Jesse Marsch: CanMNT manager

[cronaldo7]

Regardless of his record in the Prem or the Bundesliga, to get those jobs in the first place, he clearly had to be viewed as quite an impressive individual with a lot of potential. Football coaches around the world just don't *get* those type of jobs. Yes, those spells didn't seem to workout well in a small-ish sample size but that's not uncommon for many highly touted coaches. Football is finicky, especially in highly competitive, demanding leagues.

In my opinion, on paper, this is one of the most impressive coaches we've ever hired. I like that he's current, he's still relatively young and he's clearly a very ambitious individual.

Can we say we've had a hire like him before? Herdman worked out amazingly well but the majority of us doubted his credentials. Zambrano was coaching football in modest South American leagues. Floro was far past his prime. And prior to that, to put it nicely, we've had a carousel of mediocre Canadian coaches at the helm (Mitchell, Hart, Yallop etc). 

This was the best we were going to get and it feels like a very positive hire. I'm looking forward to seeing how he wants our lads to play. 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

11 hours ago, David Pinto said:

Thanks to whatever diety you believe in that it wasn't Biello

He boiled for your sins.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

6 hours ago, Shway said:

Wait...I can't keep up.

Is it being stated that his salary is being subsidized by MLS clubs? Or is that a theory.

I do want to know what his contract is though.

It's in the official press release:

https://canada-soccer-pressroom.prezly.com/canada-soccer-announces-jesse-marsch-as-mens-national-team-head-coach

Philanthropic Support from MLS Owners

The appointment of Marsch is assisted by major philanthropic contributions from the owners of the three Canadian-based MLS clubs – Vancouver Whitecaps, Joey Saputo, and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment – and supplemented by other private donors. In recognition of their significant philanthropic support, Marsch’s position will be formally titled as the MLS Canada Men’s National Team Head Coach during the term of his initial contract. This type of donor recognition is common at universities and hospitals, in NCAA sports, and is starting to be used in the Canadian sport system – for example, with the Stollery Family Women’s National Team Head Coach support at Golf Canada.

These commitments are part of a forthcoming major gifts program that will provide Canadian philanthropists with a structured opportunity to support Canada Soccer programs of all types – including the Men’s and Women’s National Team systems, from youth teams up through the senior national teams.

Personally think philanthropy turns into commercial sponsorship once there is a formal title involved but this will probably form part of a wider game of legal chicken between the CSA and CSB in the months and years ahead if there is no renegotiation. Yes Bob and Scott, you would have a very strong legal case if you went to court over this but do you want the optics and negative publicity that go along with that...

 

[An Observer]

2 hours ago, cronaldo7 said:

Regardless of his record in the Prem or the Bundesliga, to get those jobs in the first place, he clearly had to be viewed as quite an impressive individual with a lot of potential. Football coaches around the world just don't *get* those type of jobs. Yes, those spells didn't seem to workout well in a small-ish sample size but that's not uncommon for many highly touted coaches. Football is finicky, especially in highly competitive, demanding leagues.

In my opinion, on paper, this is one of the most impressive coaches we've ever hired. I like that he's current, he's still relatively young and he's clearly a very ambitious individual.

Can we say we've had a hire like him before? Herdman worked out amazingly well but the majority of us doubted his credentials. Zambrano was coaching football in modest South American leagues. Floro was far past his prime. And prior to that, to put it nicely, we've had a carousel of mediocre Canadian coaches at the helm (Mitchell, Hart, Yallop etc). 

This was the best we were going to get and it feels like a very positive hire. I'm looking forward to seeing how he wants our lads to play. 

To me, he clearly is the best manager on paper we have ever had.  You could argue Floro or Holger but the former was over the hill and the latter didnt have quite the top managerial posts that Marsch has had.

[TGAA_Star]

I love that Marsch is our manager because he was on the shortlist and the fact that we were able to get him, I wanna see the direction he takes us in especially since Copa America is in a month from now. So he's going to have like limited time to work with our guys and our staff but I have every confidence in him to do the job.

