The Interview: Eduardo Biscayart
The broadcaster, who calls Premier League and World Cup games for Telemundo, shares his thoughts on Leeds, Marcelo Bielsa, the chances of his native Argentina in Qatar, his media journey and more.
One of the very top Spanish-language soccer broadcasters in the United States is my friend Eduardo Biscayart, whom you can see on Telemundo broadcasting games from the Premier League and World Cup. He has a fascinating story in the media, as well, starting out as a photographer in his native Argentina for El Gráfico (their version of Sports Illustrated) and transitioning later into becoming a broadcaster. It was great to catch up with him this week for our interview.
The entirety of the written interview below is reserved for paid subscribers. As always, you can still get the entire free audio version of my podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to go for your pods.
Grant Wahl:
Our guest now is a good friend who's one of the leading soccer broadcasters in the United States. Miami-based Eduardo Biscayart calls Premier League games and will be doing the World Cup for Telemundo. He also hosts the terrific podcast Fútbol Infinito with Jaime Macías. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram at @donbisca. Eduardo, it's great to talk to you. Thanks for coming on the show.
Eduardo Biscayart:
Thank you, Grant. How are you?
Grant Wahl:
Doing well, doing well. We're recording this on Tuesday, September 6, the first day of the Champions League group stage, so as always much going on in the soccer world. I want to start, because we have a lot of things we can talk about here, but I do know you've done multiple Leeds United games so far this season on Telemundo. And there's a lot of interest from U.S. fans in Leeds, obviously because of Jesse Marsch, the American coach, American players Tyler Adams and Brenden Aaronson. What's your sense of Leeds United and the Americans there so far?
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Eduardo Biscayart:
Well, I think that the team has improved. When Jesse took it, it was in critical condition because it was heading for relegation. Defensively it was a disaster. It was one of the worst two defenses in the league. Even at the end when they escaped relegation second after Norwich City, and they have improved I think in the balance of the game, and they have added some interesting players. Because two of the most important players in the past seasons, Raphinha and Kalvin Phillips, have departed, along with other ones that have been difficult to replace, like Alioski in the left side of defense and also Bielsa.
Bielsa was the man that I think gave this club and this city, in a soccer way, in a football way, the sense that they belonged again. So the American players have, I think, blended in very well. Marsch, I think the most challenging part was just to stabilize the team and keep it in the Premier League. And now there are the challenges of trying to be a middle-of-the-table team, which is hard in such a competitive league.
Grant Wahl:
You're from Argentina originally. How much have you followed Marcelo Bielsa in his career over the years? He's sort of this eccentric legendary figure, including in Argentina, going back to Newell's Old Boys and his playing career. What's your sense of sort of Bielsa's legacy and even what he might do next?
Eduardo Biscayart:
Well, Bielsa is I think a person who connects very well in the one-on-one, or in the personal manner emotionally. And I think that's the reason why the players give themselves completely to his cause, sometimes without questioning his tactics or his methods. And I think the best way to analyze his methods is throughout the time. And Bielsa is a person that can obtain great results, and then can undo that very quickly.
For instance, let's go to the most beyond Leeds or Athletic Club Bilbao, we go to Argentina in the buildup of the 2002 World Cup. Argentina was probably the best team in the world in that qualifying and heading into the World Cup. But then a couple injuries and the team was not as fit as it was in qualifying in the middle of the season. And it was a horrible collapse. And that's why Bielsa does not have that sense, the same sense or the same connection that he has with the player just to get the most out of him, then just to realize that the player maybe is not as fit as it should be, or the defense is not as quick as it should be to play so forward. And therefore the team might suffer. And then that suffering might be that you need to make adjustments, and the result is going to be bad. And that happened to him many times, and it will probably keep on happening.
I've never seen him... contrary to the brilliance that he has, I have never seen him being auto-critical. I know that his philosophy and about... like today when you're suffering, it's because you're losing, it's because you're going to win tomorrow, but not realizing... why this is continuing to happen to me.
Grant Wahl:
Do you think he'll take up a prominent job again? Do you think he might come to North America at some point?
Eduardo Biscayart:
I think he might. I think he's going to go for another one. I think Bielsa, without knowing him in depth, my father was a Newell's Old Boys fan, and he followed Newell's in those days and in probably days before him, probably since 1950s and '60s. And so I know the philosophy of Newell's very well.
