by Jesse Marsch had a point to make. He did quite well and long. Have a chance at last month’s flagship Sky Sports Football Night, the Wisconsinite zoomed around the studio’s touchpad with the same zest he would expect from high-pressure players. His casual attire of stonewashed jeans and shiny white sneakers did not detract from the fact that this was a presentation aimed at future employers, club owners; MNF is a regular way for unemployed managers to announce that they are ready to work again.
“I love the Premier League and I love the power of the league around the world, but honestly the real answer I want is to find like-minded people who are committed to developing people, relationships and to build something,” he said. If Jamie Carragher joined the occasional 45-minute coaching masterclass, there was little doubt that Marsch is detailed and has a real understanding of modern football.
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Few sensible Englishmen would object to ‘soccer’ being their game of choice but there is resistance to – and ridicule of – US football terms even when almost the majority of Premier League owners are from across the Atlantic ( it is also the EFL). flush with American investment). Norwich manager David Wagner, a former US international who speaks in the lingua franca of European football because of his upbringing in Germany, did not oppose anything of the sort. Although English football may just be waiting for an American coach his quality, charisma and achievements make him a slam-dunk candidate for a top job.
After all, it looked like an Australian was in charge of a Big Six Premier League club until Ange Postecoglou came along, and for all the fun of his speech and phrasing, doubts about his credentials are spreading. He is currently involved in the impending vacancy at Liverpool. Until now, the two US-raised Americans who managed teams in the Premier League – Marsch at Leeds and Bob Bradley, at Swansea for a very short time in 2016 – have failed to gain the same respect.
As the US’s main coaching export, and with such a high percentage of American owner-investors, Marsch seemed particularly likely to thrive in the Premier League, especially given English football’s habit of acquiring talents from clubs German. His Red Bull credentials were extremely useful. The multi-club organization that owns New York and Red Bull Salzburg, as well as RB Leipzig, is regarded as a talent factory, whose clubs share a coaching philosophy, a “DNA” with that scientifically incorrect expression to use.
In Marsch’s case, Leeds got the wrong club. He succeeded Marcelo Bielsa, a demi-god at Leeds and the club’s most popular manager since Don Revie – and among them is Howard Wilkinson, who won the title for them in 1992. As happened during the maestro’s life Rosario, Bielsa’s high pressure, In the end, a high-risk approach brought his squad to the point of dissolution.
It also turned out that one high pressure approach is not the same as another. Marsch reduced a team that had previously used his width, and they could not catch the two issues of scoring goals and conceding them. He was also unlucky, after keeping Leeds from relegation, to lose senior players in Kalvin Phillips and Raphinha, who were sold the following summer.
“I don’t want them to sing my name, I want them to sing who we are,” said Marsch after the last-gasp defeat of Brentford kept Leeds up, one he celebrated wildly, as if it author. “This is not about anyone and it’s certainly not about me.” Eventually the blame fell squarely on his shoulders.
Leeds can be a parochial club, although the fans have previously accepted an upper-middle-class Argentinian as one of their own. Marsch struggled for currency in the same place that another American, Eddie Lewis, was a cult hero in the mid-2000s. That the club was moving towards 100% ownership by the 49ers Enterprises World Football Group, could not be defended, and the club’s US players, Brenden Aaronson, Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie, could not prevent to sack in February 2023.
That Marsch was a live candidate for jobs at Leicester and Southampton later that season which the boardrooms had not yet given up on but he admitted in December: “I wasn’t ready to jump back in”. He may have already missed his shot at another opportunity but his recent publicity campaign suggests he wants a second chance that never came for Bradley, whose Premier League spell at Swansea has been an unfortunate affair. . Bradley, who has previously been linked with jobs at West Brom, Hull and Sunderland, has arrived at a club in south Wales. Again, American investors played their part in his recruitment but he only managed 11 games in the city and 85 days in which Swansea conceded 29 goals.
Bradley, quiet and respectful, had done good jobs in Norway with Stabæk and France with Le Havre to follow up his USMNT exploits and spoke rather well at his unveiling at a hotel in Swansea, although talk of “PKs” drew and “road games” smirks from. hacks together. The madcap 5-4 win at Crystal Palace is still memorable but AC Sky Soccer is developing the character of “Brad Bobley”, a series of cruel sketches that have aged horribly, and said more about its creators than its target. Six years later, March was much more respected but Bradley left as an outsider in the league he had long-held ambitions to make an impact on.
Bradley inherited a group that had served under three managers in four years and was even more unresponsive to him. “Trust me, none of those players know who Ronald Reagan is,” Bradley said, responding to allegations that players mocked his tactics since the 1980s.
As with March, circumstances were not on his side but the truth is that the majority of managerial appointments follow someone else’s failure. Marsch, or THE Other, may have to take on a club set up to maximize the credibility of American coaches within English football. When that happens, others will be bound.
