His whole family does still live in the US and he’s said he wants to coach in the US point. Is there really that much craziness and risk with the USMNT for him? Unlike other American candidates he’s not at all part of US Soccer circles and so he’s not going to ever be sucked into a Gio Reyna drama like a Berhalter or Stewart will. And like most coaches I’m sure he’d think that he would do a good job with the team overall. I think it also helped that he didn’t have a job. I don’t think he’s leaving Hoffenheim for it though.
It's better to describe how the teams actually play than how it is talked. Berhalter's quote, for example, is ages old, and he adapted his tactics a ton. But either way, that quote is about what we intend to do with the ball, not the defense. The idea that single quote is intended to encompass an entire system or philosophy is silly. ---------------------------- What Berhalter and Marsch have in common is pressing, and that Berhalter moved to a more direct system halfway through. After that, I'm not seeing a ton in common. Marsch's system is design to press, win the ball, immediately move forward at all costs, play extremely narrow through the middle with the goal of of that compressing the field and making the counterpress even more effective because of the tight spaces, which generates even more dangerous turnovers. Ideally, like with Salzburg, superior skill pings the ball in a blistering counterattack. At worst, it's supposed to be a game of pinball working its way to the opponents' goal. And one could argue that it actually works pretty well ... except no one can finish and the keeper sucks. If you are criticizing, the narrow field of play allows the defense to compress and asks way too much of mediocre talent players to basically outskill a compact opposition. These rapid and constant turnovers lead to too many counterattacking chances to get a hold of. While there's plenty that works well with our players, I find the weaknesses extremely problematic for our national team. We can likely overwhelm much of CONCACAF with it, but a much more talented team can really frustrate a press that isn't perfect (see Netherlands). It's very difficult to transition to a more conservative defense for this kind of philosophy, or to rest. And Jesse has been unwilling. And as much as I love our talent, I really don't see us playing the type of close in precision passing that such a narrow offense requires. What Berhalter ran was somewhat similar in that there was an intent to press and counterpress and generate chances off the press. That they have in common. The chance that Pulisic missed against the Dutch comes with both Berhalter and Marsch as coach. The difference is that Berhalter's offensive choices and pressing choices differ massively from Marsch. Berhalter, like Pep and Bielsa and a whole flood of people, originally started focusing on possession both as an offensive piece but also as a defensive move. Whereas Marsch counts on the counterpress and narrow play to basically get the ball back as defense, possession+press offenses -- and this is where positional play comes in -- basically try to play defense through offense. The possession paired with a counterpress means the opposition gets very few chances. They need to be ruthlessly clinical to score. A lot of these coaches -- and Berhalter didn't start this way but as competition increase, he shifted, go from the press generating turnovers to simply being a force to slow a counter. Really good teams have different triggers for these and can read it, but that's hard. However, someone like Pep relies on positional play -- where there's supposed to be people who move to open zones -- to make sure the counterpress is in place all the time. Marsch relies on a narrow field. Two ways to do it, but Pep's also allows for the offense to space wide instead of letting the defense be compact. This opens up the offense with the ball a lot. You counterattack less, but you hold the ball more, and when you have the ball, you are more able to stretch out the defense. Positional play does mean that it is harder to get overloads against the defense in terms of numbers -- people need to hold position and we saw this with Berhalter. Not a lot of numerical overloads. Marsch's can get it through the middle on counters, but rarely else. Berhalter chose to push his fullbacks up to create width and to keep his CMs back further against better competition to defend. Jesse tends to be more conservative with his fullbacks as he's leaking goals. Both defend the middle well but leave space outside. Berhalter's system had two key tactical weaknesses that I saw. One, like most positional play systems, you take what the defense gives you, which was outside. But we could rarely punish teams for staying compact. Our crosses sucked, our strikers were bad, and though it was common early, the Man City cutback basically disappeared (winger/fullback to endline and back to a trailing runner). The system is designed to stretch the defense to open up space, but we couldn't punish people for staying compact. This includes being pathetic on corners -- which are a common result of going to the endline. The other is that he pulled back the center mids from making runs in the box. The overloads he did do were often McKennie or Lleget coming as an unmarked late arriving runner. These are super effective moves. But they also potentially expose you behind. Was Berhalter right to play defensively or was he too conservative? You can decide. ------------------- Long and short, I think Jesse's tactics fit some aspects of the team, but in those ways, Berhalter was similar. I don't actually think his offense really ever works all that well at the higher levels and as much as I like Pulisic and Reyna, we aren't Spain. We aren't getting through a narrow attack lane very often. We need some level of width.