But I think Bielsa is one of those sportsmen who are bad losers. They don't like to lose, like any good sportsman, and he's going to go back to get another revenge. But what you question from the outside is, is he going to be able to make the adjustments? Because any coach will tell you, "Well, yeah, this is what happened to me." For instance, Ancelotti. Ancelotti was coming through periods of not good results. And it seems like now he's a philosopher because he learned. And the way that they call him, like Ancelotti has a right hand to be firm and the left one to be soft. You have to have the balance somehow, I think, when you're leading a group.
Grant Wahl:
That's really interesting. What is a typical work week like for you?
Eduardo Biscayart:
Well, we have the weekend, which is the thick part of what we do when the games happen. And so after that, when I work on TV, I used to have Champions League when I used to work for Fox Sports in Mexico, and that ended in 2021. So once the contract ended, it was renewed through TNT Sports in Mexico, and they didn't want me to be a part of that. It's one of the things that happen in this business and any aspect of life, which is totally fine. So then it was just weekends. And on Sunday nights, we would just record the podcast with the action of the weekend. We don't go play by play, analyzing everything. It's trying to see an outlook of what happened and why it happened, and what projection it might have on what's coming up in the future.
And then Monday, I try to start to get ready for the week. And this week of Champions League, we're going to do two things for Champions League: preview today and tomorrow, Spaces on Twitter, audio only. And then on Wednesday, we're going to record a recap of the whole matchday. And then getting ready for the weekend, watch the games obviously, keep up with the action and get ready for the weekend.
The preparation for each game typically takes me maybe four or five hours to analyze the teams, and to get the information, and to read basically, like you, reading, being up to date. We're not at the source, so we have a tremendous handicap there. It's not like with any American sport you can go to the field, you can go to the practice, you can have closer contact with the protagonists. And here, we just see everything from afar, so it's hard.
Grant Wahl:
I do think, I said this to you before we started recording, that getting a nickname from Luis Omar Tapia, you've got to use that, because that guy is the king of nicknames when it comes to players and basically everyone. So I fully respect all of that and admire it. And if he's listening, I would love to get my own nickname, my friend. But I want to ask you about your story. I've always known you're from Argentina, but I was surprised recently to learn that you were a photographer back in the day before you became a broadcaster. Could you share a bit about your journey?
Eduardo Biscayart:
Well, my beginnings were in track and field. I love football, soccer. But I guess my parents... my dad didn't want me to play, to even go to a trial. Maybe I wasn't good enough anyway. But when I was able to do something on my own, I had just turned 16. I went to a track and field practice, and I was able to stick on to it. I think I showed at least resilience or some talent, and that's how I became an athlete. I had a certain junior level, okay. And I completed one national championship under 20, and I won the regionals, I was a 1,500-meter runner and I was all right. I wouldn't have been an Olympian, surely. But then, because I was always in love with sports. My father used to buy El Gráfico and other magazines. He loved car racing as well. So every day there was something to read, and that connected me very deeply.
And with the resources that we had, we would go to the Formula 1 when it would hit Buenos Aires in the late '70s, and sometimes to football. But it was not an every weekend plan. Mostly we would just go to the club where we belonged and to play sports and to learn how to play.
And when I was in track and field, I realized that the hunger of telling a story, telling a story about something that was known, those athletes that to me were references, like, nobody knew about them. And that's when I started writing and doing statistical work. And then they said you're going to be more useful if you pick up the camera. You have a camera, you take pictures. You like pictures. "Yeah, yeah, I do."
And so I developed that side, in the meantime when I was still aspiring to be a journalist. I never quit journalism, but I picked up the camera, and while picking up the camera, I realized that there was another side. My love for the camera has never ended. And that's why still, when I can, I go to the field because I love being at the field to take pictures. And that took me to El Gráfico, and that took me to America.
Grant Wahl:
Could you explain a little bit to our listeners what El Gráfico was, and what it represented in Argentina? Because for me, when I lived in Argentina for three months in '95, I visited El Gráfico because for me it had become this very meaningful publication. How would you describe what it was?
Eduardo Biscayart:
Well, it was just like the publication where you worked in the United States. It was pretty much the same reference, and I think it was inspired by the same principle by its founder, Constancio Vigil, in 1919. And because it was the same as Sports Illustrated, right?
Grant Wahl:
Yeah.
Eduardo Biscayart:
El Gráfico is sports graphically, so it was the idea, you're not going to be able to come up with a daily story, but you're going to be able to tell a story, and you're going to be able to show it graphically. And that was the principle. And throughout the times, it did have probably the best signatures in sports and in journalism in general and the best images. So it was a great formation for me. It was a great school of life and journalism, and I think it couldn't have been better. I got there, someone spotted me and they said, "You want to be a part of this?" I said, "What, are you kidding me?: I don't know how you got to Sports Illustrated, but that's the way it happened to me. And I started as a junior, little by little.
