Osvaldo Zubeldía

Osvaldo Zubeldía
Zubeldía, 1968
Personnel
Surname	Osvaldo Juan Zubeldía
birthday	June 24, 1927
place of birth	Junín ,  Argentina
date of death	17th January 1982
Place of death	Medellin ,  Colombia
position	attack
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1949-1955	Velez Sarsfield
1956-1957	Boca Juniors
1958-1959	Club Atlético Atlanta
1960	CA Banfield
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
1961-1963	Club Atlético Atlanta
1965	Argentina
1965-1970	Estudiantes de La Plata
1974	CA San Lorenzo
1975	Racing Club
1976-1982	Atlético Nacional
1 Only league games are given.

Osvaldo Juan Zubeldía (born June 24, 1927 in Junín , Argentina , † January 17, 1982 in Medellín , Colombia ) was an Argentine football player and later coach. Not particularly successful as a player, he played a key role as a coach in the rise of Estudiantes de La Plata from relegation candidate to World Cup winner. He was also responsible for CA San Lorenzo de Almagro and the Colombian club Atlético Nacional , but also briefly for the Argentine national soccer team .

Player career

Zubeldía as a player for the Boca Juniors

Osvaldo Zubeldía began his career as a football player with the Bonaren club CA Vélez Sársfield in 1949. At Vélez, which at that time unlike today was not necessarily one of the top teams in Argentine football, but still played in the top division, Zubeldía stood until the year 1955 under contract. For the 1956 season he finally moved to the club for the first time and from then on played for Boca Juniors , where he was under contract for two years. In those years when the maquina of great rival River Plate dominated football in Argentina, Zubeldía was unable to win the championship wearing the Boca Juniors jersey. In the seasons 1956 and 1957 a third and fourth place were occupied, while each of the River Plate coached by José María Minella could prevail. Overall, Osvaldo Zubeldía came in these two years to 38 league games in the jersey of the Boca Juniors, where he scored ten goals.

From 1958 to 1959 he played for Club Atlético Atlanta , a smaller club from Buenos Aires that has long since slipped into the third division , but which was to be found in the Primera División in the 1950s . As a player from Atlanta, Osvaldo Zubeldía achieved quite respectable results with fourth and sixth places in 1958 and 1959. In addition, the Copa Suecia , a 1958 due to the World Cup in Sweden and the resulting break in league operations, one-off tournament, which can be counted as an unofficial championship, was won.

In 1960 Osvaldo Zubeldía finally had his last post as an active football player at CA Banfield in the Argentine second division. After that, Zubeldía's playing career ended at the age of 33.

Coaching career

Beginnings

After the end of his active career as a football player, Osvaldo Zubeldía was coach. Just one year after retiring, he returned to Club Atlético Atlanta in this role, where he was already under contract from 1958 to 1959. With Zubeldía as coach, Atlanta played two quite respectable seasons. In the 1961 season , the new coach led his team to fourth place, and in the following season he was seventh.

At the end of 1963 Osvaldo Zubeldía left the Club Atlético Atlanta. He was unemployed for two years as a result. In 1965 he took over the vacant post of Argentine national coach. Since 1960, nine other coaches, including well-known personalities such as Guillermo Stábile , Juan Carlos Lorenzo and José María Minella, had tried their hand at this position , but no one was able to work long-term. It was similar for Osvaldo Zubeldía, who led the troubled Argentine national team relatively safely to the 1966 World Cup in England , but whose confidence was withdrawn before the tournament began. His successor Juan Carlos Lorenzo made it to the quarter-finals with Argentina, but failed because of the hosts.

Working at Estudiantes

Osvaldo Zubeldía speaking to his team as an Estudiantes coach

A few months after the end of his tenure as Argentine national coach, Osvaldo Zubeldía was introduced in 1965 as the new coach of the first division club Estudiantes de La Plata . At that time, Estudiantes was a consistently first-class, but also relatively unsuccessful provincial club. The club was found more in the relegation battle than in the race for the championship. This situation should change with the arrival of coach Zubeldía. In 1965 he had already written a book about tactics in football together with Argentino Geronazzo and made a name for himself as a successful tactician as the coach of Estudiantes de La Plata. Osvaldo Zubeldía was one of the very first coaches to adapt his tactics to the opponent's style of play and also let his players counter the efforts of the opposing team through so-called "tactical fouls" or by practicing the offside trap - a tactical method that was completely unknown at the time. Zubeldía received a lot of criticism for his tactical views, especially from supporters of traditional Argentine football, which was mainly focused on playful quality, but he had great success with his methods, which the achievements of Estudiantes de La Plata in the years 1965 to 1970 occupy.

Ultimately, Estudiantes developed within three years from relegation candidate to World Cup winner with Osvaldo Zubeldía as coach and a team that was composed almost exclusively of relatively unknown players without international experience, of whom Juan Ramón Verón and Carlos Bilardo are best known. Years later, the latter became a successful coach himself and coached very much on the model of Osvaldo Zubeldía. His work is therefore also the basis of the division of the Argentine coaching into two camps: On the one hand, the supporters of left football , i.e. the offensive system of César Luis Menotti , which is aimed at a nice game, and on the other hand, the supporters of Bilardo and, ultimately, Zubeldía's tactical and mostly tactical also more defensive-oriented game.

