Carlos Bilardo

Football player infobox2
playername = Carlos Bilardo


fullname = Carlos Salvador Bilardo
nickname = "El Narigón"
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1939|3|16
cityofbirth = Buenos Aires
countryofbirth = Argentina
currentclub =
position = Midfielder
youthyears =
youthclubs = San Lorenzo de Almagro
years = 1958-1960
1961-1965
1965-1970
clubs = San Lorenzo
Deportivo Español Estudiantes
caps(goals) =
nationalyears = 1959
nationalteam = Argentina (youth)
nationalcaps(goals) =
manageryears = 1971-1975
1976-1978
1978-1979
1979-1981
1982-1983
1983-1990
1992-1993
-1996-
1999-2000
2003-2004
managerclubs = Estudiantes
Deportivo Cali
San Lorenzo
Colombia
Estudiantes
Argentina
Sevilla FC
Boca Juniors
Libya
Estudiantes

Carlos Salvador Bilardo (born March 16, 1939 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine football (soccer) player and coach (and a physician by training) who achieved worldwide renown as a player with Estudiantes de La Plata and as coach of the 1986 World Cup champion team.

Born to Sicilian immigrants and raised in the Buenos Aires La Paternal neighborhood, Bilardo mixed football, study and hard work from his childhood. On school vacations, he would get up before dawn to haul produce to the Abasto market in Buenos Aires. Even as he rose through the youth divisions of San Lorenzo de Almagro, young Carlos never gave up on his ambition to become a doctor.

Bilardo was drafted to the junior Argentina national football team that obtained the 1959 Pan-American title and took part in the 1960 Summer Olympic Games in Rome.

In 1961, Bilardo was transferred to second-division side Deportivo Español, where he became the team's top scorer, but he slowly gravitated to the position of defensive midfielder. In 1965, he was transferred to Estudiantes de La Plata, where coach Osvaldo Zubeldía built a team based on the "killer juveniles" ("la tercera que mata") and thought of using Bilardo as a more mature anchor for the midfield.Bilardo became Estudiantes' inside-the-pitch tactician. Over a four-year span, the team won one "Metropolitano" title (1967), three Copa Libertadores titles (1968-1970) and one Intercontinental Cup (1968).

After graduating from the Universidad de Buenos Aires school of Medicine (together with fellow player Raúl Madero), Bilardo retired from play and accepted the job of Estudiantes coach in 1971. For the next years, he divided his time between coaching, his family (he married in 1968 and fathered a daughter), and helping manage his father's furniture business. He even found time to research rectal cancer and practice as a gynecologist.

Bilardo retired from the practice of medicine in 1976, feeling that being a phyisician requires a full-time commitment that he was unable to provide.

After two years as coach of Colombia's Deportivo Cali and a short stint in San Lorenzo, he became Colombia national team's trainer. When the team failed to qualify for the 1982 World Cup, he was fired from the position, and Estudiantes arranged for his return to Argentina.

The club was enjoying healthy finances due to the transfer of Patricio Hernández, and accommodated Bilardo's request for reinforcements. The team made the semi-finals of the 1982 "Nacional" and went on to win the same year's "Metropolitano" title.

Bilardo's scheme was based on Zubeldía's tactics, and its attacking might (fueled by players like Sabella, Trobbiani, Gottardi and Ponce) won the attention of the media—and of the top brass of the Argentine Football Association, who offered him to coach the Argentine national team.

He held the post from 1983 until after the 1990 World Cup. Under his watch, Diego Maradona became the most dominant player of his age, and Argentina enjoyed their best international harvest, winning the 1986 edition and reaching the 1990 final.

From 1990 and onwards, Bilardo alternated teaching and journalism stints with coaching. He would reunite with Maradona in Sevilla FC and later in Boca Juniors, and have a brief term as the national coach of Libya. Bilardo returned to Estudiantes for the 2003-2004 season. In a publicized episode during that season, Bilardo sat next to the pitch during a game against Club Atlético River Plate and drank from a bottle of champagne. He maintains that the bottle actually contained Gatorade (the contents of the bottle were analyzed by a forensic lab, confirming Bilardo's version). Media reactions varied from amusement to outrage.

The team improved its lackluster performance and promoted several key young players. It became a serious contender and three years later won the League under coach Diego Simeone.

A new generation of Bilardo-influenced coaches has been slowly taking over key positions in Argentine and South American football: Brown, Pumpido, Burruchaga, Trobbiani, Batista, and most notably Russo.

Bilardo covered the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany for Argentine TV station Canal 13 as a commentator. In the aftermath of the tournament, Argentine coach José Pekerman renounced the post, and Bilardo's name was floated as a possible substitute. The job eventually went to Alfio Basile, who had earlier succeeded Bilardo as national coach after the 1990 World Cup.

In 2007, Bilardo opposed [http://www.eldiariony.com/deportes/detail.aspx?Id=1649529] FIFA's decision to prohibit international games being played at heights larger than 2500m, whereas former Estudiantes teammate and fellow physician Raúl Madero (who was serving his second term as national team physician) had endorsed that decision.

Following the 2007 gubernatorial election, Bilardo was named Secretary of Sports of Buenos Aires province under governor Daniel Scioli.

Bilardo is known by fans and the media as "el narigón" (big nose).

He wrote a book called "Así Ganamos" (How we won, Editorial Sudamericana Planeta) relating the story of Argentina's 1986 FIFA World Cup win.

External links

* [http://www.carlosbilardo.com/index_new.asp Official Website]
* [http://www.fifa.com/classicfootball/winners/code=68/player=2147483647/detail.html FIFA.com articles on Bilardo]
* [http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/09/26/no_one_stops_the_ball_its_all.html Bilardo returns to Manchester]

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