Grant Wahl:
Yeah. I got in as an entry-level fact checker, and became a writer after a year, I guess, at Sports Illustrated.
Eduardo Biscayart:
No, it was the same thing for me. I was a paparazzi at night. I was 21 and they say, you're going to go to find the restaurants and stuff, spot people, famous people, whatever, and do it, and bring the pictures and focus and with good lighting. So go figure it out.
Grant Wahl:
Nice. And how would you make the transition to broadcasting? At what point did that take place?
Eduardo Biscayart:
Well, I mean, I had never left the journalistic side, and I think being a photo reporter, you never lose your appetite for where the news is, because you have to reflect it. There's a story behind a picture. There's a story behind an image. And sometimes the image is part of the story, and sometimes it's totally the story.
So when I got to the United States, when I got married, I got married to an American woman and we had a son, and we lived in Atlanta for almost two and a half years. And she heard, because she had worked at Turner, that they needed a writer at the CNN Spanish broadcast news. And so I just went the day of the verdict of O.J. Simpson. I walked in. It was total commotion there. I remember that. And I spent probably six hours writing and translating and they said, "Okay, can you come back tomorrow?" I said, "Well, I actually don't have my work permit yet."
And they said, "Okay, well then come back when you have it." Maybe the arrogance of being 20-something, I was like, "Well, I would like to just... there's the Olympics coming up next year," and I already told you the connection I had with an Olympic sport, "... and I think I might be able to get a job there, I would like to." And he's like, "Well, the Olympics are next year, right?" He's like, "Okay, then come back then, but stay in touch."
And that's how they taught me lots of things that I didn't know, because I didn't belong to the TV side or even the radio side. And actually for me it was like a masters in journalism, the one that I experienced there. And then I complemented to what I did at ESPN. And at ESPN one day they said, "We would like you to do a trial for commenting on a game. And so let's see if you can handle that." And I handled that apparently pretty well, so then I'm here with you.
Grant Wahl:
That's an amazing transition, because I don't view the skills of photography and action photography in sports as having a lot of overlap, maybe some, but not that much between broadcasting, or writing for that matter. You're a pretty talented guy, I guess, is what I'm saying.
Eduardo Biscayart:
Well, I always loved the game. My brother is a River Plate fan, and we would go to the stadium. And you've been to Boca-River, Independiente, Ferrocarril Oeste in those days. And in certain stadiums you could learn different things. And I think in Boca and Racing, you just know about being a player that has a lot of character, and can deliver something beyond the game. And at Independiente, River and Newell's as well, you would observe the game and learn from the game and the movements, and you would see great players, and they would actually encourage you to do something else. And they would tell you about Di Stéfano, and they would tell you about Labruna, and they would tell you about Arsenio Erico, Bochini, whatever.
So for me reading El Gráfico, and seeing it there and listening to the radio, I was like, I would go with the radio to the stadiums. I was obsessed with that. My family can tell you that. I think I was able to canalize whatever opportunity came to me and grab it and try it. And that was a key. But I always did it with passion and trying to be as humble as possible, and say, I need to learn this line of work, because I'm not perfect for it. I need to make myself better. And that's what I did at every opportunity that I had. Or tried, at least.
Grant Wahl:
Did you have any major influences among broadcasters?
Eduardo Biscayart:
Just from observing. In the '70s, there was this radio host that created a style in radio. It was picked up from others previously. José María Muñoz. Muñoz had the rhythm of the information. And then Victor Hugo Morales gave it a different twist. It was deeper. It was more poetical. There was something else to that. And the radio was everything then, because unless you went to the stadium, you would acquire the possibility of seeing the game without seeing it, and the whole match day, and everything that was happening.
I think it was simpler in that day. All the teams played 4-3-3, and exceptionally they played 4-4-2, Bilardo made another thing. It was interesting when hearing that, it's like you would want to see it in the stadium, and so for me, it was beyond trying to see who scored or whatever, I would go to observe the game. And then the one announcer that I picked up from the TV side the most was Enrique Macaya Márquez, because he would have the balance to be able to inform you without being over powerful, and describing tactics without looking like, "I'm an expert, but I try to know a lot." And so that balance, and with that being extremely passionate. It's like, yeah, you have to show passion because you have to be emotional. However, it's like being able to just handle that without falling apart later on. I think that that was very appealing to me.