[CanadaFan123]

2 hours ago, An Observer said:

To me, he clearly is the best manager on paper we have ever had.  You could argue Floro or Holger but the former was over the hill and the latter didnt have quite the top managerial posts that Marsch has had.

100% and his sides had some pretty decent performances/results in Europe, which is probably the closest parallel to international football in the club game. 

[jhoops__]

Leeds supporters spamming every thread on every platform known to man lol.   

[SoccMan]

11 hours ago, CanadaFan123 said:

No paranoia - it’s playing out in front of you. Find me another men’s coach worldwide that has ever been sponsored by a league. 

When you have no money sometimes you need to get creative to generate it. This is what was done to get a new coach in . Unfortunately we are far from being a soccer nation and therefore have to think outside the box as they say to do things like hire a coach . 

[InglewoodJack]

11 hours ago, DrunkOffPunch said:

At Leeds and Leipzig, his teams scored plenty of goals. They problem was they always conceded more. Defense was always susceptible to a counter and the heavy pressing meant players tired out way too fast. Needless to say in game management was poor. Always seemed like no lead was big enough. 

We have one of the paciest teams in the world, so this actually gets me really excited to see how it’ll look in practice. Our backline and keepers are not strong enough to protect leads against big teams, but this will make for very exciting football which was not always the case with Herdman and Biello. 
 

When you say in game management was poor, are you talking about his substitutions? I feel like this is one way this could go sideways.

I think a player like Liam Millar is going to thrive under Marsch. Fast player, excellent on the counter attack. Plus, if he does play rather narrow, this means he’s probably being used more as an AM/second striker which I think he prefers anyways. 

[shorty]

2 minutes ago, SoccMan said:

When you have no money sometimes you need to get creative to generate it. This is what was done to get a new coach in . Unfortunately we are far from being a soccer nation and therefore have to think outside the box as they say to do things like hire a coach .

Agreed 100%.  I'm holding my nose at the branding as well, but it's not only about us not being a soccer nation, it's also about us as Canadians being complainers, sadly, as another post mentioned.  Sometimes (often?) we want change but we don't want to sacrifice anything for it.  If you're broke and need to pay the rent, you can either take the job at a Wal-mart or a Tim Horton's and have a place to live and some food to eat, or you can complain that those jobs are beneath you or that it's "selling out", and be out on the street.

I'm not only glad Blue is just getting on with the business, but also, as someone else said, that the curtains are pulled back a bit and we can see at least part of what's going on as it happens.  Wouldn't surprise me in the least if KJ was playing the "trusted releaser of information" throughout this hiring.  Felt like for the first time ever we abruptly had an investigative soccer media all of a sudden.  Apologies to the hard-working reporters on here who have slogged for so long trying to do this very thing.  I'm speculating that you don't get inside info like that on a regular without significant cooperation from inside the process -- the kind of cooperation I also suspect has not been forthcoming until now.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

13 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

We have one of the paciest teams in the world, so this actually gets me really excited to see how it’ll look in practice. Our backline and keepers are not strong enough to protect leads against big teams, but this will make for very exciting football which was not always the case with Herdman and Biello. 
 

When you say in game management was poor, are you talking about his substitutions? I feel like this is one way this could go sideways.

I think a player like Liam Millar is going to thrive under Marsch. Fast player, excellent on the counter attack. Plus, if he does play rather narrow, this means he’s probably being used more as an AM/second striker which I think he prefers anyways. 

First, honestly not sure where the narrow thing comes from.  At Leeds, he would sometimes play wide men inverted based on certain threats (I like that kind of planning), which maybe pushes thing more to the centre but he bought and played (more) a number of wide men.  I didn't see anything particular narrow in the games I watched.

Overall, you touch on one of the reason I thought he would be good for us.  We are likely to conceded goals against the best teams in world (the next 3 games).  But I think if we bunker down and wait them to come to us, we still concede goals and we limit our best players doing what they do best. If we engage up the pitch, that is where we have more depth and quality. 

[The Real Marc]

I saw somewhere here we outbid another employer for him? Who? An MLS team?

