innovative ideas brought a lot of success to his Estudiantes team which was the greatest proponents of his aggressive style.
The Argentine means a lot to people even though he’s from a humble upbringing, he was loved not because of anything, he was loved because of the style of play and his football philosophy, and most importantly how he mentored his players to always carried out his instructions to the end.
Managing & Innovating
He took over at Estudiantes in 1965, having been denied managing the Argentina national team to the World Cup due to differences with the federation. Estudiantes was a modest provincial team generally preoccupied with avoiding relegation at that time. Argentinian football was dominated by five sides from metropolitan Buenos Aires — in fact, no club from outside the capital had ever won the championship — but Zubeldia’s upstarts quickly put an end to that.
Estudiantes won their first title in 1967 when Estudiantes became the first “small” team to win an Argentine championship. The team came back from three goals deficit to beat Platense in the semifinal 4–3, then took the crown with a comfortable 3–0 win over Racing Club in the final. They were immediately acclaimed by the country’s new military dictator, Juan Carlos Ongania, who had reorganized football with the express hope of breaking the Buenos Aires stranglehold.
Estudiantes then took second place in the Nacional championship, qualifying for the 1968 Copa Libertadores, which Estudiantes won after defeating Brazilian side Palmeiras.
In that year’s Intercontinental Cup, Estudiantes defeated Bobby Charlton’s Manchester United 1–0 in Buenos Aires and achieved a 1–1 draw at Old Trafford on 16 October 1968. The game was marred & dragged down to new and uncharted depths as they became the living embodiment of aggressive football tactics with the way Zubeldia’s team trambled on the Red Devils.
Each ball was a battle; each play was a series of scenarios that were practiced and conditioned into the players repeatedly by Zubeldia.
Osvaldo Zubeldia is one name that is synonymous with philosophy and his bad-boy act, although he may not have the best moral behavior he was a man that is like a god to the Argentine, perhaps only Maradona can rival him for the love and adoration.
Zubeldia gave up the ghost in 1982 in the city of Medellin, Colombia while doing what he knows how to do best, he went down to fulfill his daily ritual at the race track, as soon as he finished placing a bet on one of the races Zubeldia suffered a heart attack and died on the spot.
During his six years stint in Medellin, he was somewhat of a demigod and he lived out of the Nutibara, owned then by Nacional President Hernan Moreno, he was respected and loved by many while some don’t really like him, as a human when he passed away it’s was then many knew that they’ve lost a great man, however, his affinity toward the city of Medellin was second to none before he died.
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As a manager, he left behind a legacy that was forever embedded in the South American football style for completely different reasons, both the beautiful game and the dark arts of playing the game of Zubeldia style is still been practiced till date.
The Fox, as he was usually called was appointed as manager of Atletico National in 1976, which was the biggest coup pulled off by any team since the days of the pirate league in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Zubeldia revolutionized Colombia soccer when he was appointed as the manager of National, according to him in an interview ”
I revolutionized the Colombia football because I ended the siestas”, “I ended the big breakfasts and extended lunches, they have to be on the pitch, they have to work day and night “.
His reign with Nacional coincided with the genesis of drug lords within the game, an era known as the narco football, his approach, and style brought about a lot of demands from the players and the level of competitiveness went on the upward trajectory in the league, the day Zubeldia died the news got to the fans as a joke, until when people gathered and surrounded radio transistors around the neighborhood hearing the story of his death.
As fans, the rivalry between Nacional and Independiente is so fierce that when both team lock horns, the rivalry always come to fore, when Zubeldia died tears rolled down from the eyes of the fans regardless of what colors flowed through their veins whether as a supporter of the greens (Nacional) or the reds (Independiente), everyone felt a tremendous sadness that day, having just led Nacional to the league title just three weeks before his death, a league that was one the longest and most grueling tournaments in the world which lasted up to 60 rounds.
For many whom have seen the kind of styles the likes of Diego Simeone, Marcello Bielsa, and Carlos Bilardo adopted in setting out their respective team, then you will agree to the fact that Zubeldia was a major influence on their coaching prowess and styles, and more reason why he was anointed by many football historians as the father of Carlos Bilardo and the grandfather of Diego Simeone having been the main school of thought in South American soccer which has influenced many Argentine managers.
Zubeldia was so good that, when Rinus Michels the great manager who was credited for inventing total football was asked who invented ‘Total Football‘ during the 1974 world cup, Michels replied confidently that Zubeldia invented that over at Estudiantes six years ago a club he managed then, Michels mentioning Zubeldia was also a way to pay homage to his anti-football style of play too which he usually adopted to wear out his opposition on the field.
“I believe in the offside because it crushes the opponent morally; the forward that ends up in offside five times end up being afraid of going into the area” Osvaldo Zubeldía
For many who don’t really know much about Zubeldia, the comment made by Michels can actually help in describing a better picture of a man who was both an innovator of the game as well as a mentor who built one of the most dreadful teams in football history while still alive.
Philosophy
“You don’t arrive at glory through a path of roses” that was Zubelidia’s philosophy, he studied opposition teams in minute detail, looking for weaknesses. And he offered opposing team no comfort, playing Estudiantes that time was a miserable experience off the field as well as on.
The typical example of that was when he asked his team to resume for training at 4 am in the morning, instead of training he loaded the team into a bus and took them to the local train station, when they arrived there, he told them to just sit and observed the people that were on their way to work, and according to him
“I did this so you can see how fortunate you are because you’re paid to do what you love to do most, play football”.
“Play every match as if it was your debut. Fans will always forgive one bad play, but they will never forgive that you don’t give your all on the pitch”
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Much of the qualities he possessed as a manager can be traced back to the years after he retired from football with Atlanta the Buenos Aires side, he has already shown glimpses of a good manager, though his team wasn’t as talented as someone would think he forged a team filled with high spirit and they ended up in fourth place on the log in 1961, at that time the game wasn’t as professional as now, and more importantly one of the secrets of his team back then was the use of set pieces, which he deployed with Atalanta and later on Estudiantes which brought a lot of success for Zubeldia.
Strategy
He published a book in 1965, titled ‘Tactics And Strategy In Football’ also pointed out the fact that set-pieces are most effective when it is done with quickness and when they prevent opponents from reorganizing, he also talked about having set pieces routines established prior to the game and even improvised in an effort to take advantage of their opponent’s defensive lapses.
Zubeldía was a harbinger of tactical changes; he was the first manager to thoroughly research the rival team’s tactics and playing style. Pre-planned plays off free kicks and tactical fouls to stop opponents’ advances were highly criticized at the time, but have since been adopted by virtually every team in the world. So are other practices, like the offside trap (having the defense step forward in sync to force opposing players into an offside position).
Zubeldia was so obsessed with his philosophy that he can use hours to show his team a video of a team, and make sure his team found a way around the team style and tactics and uses his own approach to counter it, by adopting a fast countering approach which he also pointed out in his book, he also talked about his 4-2-4 formation approach to games which he believed that players in the middle of the pack had to press and not allow the opposition to create and move the ball around.
During his team memorable triumph back in 1976, in his first season with the Nacional team, his philosophy was keenly imbibed in the team’s mentality with Francisco Maturana who is always at the front in implementing many of the Argentine teaching and style, Zubeldia was so good that he knows what to say to motivate his players and also the exact words to use to demotivate his opponent on the pitch.