Grant Wahl:
Have you ever worked in English? Have you wanted to?
Eduardo Biscayart:
Occasionally, but I never was given that opportunity and probably I never went after it.
Grant Wahl:
I have the nerve to hope to work in Spanish a little more often at some point. But as you know from my appearance on your podcast, I've got some work to do on my Spanish. (laughs)
Eduardo Biscayart:
We all have work to do; so don't be discouraged. I have work to do. So it's like, come on.
Grant Wahl:
A couple more questions for you; I really appreciate you taking the time. Argentina at this World Cup, it seems like as the Copa América champion, it feels like there's a little more support for Messi now. And now I hear people talking about this could be Messi's World Cup to potentially have a chance to win. What do you think?
Eduardo Biscayart:
Well, I think it's not so easy to win a World Cup. I mean, people think that it's simple and that it's... like, we were talking about the Bielsa days. And it was like, oh, Argentina is going to make it very easily. And they could not advance from the group stage. And the players were there. You are as nostalgic as I am, Verón, Simeone, Batistuta still being not at his prime, but still being high, or Gustavo López, or Claudio López, Sorín, Zanetti. And it was a very good team. I mean, it went through the qualifying as there were no rivals, except for Brazil at Brazil. And in this case, Argentina goes undefeated again through the qualification. They win the Copa América, which they hadn't done since 1993. However, the World Cup is very tricky, and we know that.
Maybe right now, we're seeing Mexico like without giving any type of solid performance, and maybe they will have the quinto partido, the fifth game, who knows? Because in football it may happen that way, because I think a lot is how you arrive... this is like a tennis major; it's how you arrive to those two weeks. In this case, there are four weeks. And how is your mental strength and approach to what you're going to see? You've got to be very humble. And you have to be physically and technically at your peak. You cannot be seven out of 10. Maybe you can have a player who's seven out of 10, and maybe you can play him 30 minutes in each game very, very precisely, because you're going to have a 26-man roster.
The mental approach has to be top, from the coach and from the players. The moment I think Alfio Basile, from those days, used to say, when we go to a World Cup thinking that we're going to win it, then nothing good is going to happen. And I think the best example that we have is what happened in '86. Bilardo and the players said when we went to Ezeiza, which is the airport, and there was nobody around, we left like, "Please get out of here and don't come back." And then they won the World Cup. They had Maradona, and they had a great team now that we see it from a distance. But I think that attitude that "We're going to have to fight really hard" is very important.
Grant Wahl:
Just as a last question, I like asking people this, if you have any advice for young people who want to do what you do, what would that advice be?
Eduardo Biscayart:
I think: Never give up. Never just take the first opinion or get discouraged by the first encounter that you may have, like they say. Or they want to give you the idea that you're not as good as... boy/girl, you're not as good as people label you. And because there are lots of labels in this society. There have been. I'm 52 now, and then back in the day, probably in Argentina maybe a lot of people thought, "What is this guy doing on TV? He was never on TV. I mean, what the hell?" But it's just as I always said, why not? And why would I have to wonder later, why didn't I do it? So just go for it, and be humble to observe and to learn and if you have somebody that you admire, if you can, try to get in touch with that person.
Today with social networks and social media, it's a lot easier. And don't use that to provoke or to say something stupid. Because a lot of people, you probably would be very receptive to somebody who wants to do what you have done, what you are doing, which is remarkable. And it's always inspiring. There's always somebody out there. I always tell the younger people: Even when you are broadcasting a game that seems will have no audience, you will never know who's listening to you. And that happened to me, that it's extremely positive to see when people notice something that you wrote on a piece, something that you said, because you are thinking about it, you are thinking that that makes a difference. When you are commenting on a game, you're thinking that what you're saying is original. It makes a difference.
And when people see it and when people spot it, they say you have something beyond talking about the game. And that is a great compliment because we're not just a game. We're just people alive. Like you like music, cinema, books, you read a lot, and then that makes a whole of a person. And for me, the advice is complete yourself. Read whatever you like with a lot of passion, then just go for that and try to learn as much as you can, and try to challenge yourself to learn as much as you can every day, and be critical. Don't be so harsh, but critical.
Grant Wahl:
Eduardo Biscayart calls Premier League games for Telemundo, where he'll also be working the World Cup. He hosts the terrific podcast Fútbol Infinito with Jaime Macías. Eduardo, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Eduardo Biscayart:
Thank you, Grant. It was a pleasure.