Marcelo Bielsa's Unique Approach to World Cup Portraits

Marcelo Bielsa has never cared much for the performance around football. The touchline theatrics, the sponsor walls, the staged smiles. He has always preferred the work: the training pitch, the video room, the next problem to solve.

So of course his official Fifa World Cup portrait looks nothing like everyone else’s.

While players and coaches across the tournament squared up to the camera, flashing smiles or striking poses they know will be shared around the world, the Uruguay coach stared downwards, stone-faced, as if the photographer had interrupted him mid-analysis. No swagger. No show. Just Bielsa, apparently wishing he was somewhere else – probably watching Saudi Arabia’s defensive shape for the fifth time.

The man nicknamed El Loco – The Crazy One – has built a career out of ignoring convention. The ice box he perches on during games. The forensic obsession with detail. The training sessions that feel like exams. At 70, managing his third national team at a World Cup after Argentina and Chile, he is not about to change because someone wants a neat headshot.

So when questions came after Uruguay’s opening 1-1 draw with Saudi Arabia in Miami, Bielsa’s patience thinned quickly. Was the downward stare a protest? A message? A statement?

He cut it off.

"I don't have to give any explanation, the picture was taken the way it was taken," he said. "I'm not a model."

That was that, as far as he was concerned. Fifa’s official photoshoots have become part of the modern tournament theatre, a staple of coverage and social media build-up. For Bielsa, they are background noise.

The Argentine, one of the most respected coaches of his generation, tried to move on to football. Reporters did not. A different question arrived, but his mind went back to the portrait and to what he clearly sees as needless scrutiny.

"There is a limit in terms of what we need to explain," he said. "If I'm wearing glasses, why am I wearing glasses?

"You look somebody in the eye, why do you do that?

"There is nothing wrong about wearing glasses or looking into somebody's eyes or looking down."

It was classic Bielsa: terse, logical, uninterested in the circus around the game. He has always resisted the idea that every gesture must carry a hidden meaning. Sometimes a downward glance is just that.

While the image ricochets around the internet, he will be locked in his own world again, preparing Uruguay for their second pool match. Cape Verde, the tournament’s surprise package, await on Sunday at 23:00 BST.

Bielsa will be judged there, where he has always wanted to be judged: not by the way he looks into a camera, but by what his team does when the whistle blows.