Bielsa's excess of nerves may also be at fault.
He has been jumpy all through the tournament.
He brought in Claudio Lopez for the Nigeria game and then took him off at the interval, removed Veron at half-time against England, and then with the changes made for the decisive clash with Sweden.
Everything is easy in hindsight, but perhaps he would have been better advised to stick with the XI who have done so well for him over the past two years.
It might have given the team a serenity they lacked at key moments.
Argentina pummelled Sweden for the first 45 minutes. The interval message should surely have been that, if they kept playing their football as they had been doing, the goals would come naturally.
Initiative
Instead they were visibly tense when the second half got underway, and were a goal down before they began to get back into the first-half rhythm.
But it would be unfair to be too harsh on Bielsa, because whatever
nationalists in England and Brazil may think, both the World Cup and
football in general are poorer for Argentina's exit.
Bielsa's team had one extremely rare and precious characteristic: wherever the game, whoever the opponents and whatever the circumstances, they were happy to accept the risks of taking the initiative.
Away to Brazil, at altitude against Bolivia, in the World Cup finals, it was all the same to them.
They never dragged everyone behind the ball, waited for the opposition to make a mistake and then struck on the break.
Their philosophy was always to force the game, to keep their opponents under pressure and stamp their authority on proceedings.
There was never a stalemate while they were on the pitch. So the World Cup loses a side which would surely have been involved in some sensational games in the knock-out stages.
Football also learns a dangerous lesson from their failure. It strengthens the hand of the cautious coach, the "play on the break and hope we nick one off a set piece" brigade.
One fast striker to win free kicks, 10 giants to get behind the ball - not a very imaginative recipe.
Bielsa's bold system was excellent at turning clear superiority into goals.
But when that superiority was not so clear, when the opposition could defend against crosses and break at speed, then it left the side exposed.
Chasing a goal is far more difficult and dangerous than defending a lead, or a draw. Bielsa's experiment was, in the final analysis, a failure. But at least it was a glorious one.