I began to read a book a few days ago. As it always happens to me when I enjoy reading something, I have “swallowed” this book and I’m nearly done with it.
The name of the book is La vida por el fútbol. Marcelo Bielsa, el último romántico. And as everybody could imagine, it tells us passages of the life of this amazing human being.
It was the day the actual president of Athletic said they were trying to bring Marcelo here to appoint him as “Mister” of the first team when I first heard his name. Although I don’t completely like president Urrutia, mainly due to having dismissed Marcelo, I will always feel thankful to him for having allowed me to “get to know” a person who has taught and showed me so much about
life.
Many people could find this last sentence strange. How could somebody you have just seen on TV and who works in such an inhumane field as football, teach you anything about life?
I can’t find any short answer to this question. It’s a mix of many facts which has, in the end, had such a positive effect on me.
At the beginning, during his first months in Bilbao I did not pay any special attention to him. Football and the team were what I cared more about. I began to feel proud of my team while the months went by and I enjoyed myself watching the team play. The stars were the players and I rarely listened to Bielsa speak or didn’t even care about his job. The team achieved its best performances in the end of winter and beginning of spring. I was really excited and so were most of the people in the city. However, the main attraction was still football itself. I can’t remember how things changed in my mind, how that process took place; but the result was that by the end of the season, the Mister was more important for me than anything else in the team and the club.
The attitude of the players had made me fall in love some time before. However, I needed time to internalize that the latent reason to be behind everything was Bielsa. Once that idea got into my mind, I was completely abducted by Marcelo; I was becoming mad. I would listen to many of his conferences, I would search for information about his previous team, his performances and the more I knew, the more in love I fell. The end of the season brought some new and unexpected situations.
I felt how deep and how fast Marcelo had understood what the team means to us; he explained it perfectly well on a “stolen” record the media published. The renewal of his contract made me feel proud of my team, of my country and myself, as a member of the country. His loyalty towards us symbolized how much he appreciated the nobility of the Basque people.
The last event happened in the summer. He got angry with the works in Lezama. With this attitude, he showed me (and to everybody) that his own principles were above anything. He would never ever do anything against his ideas, even when his pigheadedness would surely bring him more problems than benefits.
During his second year in Bilbao, I began to feel that I was becoming a fan of the Mister; meanwhile, my interest on the team decreased. I loved watching his press conferences. He expressed himself showing his principles openly to the world. These principles were those of a “good” person, the ones I have in my mind and the ones I try to follow (with no little effort) every day.
"Yo les voy a leer lo que para mí es el fútbol: Éramos todos muy amigos, nos gustaba jugar juntos, la pásabamos bien reunidos, intentábamos hacerlo lo mejor posible. Atacar mucho y luego recuperarla con la ilusión de volver a atacar… y esperábamos la compañia de la suerte. Ése es el fútbol, muchachos."
He walked through the world showing his ideas proudly, in such a natural way, with such a conviction,...in this world where everybody wears a mask every day, this world where success is measured with money or power, where the path you follow to success is not taken into account, where the purpose justifies the path...this person just cared about doing his job as perfectly as possible every day, never breaking his principles and with a clear idea: the final result is not the aim, but the result of what you’ve done before.
This person became a mirror in which I try to find myself