That's too bad. My best idea was Matarazzo manager and Perez assistant. That leaves the two musketeers: Vanney manager, Perez assistant. Schmetzer lurking behind the curtains. There's a pun in there somewhere.
I don't think we are thinking small. Especially if we're saying to pay $5-8M Jurgen was paid roughly $3.5M so to pay 5-8 would be much more and could even double what Jurgen made. I'm blown away by how people stereotype an entire community. Silly really. Besides, most conversation isn't about what we as fans think is worth paying, in fact many have even talked about USA making money with WC. But most of us are saying we're not sure USSF would pay $10+ M. National Coaches don't get paid like club coaches. More facts: highest paid WC coach in 2022 was Hans Flick at 6.55 Next: Southgate 5.85, Deschamps 3.65, Van Gaal 2.95 , Martino 2.95, Scaloni 2.65 So the us community is thinking small by saying we don't think USSF will pay $10M? LOL
In fact Marsch and Bradley are as intertwined as any two coaches in the USMNT pool. Marsch played for Bradley at Princeton. Bradley became an assistant to Arena at DCU. They draft Marsch. Bradley moves to Chicago. He acquires Marsch. Bradley moves to ChivasUSA. He acquires Marsch. Bradley becomes USMNT head coach. He caps Jesse. Marsch becomes his assistant. In fact, Jesse lists his favorite ever game as MLS Cup 1998 when he and Bradley beat Arena's DCU. If one would like, they'd also note that Chris Armas started alongside Marsch in midfield that day. So when people say we have to get some American from "outside the family," that by definition can't be Marsch or Curtin. I don't frankly know who it is, because the domestic fraternity is so intertwined. Matarazzo and Wagner and those guys are about it. Just like Marsch, Wagner has had a habit of getting fired. Still getting jobs. Frankly I don't care if a coach is one of these "insiders" or not. Get the job done.
Why did he leave Hannover? Re: Contacts. From wiki Cherundolo established himself as a leader at Hannover and was appointed team captain shortly before the start of the 2010–11 season. He set the team record for Bundesliga appearances in the second to last game of the 2012–13 season. As of 2013, Cherundolo was the longest serving player in the Bundesliga.[5 re: take chance at lower level, again from wiki Following his retirement announcement (end of 2014 season), Cherundolo remained with Hannover 96 as an assistant coach for Hannover's amateur team.[19] On April 20, 2015, he was officially promoted to assistant coach of Hannover 96's first team.[20] After the end of the 2014–15 season, Cherundolo became the head coach of Hannover's U–17 academy team.[21] In January 2018, Cherundolo moved to VfB Stuttgart and became assistant of the new head coach Tayfun Korkut.[22] In November 2018, Cherundolo was named to the coaching staff of the United States national team by interim coach Dave Sarachan Managerial career: 2014 Hannover 96 II (assistant) 2014–2015 Hannover 96 U15 2015 Hannover 96 (assistant) 2015–2018 Hannover 96 U17 2018 VfB Stuttgart (assistant) 2018 United States (assistant) 2020–2021 Germany U15 (assistant) 2021 Las Vegas Lights 2022– Los Angeles FC
as soon as marsch gets a team promoted, finishes top half in a top 5 or even makes it more than one season at that level you can put him in the same boat as matarazzo.
Thanks for your perspective on the systems. Your viewpoint on Marsch seems very slanted to Leeds and of course Berhalter started with a passive mid block with a DLP for his first 2 years before he (correctly IMO) evolved to a more aggressive counter press with MMA. I don't expect that Jesse will drop his aggressive mentality philosophy but I will echo Sacha Kljestan's opinion that he will aslo evolve his tactics based on the players he has available. Certainly that is what I saw at NYRB to RB Salzburg to RB Leipzig to Leeds.
Hannover getting relegated and then yo-yo removed the chance to be their manager. He moved to Stuttgart and also got relegated.