[JamboAl]

10 hours ago, costarg said:

Not refuting, but first I hear of this, do we have more info, background or source?  Curious.

Conversations I had with people who were involved.

[Mihairokov]

2 minutes ago, The Real Marc said:

I saw somewhere here we outbid another employer for him? Who? An MLS team?

South Korea

[costarg]

16 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

First, honestly not sure where the narrow thing comes from.  At Leeds, he would sometimes play wide men inverted based on certain threats (I like that kind of planning), which maybe pushes thing more to the centre but he bought and played (more) a number of wide men.  I didn't see anything particular narrow in the games I watched.

Overall, you touch on one of the reason I thought he would be good for us.  We are likely to conceded goals against the best teams in world (the next 3 games).  But I think if we bunker down and wait them to come to us, we still concede goals and we limit our best players doing what they do best. If we engage up the pitch, that is where we have more depth and quality. 

I think people assume it's narrow because he calls it a 4-2-2-2 and they might be oversimplifying.  His formation looks more like:

       X   X

 X             X

      X   X

X   X  X  X

It also "looks" narrow when the 4 advanced guys are swarming and closing down the backline or LBs/RBs, but there is a lot of movement and flows quickly.

Edited May 14 by costarg

[InglewoodJack]

8 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

First, honestly not sure where the narrow thing comes from.  At Leeds, he would sometimes play wide men inverted based on certain threats (I like that kind of planning), which maybe pushes thing more to the centre but he bought and played (more) a number of wide men.  I didn't see anything particular narrow in the games I watched.

Overall, you touch on one of the reason I thought he would be good for us.  We are likely to conceded goals against the best teams in world (the next 3 games).  But I think if we bunker down and wait them to come to us, we still concede goals and we limit our best players doing what they do best. If we engage up the pitch, that is where we have more depth and quality. 

The narrow thing is based on what I’ve read about his time both at Leeds and Leipzig- he creates goals by overloading the middle, getting players in a good position for short passes, risking losing possession to make forward runs, but since you’re overloading the opponent, you have multiple men ready to pounce on the ball if you do loose it and quickly create a dangerous opportunity off the turnover. Granted, I didn’t make much of a habit of watching his body of work at Leeds or in Germany so if I’ve gotten bad information, that may not be accurate. 
 

Your last point is what gets me excited about what he can do with our team. Even beyond the usual suspects- giving Davies, Buchanan, Millar, etc., more freedom, I think it will also open things up more for guys like Laryea and Adekugbe. I don’t think there’s a system on this earth that could help us park the bus against the top national squads, so at least if we’re going down playing Marsch’s system, we’re going down swinging. It should make for excellent watching the next time we have to play through all of the concacaf minnows though.

I also wonder- is this Canada team the most talented team he’s ever managed? Leeds had some very good players, as did Leipzig, but I don’t think he’s ever had weapons like Davies, David, so on. A common critique I’ve heard of him is that his players can’t keep up with his tactical demands and he tires out his squad too quickly. Feel like that may be less of an issue given the talent at our disposal. 

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

10 minutes ago, costarg said:

I think people assume it's narrow because he calls it a 4-2-2-2 and the might be oversimplifying.  His formation looks more like:

       X   X

 X             X

      X   X

X   X  X  X

It also "looks" narrow when the 4 advanced guys are swarming and closing down the backline or LBs/RBs, but there is a lot of movement and flows quickly.

But that's not even what I saw. 

Not sure I remember 2 strikers ever.  Even the bit of a first season. 

It was 4231 with as you say a lot of movement.  Yes I guess the AMC pressed  (Aaronson picked up a handful of easy goals at the beginning of the second season playing there I believe) but there was usually one advanced guy.  

[costarg]

5 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

I also wonder- is this Canada team the most talented team he’s ever managed? Leeds had some very good players, as did Leipzig, but I don’t think he’s ever had weapons like Davies, David, so on. 

His system definitely suits our athletes.  Pretty sure he'll be smiling when seeing the numbers on Davies, David, Bombito, Shaff, Millar..... as well as the movement on Stache, Kone, Choiniere.....   This sounds like a great fit.

