EDUARDO BERIZZO: A STORY OF CONSTANT GROWTH THAT BEGIN WITH MARCELO BIELSA

Beginning with the support of Marcelo Bielsa, Manuel Eduardo Berizzo, as a player as well as a manager, has had a successful career that now -awaiting the final details of his contract- will take on the challenge of guiding Sevilla FC through the Champions league and confirming his place among the sporting elite.

"Bielsa taught me that you can never think you've learned everything; that everything is still out there to be discovered. He was a sort of guide for me, someone who taught me how to begin my management career". Sevilla FC's new manager does not hide the importance of the current manager of Lille to his career, which is no wonder. Bielsa gave him an opportunity as a player –a high-quality central midfielder with a lot of character- at Newell's a team that won almost everything at the beginning of the 1990s, as well as taking him on as an assistant in 2007 while managing the Chilean national team, shortly after Berizzo retired at Cádiz CF. After his start with Bielsa, however, Eduardo Berizzo has had a career filled with triumphs, and is far from having reached his peak. From a privileged student to a renowned manager of European football.

Bielsa gave him an opportunity as a player and welcomed him onto his technical staff. From that point onwards, he has had a career full of indisputable success with a notable offensive approach to tactics.

Berizzo arrived on the professional football scene in the 1980's with Newell's, where he won two championships, leaving while still very young to Atlas, in Mexico,, returning to Argentina in 1996 to success with River Plate after three good seasons with Atlas. Thanks to his outstanding performance at River Plate, he made the leap to European football in 1999, spending a short time at Olympique de Marsella and five high-quality seasons at Celta de Vigo, despite arriving at the Galician club at 31 years old. After he left Vigo he played for one more season in the first division with Cádiz in 05/06.

Having taken practically no break from football, he joined Marcelo Bielsa's technical staff at the Chilean national team, where he learned management until after the World Cup in South Africa. Now working by himself, but always with Bielsa's inspiration, he began his career as a manager, first with a short and unremarkable time at Estudiantes de La Plata in the second half of 10/11. Berizzo voluntarily resigned due to the poor results and headed to Chile, where in November of 2011 he took the helm of O’Higgins, a club that he transformed with his attack-based approach, which resulted, fundamentally, in trophies. With Berizzo at the head, O'Higgins won a championship for the first time in their history, winning the Torneo Apertura of 2013 as well as the Chilean Super Cup in 2014, and finishing second in the Torneo Apertura of 2012. In May 2014, Eduardo Berizzo departed Racanagua, having given the El Teniente club the most glorious period of their history.

In Chile he gave O'Higgins the first championship of their history, and in Spain he returned Celta to European play, always using a non-negotiable offence-based approach.

In the summer of 2014, after the departure of Luis Enrique to FC Barcelona, Real Club Celta de Vigo, where he had made a brilliant impression as a player, gave him the opportunity to manage a team in Europe. Eduardo Berizzo did not disappoint the expectations that came with his arrival. He took a team that was stuck in the middle of the table and, after three seasons, reached a sixth-place finish in15/16, two consecutive Copa del Rey semifinals in 15/16 and 16/17 and, the 16/17 UEFA Europa League final. Celta was eliminated from this competition by Manchester United in an intensely-disputed semifinal that was fought until the last breath.

After having established himself as a successful manager, first in Chile with O'Higgins, where he received all types of recognition, including from the local government, and later in Spain with Real Club Celta, Eduardo Berizzo is now taking on what is possibly the most important challenge of his career: managing Sevilla FC, a team with a demanding approach to sport, one that is putting its trust in a manager who has made attacking football and good results his best argument to continue the upward trajectory of his career.