Sure. I'm not some great Marsch defender. I mean, he did win back-to-back league/cup doubles in Austria. The first American coach to win ANY title in a top flight league. He was fired at Leipzig when he had them in 11th. Not 19th. He did keep Leeds up last season. I'm not some great Marsch defender, but let's not behave like he has nothing on his resume. Also won two Supporter's Shields in MLS, which are very difficult to win. Of courrse, I wasn't really trying to defend Marsch from criticism anyway. My point was sorta that Matarazzo was just recently fired while in a relegation battle. Hell, David Wagner was the American coaching "flavor of the month" on these boards after miraculously keeping Huddersfield in the Premier League. Since then was allowed to fall on his sword by Huddersfield (one of those "mutual consent" firings with a team in last place), fired from Schalke, fired from Young Boys..............still got another job with Norwich. Where, by the way, they've been slipping from the promotion race. Still not out of it, but slipping. Coaches get fired and fired and fired and fired and fired. Its just part of the life for many of them. Marco Silva was fired and fired and fired and now has frickin' Fulham in 8th. So Jesse Marsch will get an opportunity somewhere else. That's what these guys do. This is the life they choose.
I'd say it is consistent from Salzburg on. I really don't remember his RBNY teams all that well. Or Montreal. Indeed. I never liked that defense. I don't mind a DLP, and I can totally see how a great passing midfielder would unlock so much for what Berhalter was running. But a passive midblock was a bad choice for this team. I don't. He's played a couple formations and he might've accommodated Sacha, but the tactics at Leeds are a mistake. He has good wide players there, and he's forcing everyone inside. Leipzig he clearly couldn't adapt to where the personnel was -- he has literally said so. Salzburg didn't require it, to my mind. For all that people throw unadaptable at Berhalter, he literally changed the entire focus of the defense. Jesse hasn't made anything close to that. But even if he can, I don't want to see Red Bull United States. I am a fan of pressing. I am a big believer that every team needs to have a strong counterattack game (and one thing I don't think Berhalter is very good at. I don't agree that he held us back from countering post-2019, but I don't think he's great at teaching it). But I think Jesse and traditional RB simply goes too far in the sort of direct at all costs mentality. I think from a senior team perspective, it simply creates too many opposing opportunities if you don't have superior talent or aren't perfect. It struggles against bunkers and opposition that doesn't come at you even more than most offenses. In the parlance of this board, Red Bull Soccer as original formulated and as Jesse plays, never really has a plan B. It's attack on counters through the middle, and if you are losing it every time, win it back. But keep doing it. I think a comparison to someone like a Klopp is helpful. He was never as far down that path as Jesse is, but when he came into Liverpool, he quickly started adjusting how he played to be more diverse in his attack. I don't expect Jesse to be Klopp, but I do expect him to evolve more than he has. Red Bull soccer is a great business plan for a club team that intends to keep a low wage bill and develop young talent but it has a ceiling. There's a reason that Leipzig has started to move away from it in a pure form. Like anything, if you can evolve it to be better, great. I think from a program and developmental standpoint, I also don't think it sends the messages we want to send from a technical standpoint, either. I don't think we ever truly develop a national style of play, but I think the national and youth teams absolutely set a standard and a goal for all young competitive Americans. To that end, I'd like a more complete set of tactics, one that has a comprehensive plan for all phases of the game, not one that essentially tries to skip one. The discussion here isn't Jesse v Berhalter. It's Jesse v. the entire coaching pool. It's funny, I get criticized a lot for having no ambition on here, but then people are very eager to lock in coaches with very clear and concerning blind spots. I don't think Jesse is a bad coach, but he has been very clear to to date, he's not really interested in adjusting to his talent. There's a whole slew of quotes around that with Leipzig -- that he fought the players and finally realized that he and they didn't fit and he didn't want to change what he wanted to do. That's a big concern for me. I don't think we'd be considering Marsch if he weren't American, and that's true for basically every American coach.
I do believe that many American coaches have won titles in top flight leagues. Just not outside North America. Winning the Austrian League with Salzburg is much less impressive to me than say, oh, Jesse Marsch winning the Shield with RBNY. I like Jesse. I think he's probably a pretty good coach. I don't think he's anywhere near where he is if he had not caught on with Red Bull. He will get another shot but he has a very specific style which will limit it a bit.
Marsch is not the best option, but he is definitely better than 3G. There is no more excuse to go back for 3G. That is a great news.
I obviously meant Europe. Jesse is the only coach to win a title in a top flight European league. it doesn't mean nothing. Did Wagner win with Young Boys, the defending Championships in Switzerland? No, he did not. Did so poorly that he got fired. I think Austria's generally on par with Scotland. (UEFA coefficients back me up on that) If an American coach won back-to-back league/cup doubles with Celtic.............we wouldn't dismiss it as having no meaning even though Celtic has more talent than everyone else. And they did have some very good performances in the Champions League while Jesse was there. Gave Liverpool everything they could handle. Anyway, all I'm saying is let's all just stop piling on Jesse and dismissing his accomplishments. He does have things on his resume that will lead to him getting other jobs. Just like it did for Matarazzo and Wagner and all of these guys. It is kind of a non-story for this thread. During the World Cup Jesse spoke about how the international game doesn't interest him right now.