Zubeldía (center) and club president Mariano Mangano after winning the World Cup in 1968

In the first year after his arrival at Estudiantes de La Plata, Zubeldía led the team in fifth place in the Primera División 1965 , the following year they were seventh. Zubeldía's team achieved its first major success in the Metropolitano competition of the Primera División in 1967, when they prevailed in the final against the Racing Club and won the first ever Argentinian championship for Estudiantes de La Plata. With the 1967 championship, Estudiantes was eligible to compete in the 1968 Copa Libertadores . Here they came first in the group stage ahead of Independiente Avellaneda and the Colombian representatives Deportivo Cali and CD Los Millonarios . The second group stage was finished first in front of Independiente and Universitario de Deportes from Peru . After surviving the semifinals against the Racing Club, they finally met Palmeiras São Paulo from Brazil in the final . With 2: 1, 1: 3 and a 2: 0 in the playoff, Estudiantes defeated the Brazilians and thus secured the first of three titles in the Copa Libertadores in a row. A little later the World Cup was brought to the Río de la Plata by a 1-0 and 1: 1 against the winner of the European Cup of National Champions 1967/68 , Manchester United .

While no further titles jumped out in the league, the Estudiantes de La Plata by Osvaldo Zubeldía continued to be very successful internationally. As the defending champion automatically qualified for the Copa Libertadores 1969 , they were able to win it again by beating Uruguayan representatives Nacional Montevideo in the final (1-0 and 2-0) . Previously, Chile's then champions Universidad Católica had been eliminated in the semifinals . A few weeks after winning the second Copa Libertadores, Estudiantes was also successful in the Copa Interamericana and won the first edition of this competition against Deportivo Toluca .

In 1970, Osvaldo Zubeldía and Estudiantes de La Plata managed the title hat trick in the Copa Libertadores. After River Plate was clearly defeated 4-1 in the semi-finals on a two-way basis, Zubeldía's team again decided the final for themselves, this time Peñarol Montevideo from Uruguay . As in the previous year against AC Milan , however, Estudiantes failed in September 1970 when trying to win the World Cup again. It set a defeat against Feyenoord Rotterdam . The 1970 World Cup final was Osvaldo Zubeldía's last international game as coach of Estudiantes. He left the club after the end of the season in 1970. With the successful coach, however, went with success. It would take until 1982 before Estudiantes should win the Argentine championship again a few months after Osvaldo Zubeldía's death. The coach of that team was Carlos Bilardo, and the title was won with a tactic similar to that used by Zubeldía in La Plata .

Work in colombia

In 1970 Osvaldo Zubeldía's work at Estudiantes de La Plata ended and he was subsequently unemployed for four years. In 1974 he finally took over as a coach at CA San Lorenzo de Almagro for a year . The team around players like Roberto Telch , Jorge Olguín and Oscar Ortiz led Zubeldía to win the Torneo Nacional of the Primera División 1974 by taking first place one point ahead of Rosario Central . After winning the title, Zubeldía resigned at San Lorenzo de Almagro, he was the new coach of the Racing Club for the coming season . There, however, the successes failed and Osvaldo Zubeldía was dismissed after a series of poor performances in the Torneo Metropolitano just a few months after taking office.

After his release in Avellaneda , Osvaldo Zubeldía left Argentina and went to Colombia to work as head coach for today's record champions Atlético Nacional . In Medellín , Zubeldía had his longest tenure as a coach and was able to build on his great time at Estudiantes de La Plata with success and had a great influence on the development of Colombian football. Zubeldía's work at Atlético Nacional laid the foundation for the positive development of football in Colombia, which became one of the most successful in South America in the 1980s and had its first Copa Libertadores winner in Atlético Nacional in 1989.

"Osvaldo shaped an era because he professionalized us and taught us that work is the key to success."

- Francisco Maturana

In 1976 and 1981, Zubeldía won the Colombian championship with Atlético Nacional. In Campeonato Colombiano 1976 one was in the final table first with six points ahead of Atlético Junior . Five years later, they won the title again by taking first place in the four-team final round, two points ahead of Deportes Tolima . Participation in the Copa Libertadores in the era of Osvaldo Zubeldía at Atlético Nacional was not very successful, because it came in both the Copa Libertadores 1977 and the Copa Libertadores 1982 (here Atlético Nacional was only trained in the first games by Zubeldía) already the early end after the preliminary round.

death

Osvaldo Zubeldía died of a heart attack on January 17, 1982 in Medellín, Colombia. At the time of his death, he was still under contract as a coach at Atlético Nacional. Zubeldía suffered the heart attack while practicing one of his hobbies and following a horse race. Osvaldo Zubeldía was 54 years old.

His remains were brought to Argentina and buried in the Junín City Central Cemetery.

successes

Osvaldo Zubeldía (left) and Estudiantes President Mariano Mangano after winning the 1968 World Cup

As a player

• Copa Suecia : 1 ×

1958 with Club Atlético Atlanta

As a trainer

• Argentine Championship : 2 ×

Torneo Metropolitano 1967 with Estudiantes de La Plata

Torneo Nacional 1974 with CA San Lorenzo

• World Cup : 1 ×

1968 with Estudiantes de La Plata

• Copa Libertadores : 3 ×

1968 , 1969 and 1970 with Estudiantes de La Plata

• Copa Interamericana : 1 ×

1969 with Estudiantes de La Plata

• Colombian Championship : 2 ×

1976 and 1981 with Atlético Nacional

Individual evidence

1. ^ Goal.com Estudiantes de La Plata 1967–1970
2. ↑ fifa.com History of Estudiantes de La Plata
3. ↑ fifa.com History of Atlético Nacional
4. ↑ atlnacional.com Osvaldo Zubeldías at Atlético Nacional
5. ↑ diariohoy.net ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 134 kB) Short biography of Zubeldías 

Web links

Commons : Osvaldo Zubeldía  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Extensive information about Zubeldía ( Memento from March 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
• Biography Osvaldo Zubeldías ( Memento from January 31, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
• Information on Zubeldía