Football before 70s

Remembering Osvaldo Zubeldia – beyond the infamy – innovator, revolutionary, ahead of his time!

During the 1974 World Cup, Rinus Michels was asked about the origins of Total Football and he
responded: “You ask me about Total Football, that was invented by Osvaldo Zubeldía over at
Estudiantes six years ago.”

It was an amazing comment considering the controversial persona Zubeldia was! For many he was
the king of anti-football. For others, a genius visionary. If you look for one of the origins of the
opposite terms - Total football and Anti-football, you end up arriving at the same name: Osvaldo
Zubeldía.

This is the story of Zubeldia beyond the infamy! He is more remembered for the uncompromising,
sometimes destructive football his teams played however, we forget that he was a supreme
innovator who revolutionized football not only in Argentina but also in South America as a whole.

Osvaldo Zubeldia was born in Junín in 1927 and played in Vélez, Atlanta, Boca and Banfield. He
debuted as a coach in Atlanta in 1959 (he was until 1963) and then went through Banfield, Vélez,
Estudiantes, Hurricane, San Lorenzo, Racing and Atlético Nacional. He died young, at just 54 years, of
a heart attack, in 1982, in Medellin. As a player he did not have a great career, but as a coach he left
his mark.

His glory days of coaching were in Estudientes in mid to late 60s. They had a great young generation
that was known as La Tercera que Mata (The killer juveniles). That team contained great footballers
like Juan Ramón Verón (father of Juan Sebastian Veron), Carlos Pachamé, Eduardo Flores and Oscar
Malbernat, as well as Carlos Bilardo, Raúl Madero, Juan Echecopar, Ramón Aguirre Suárez and
Alberto Poletti, among others. Under his guidance the team won the 1967 Metropolitan. He was the
first to win the championship after 35 years of hegemony of River, Boca, Independiente, Racing and
San Lorenzo. He won three Libertadores: 1968, 1969 and 1970. He also lifted the 1969 Inter -
American Cup against Mexican Toluca and the Intercontinental Cup against Manchester United in Old
Trafford in 1968.

In the Old Trafford museum, in one of the corners of the Red Devils’ history lies a little board with
note that Zubeldia wrote prior to his team’s game against Manchester United in Intercontinental cup
1968. On the board there is a quote: “You don’t achieve glory by walking through a rosy path.”

That quote was his rallying cry to his team as they were about to embark on matches that saw them
reach glory as well as infamy. That phrase embodied the ethos of his team.

The innovator and revolutionary –

He was a revolutionary, master motivator, master strategist. He wrote one of the first coaches'
manuals on the Latin American continent in 1965, “Tactics and Strategy in Football “. He proposed a
different way, a 2-2-2-2-2 and the overcoming of the Brazilian hegemonic 4-2-4. AS he wrote -"We
are not convinced by the Brazilian disdain for the middle of the field." Zubeldía noticed that the
Brazilian midfielders did not defend, but that their possession kept their opponent’s at bay. He
believed that he had found a weakness in possession that could be exploited by fast countering. His
formation required that players in the middle had to press and not allow the opposition to create
and move the ball around.

Zubeldía imported everything he could know about foreign football, updated Argentine football,
professionalized it. He introduced offside trap use in Argentine football - use of the offside was
observed by Zubeldía as a player in a friendly match against the Swedish Norrköping in mid 1950s,
and he noted the finding. Years later in 1965, as a coach he implemented it and explained why: “I
believe in offside tactics because it morally crushes the adversary; the striker who falls five times
offside ends up being afraid to go to the area”.

He was a master communicator. Zubeldía once saw that the squad was not ready to follow the
philosophy he was looking to implement, had them come one day to practice at 4 o’clock in the
morning. Instead of training, he loaded the team onto a bus and took them to the local train station.
There, Zubeldía told them to just sit and observe the people that were on their way to work. “I did
this so you can see how fortunate you are, because you are paid to what you love to do most, play
football.”

In order for his team to better understand the concepts that he wanted to implement, Zubeldía had
his teams practice twice a day. At the time, the game was still not professional enough to implement
those types of schedules with players. One of the secrets of his success was the use of set-pieces.
One of the cornerstones of that Atlanta side and later the glorious Estudiantes squads later on that
decade was the work done on corners and free-kicks.

Zubeldía was a pioneer of many things: the players studied opposition video, double-shift training,
the use of the black board to explain tactic and the different roles of the players in the positions, the
corner routines - the corner to the first post, the strategy of corner and free kicks, the short throw
trainings, also the stepping out of defense as an attacker etc. He introduced a now dead position -
Stopper or the half sweeper for the individual marking of the most dangerous striker of opponent!

One amazing piece of innovation was he hired referees to give talks to soccer players about the
boundaries of what was allowed. He wanted his team to play on the edge of what was allowed!

He loved innovating and discussing football with everyone. One story is famous. His best player and
protégé Bilardo once got angry at Zubeldía when he saw him explaining on television how to
counteract the offside trap. In Bilado’s language: “I was furious, I couldn't believe it. I called him: Do
you realize that you are killing them with that play and explain it? Do you realize that you revealed
one of our biggest secrets? Yes, I did it to help me think to create another new play, he replied.”

The match against Manchester United in 1968 showed his tactical nous. He deployed one of the first
uses of one of the most critically used tactics of today. The offside trap. Fully knowing, it would be
impossible to overpower Matt Busby’s United at open play, he resorted to spoiling tactics. With his
stopper man marking Bobby Charlton out of the game, he relied on physicality against the enigmatic
George Best. Time and time again, these two legends would be caught offside. Best was brutalized,
practically nullifying his impact in the game. The result was a 1-1 draw at Old Trafford and an unlikely
but much savored 1-0 victory at home. Estudiantes etched themselves in history.

Estudientes made stopping opposition a recognizable football philosophy as a block and studied
every detail of the rival. For Bilardo: "There are many ways, Zubeldía knew them all. "

A great motivator, tales are recounted about some of his acts that are fondly remembered to this day
by those who had played under him. One of them recounts one particular rallying cry that still rings
true, “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”.

Zubeldia’s Estudiantes left their mark on world football during the club’s most successful period. But
amid the negative and sometimes brutal football, there were lots of amazing innovations and new
concepts. Sadly, they are remembered for the wrong reasons only.

Much maligned at that time, their style of football went on to revolutionize the game in the later
years. While in South America, the Zubeldian school of football has become a culture, many gloried
managers of the more recent years owe their success stories to Zubeldia. From Carlos Bilardo to
Francisco Maturana to Alejandro Sabella and many more.

Having played under Zubeldia at Estudiantes, Bilardo actually had credited the ’86 World Cup
triumph to him.

A sudden heart attack in 1982, and the world had lost one of its gems in the most dramatic way! He
had become somewhat of a demigod figure by then in Latin America, trying the best of good and evil
both in order to improve the beautiful game.

He left behind a kaleidoscope of experiments and innovations for future generations to follow.

A legacy seldom matched to this day.