Just one victory against Spain, the reigning European champions, stands between Marcelo Bielsa’s Uruguay and an early, embarrassing exit from the World Cup. The former Leeds United manager tried to frame the situation in a positive light after draws with Saudi Arabia and Cape Verde, insisting the team now faces an opportunity to "enhance their image" against a top-tier opponent. It’s a generous interpretation of a grim reality. Friday night’s match—kicking off at 8 p.m. ET—was supposed to decide the group before the tournament even began. Instead, a loss would leave Uruguay among the 16 teams eliminated in the expanded 48-team format, a far cry from the ambitions of a side once seen as a dark horse.
Bielsa, ever the self-critic, has taken full responsibility for Uruguay’s struggles, admitting he’s the reason the team has only managed two points from three matches. At 70, his tenure at the highest level may be nearing its end, and his time with Uruguay isn’t shaping up to be the strongest final chapter. Yet, despite their struggles in this tournament, there have been glimpses of the quality that once made them a force. The problems didn’t start here. After the last World Cup, Bielsa inherited a squad in need of renewal and, much like his time with Chile, found players who seemed tailor-made for his high-intensity, attacking approach. The early signs were promising—Uruguay stormed through the World Cup qualifiers, winning in Argentina, defeating Brazil, and scoring nearly twice as many goals as any other team after six rounds. Then came the 2024 Copa America, where they exploded out of the gates with a flurry of goals before hitting a wall. Since then, nothing has clicked.
The decline has been stark. In November, they were humiliated 5-1 by the U.S. under Mauricio Pochettino, Bielsa’s former protégé. A draw against England at Wembley in March was even more alarming—they barely crossed the halfway line, a far cry from the relentless pressing Bielsa’s teams are known for. Has his once-revolutionary style become too predictable? The high press and suffocating intensity that defined his early career are now commonplace in modern football. Bielsa himself seems to have questioned his approach. Instead of playing warm-up matches before the World Cup, Uruguay opted for intense training sessions, experimenting with a new formation—Federico Valverde pushed wide right and two strikers up front. It backfired, abandoned at halftime against Saudi Arabia, with a return to the familiar 4-3-3 bringing marginal improvement. Even then, the chances created against Cape Verde suggested a team that, with a bit more composure, could have already secured their place in the knockout rounds.
Tactics, however, might not be the root issue. A more convincing explanation lies in the dressing room. The month-long Copa America last year appeared to fracture the team’s unity. Luis Suárez, one of Uruguay’s greatest players, made that clear when he retired from international football, using a press conference to criticize Bielsa’s lack of warmth and what he saw as cold, impersonal treatment of the squad. Beyond the coach’s control, many of Uruguay’s key players have stagnated or regressed at club level. Valverde, now a star at Real Madrid, has yet to make an impact in this tournament. Others, like Rodrigo Bentancur, Manuel Ugarte, Facundo Pellistri, and Darwin Núñez, have either stalled or gone backward. Bielsa, who has always demanded maximum effort from his players, would be expected to extract more from this group—but even he seems to be falling short of his own high standards.
The clock is ticking. Bielsa has already announced he will step down after the 2026 World Cup, but if Uruguay bows out in the group stage, his final act as a top-level coach could be remembered for all the wrong reasons. The team that once terrified opponents with its relentless energy now looks disjointed, predictable, and, at times, lost. Against Spain, they’ll need more than just a tactical tweak—they’ll need a miracle.
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