5 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

 A common critique I’ve heard of him is that his players can’t keep up with his tactical demands and he tires out his squad too quickly. Feel like that may be less of an issue given the talent at our disposal. 

I'm always concerned when I read about these kinds of coaches, usually starts off great, but the wheels on the player/coach relationship tend to fall off fairly quickly.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

1 hour ago, InglewoodJack said:

The narrow thing is based on what I’ve read about his time both at Leeds and Leipzig- he creates goals by overloading the middle, getting players in a good position for short passes, risking losing possession to make forward runs, but since you’re overloading the opponent, you have multiple men ready to pounce on the ball if you do loose it and quickly create a dangerous opportunity off the turnover. Granted, I didn’t make much of a habit of watching his body of work at Leeds or in Germany so if I’ve gotten bad information, that may not be accurate. 
 

Your last point is what gets me excited about what he can do with our team. Even beyond the usual suspects- giving Davies, Buchanan, Millar, etc., more freedom, I think it will also open things up more for guys like Laryea and Adekugbe. I don’t think there’s a system on this earth that could help us park the bus against the top national squads, so at least if we’re going down playing Marsch’s system, we’re going down swinging. It should make for excellent watching the next time we have to play through all of the concacaf minnows though.

I also wonder- is this Canada team the most talented team he’s ever managed? Leeds had some very good players, as did Leipzig, but I don’t think he’s ever had weapons like Davies, David, so on. A common critique I’ve heard of him is that his players can’t keep up with his tactical demands and he tires out his squad too quickly. Feel like that may be less of an issue given the talent at our disposal. 

The overload is right but is not just the middle.   It is supposed to be about picking moments to counter press, wherever, often against a specific player, could be a centre back who is slower, but could also be a fullback.

Edit:

Thinking about it, the term he likes is "compact."  So if you are pressing in the middle of the pitch it gets narrow.  But it can be on one wing or the other as well, depending on who you are pressing. 

 

His team at Salzburg was pretty stacked in terms of talent. 

Noah Okafor,  Minamino, Hwang, Adeyemi, Patson Daka, and some lanky Scandinavian kid named Haaland.  Played with 2 strikers there for obvious reasons. 

Edit: Forgot Szoboszlai

 

Edited May 14 by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[jhoops__]

I don’t think our strikers outside of David will have a big role under Jesse…David fits his style perfectly and can run and press all day long.

[Cheeta]

1 hour ago, SoccMan said:

When you have no money sometimes you need to get creative to generate it. This is what was done to get a new coach in . Unfortunately we are far from being a soccer nation and therefore have to think outside the box as they say to do things like hire a coach . 

Still a bad look.  Always was going to be.  Bit concerning the CSA is caught off guard a bit by that.  

I'm doubtful we'll see the scheme mirrored by any mature soccer nation anytime soon.

 

[InglewoodJack]

12 minutes ago, jhoops__ said:

I don’t think our strikers outside of David will have a big role under Jesse…David fits his style perfectly and can run and press all day long.

Bair’s got wheels no? Have seen him make some very daring runs in Scotland this year. 

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

4 minutes ago, jhoops__ said:

I don’t think our strikers outside of David will have a big role under Jesse…David fits his style perfectly and can run and press all day long.

Be interesting to see.  

If he plays like he did at Leeds, not sure there is room.  But we also don't have an AMC with the mobility of Aaronson (whatever else you want to say about him).

He did play with 2 strikers earlier, when he had a lot of amazing strikers. 

Ugbo showed some decent press keeping Wednesday up, Bair is not slow (though maybe hard to judge in Scotland).  If you can get the best out of him, neither is Larin. 

[Joe MacCarthy]

24 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

Ugbo showed some decent press keeping Wednesday up, Bair is not slow (though maybe hard to judge in Scotland).  If you can get the best out of him, neither is Larin. 

Let's not forget a guy many around here don't like (for no valid reason) Brym.  There's a reason Herdman and the managers in Holland have him around.  I saw him do a Bombito type run on a highlight film, he can move, I think the problem is he makes it look too easy.

[Joe MacCarthy]