Marcelo Bielsa: Five Ways to Lose a Marker 25.11.

23, 11:05

Gary Curneen Oct 2 3 min read

Marcelo Bielsa: Five

Ways to Lose a Marker
There is no doubt that Marcelo Bielsa is the gift that keeps giving to coaches in the football world. The
intensity of his teams without the ball, the fluid rotations in midfield, the ideas on the training pitch, plus
of course, the humility in front of the general public. Bielsa is a coach who seems to spend all his time
teaching. The question we have on MSC this week is whether coaches are spending enough time
learning from his work? Back in 2016, Bielsa presented for the Aspire Academy in front of a group of
colleagues at the Amsterdam Stadium. During his presentation he shared five ways that an attacker could
lose a marker and we look back at those five ways to create separation here.

In this week's MSC Breakdown on YouTube, we take a look at each technique that Bielsa shared, along
with the tactical and training examples for each one. You can watch the full video below.

BIELSA'S 5 WAYS TO LOSE A MARKER - WITH TRAINING EXERCISES!!

If you would like to take a closer look at the breakdowns for each technique, please find them below.

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1 - Reception with a turn (or already oriented)

This is where the attacker checks towards the ball to receive on the half-turn and be in a position to play
forward. In his presentation, Bielsa described how this could be from a straight or diagonal pass and he
specified that it was from a player dropping “in front of the game, moving from line to line.” Below is a
training example from the presentation and you can see that there is a huge emphasis on timing from
the blue player and receiving immediately after dropping into the space. The body shape after receiving
then allows the player to dribble or pass forward and ask questions of opposition central defenders.

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2 - Reception Behind the Opponent’s Back

For this technique, Bielsa described how this specific movement was beneficial when an attacker find
themselves very close to the opponent and then moves into space at speed behind the last line. Again
timing is key, but in this example it's about two movements. The first is to attract the opponent "out of
their area, where they don’t feel at home”, and the second movement is then where the attacker exploits
the space created. As he talked through the training movements below, Bielsa described how coaches
must be attentive to every detail. “You have to be precise in everything you train. That’s where you add
value.”

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3 - Reception Beside the Opponent

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With this type of movement, Bielsa described how attackers can benefit from opening up space on the
side of the opponent. Often defenders recover towards central areas (particularly in transition moments),
so if attackers create a new "corridor" they can get separation without dropping too wide. In the training
example below, you can see how Bielsa used white tape to show those 'corridors', again referencing
angles and timing alongside the movement, to get that precision right.

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4 - Reception after ‘Counter Anticipating’

www.tacticalpad.com (1

This could be definitely be Bielsa's most innovative movement where he referenced Messi as a player
who uses it. He calls it a pass to the opponent (which doesn't sound right) because I believe that he
means that the opponent will commits in the challenge, shifting their weight and momentum and
allowing the attacker to move the other way. As you can see in the training video below, the attacker
starts outside the space of the defender and then towards them, using the change in direction to
separate and drive towards goal.

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5 - Reception Behind the Opponent with Aerial Pass

In his final example, Bielsa described how the defender and attacker start on the same line, the defender
is drawn to the ball carrier, allowing the movement by the attacker to go out of the space and run in
behind. It sounds quite straight-forward, but Bielsa's training set-up again pointed to key specifics.
Although it's more of a linear pass by the teammate, Bielsa uses an extra mannequin to coach the weight
of the final pass so that it is still controlled to find the attacker. This attention to detail is consistent
throughout the presentation and for me, is the most inspiring aspect of Bielsa's work.

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You can also watch the presentation below.

Marcelo Bielsa: The 5 Different ways of Creating Separation - Aspire Academ…

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