I think the problem with Marsch and Berhalter is that neither is able to shift tactics for game state (Marsch, mainly) or as adjustment to opponents' tactics (Berhalter v. Holland's 352 was the best example). Marsch is specially deficient in knowing what to do with a bunker but he also never changed tactics when he'd go up a goal against good teams. I think he was working on the latter as we saw him solidifying his defense which was porous to start the season. Berhalter has a problem dealing with the Wales, Holland type mid block in midfield. Marsch uses Aaronson for that problem. I don't know why people think Berhalter uses a press. It's a pretty lame press. The idea that Leeds was having a hard time scoring was something that happened only very recently. They went from 1.5 goals per game pre WC to 4 goals in 6 games post WC. Their offensive production fell in half. People blamed Aaronson for this as they yelled for him to be benched, only to watch as Forest easily handled the Aaronson-less Leeds with fans wondering where the right sided players were.
But there is NO top flight league in N. America. Again any win in the MLS or any record in the MLS is no better than average performance elsewhere.
It doesn't have no meaning. I'm not overly impressed by it, though. Salzburg wins with or without Jesse. I think this is all this unconscious bias we have. Winning with Salzburg is easy mode. Winning the Austrian League with Salzburg is easy compared to competing in MLS. They had a couple of close games, but prior to Jesse they made a good run in Europa and post Jesse they made the round of 16 in UCL. Jesse finished third in both UCL groups and left the Europa league in the round of 32 twice. There aren't many Salzburg fans on the internet, but most of them don't see Jesse as an overperformer. I think he's a good coach. I think Salzburg played pretty well, but c'mon, that team just overtalented the whole league.
He chose to leave youth each time he saw an opportunity for senior teams assistant or HC. He left each time for a better opportunity and returned to Youth sides when they dried up. He finally got a great landing spot and will likely stay for another couple years. Earn his chops and then look to jump back to Europe as a coach.
Counters through the middle? I hope you know that is so simplistic as to be useless for any real discussion. Ralf Rangnick who is considered the father of the entire German pressing/counter pressing philosophy and is the Sporting Director behind the entire Red Bull System would not recognize your description of his philosophy. The emphasis is certainly of high speed tempo, Rangnick famously designed a training field system with a loud ticking clock, 8 seconds to win the ball back and 10 seconds to get it into the back of the net. I would love to see Pulisic and Weah getting the opportunities that Timo got under that high tempo system. 4-3-1-2: MMA bosses the middle of the park, Gio sits in front as a CAM with Pulisic and Weah as forwards managed by Jesse.
“Let me tell you how stupid you are because you don’t seem to realize that I am so much smarter about soccer than you” … … is an unusual persuasive technique. How is it working out, I wonder? Ah the internet
You seem to dodge a lot of real discussion. I can't tell if what you are objecting to is the middle or the counter. A counter doesn't mean you have to sit and absorb and start from the back -- it is just the actions right after getting the ball. And yes, Red Bull focuses on counters. Jesse and old school Red Bull absolutely focus on pressing through the middle -- the quickest way to goal and the best opportunities on shot. That doesn't mean people never go wide, but it is a straight forward push, and the idea is that if you attack in a smaller space, it's easier to apply that immediate, swarming pressure. Neither Rangnick nor Marsch put a premium on width. It's about attacking BEFORE the opponent gets set. And doing so with so much abandon that you either get through or turn it over, and then swarm to get it back closer to goal. In some ways, it's like an NFL team with a great defense that punts because they know they will win field position or get turnovers. It's the '85 Bears. It's not bad. But it doesn't have much of a plan if that's not working. So yeah, counters through the middle. They may start high, but it's still vertical play immediately after a turnover.
I feel like a lot of the criticism towards Jesse is focused on the system being rigid but to me I didn't see the issues at Leeds being because of his pressing system. I think at the end of the day Leeds just failed for 2 years to fix the backline. Now in a lot of ways that is grossly simplifying things but after last year it felt like the consensus was that Leeds needed a 9, a CB, and a LB. They got a CB in thr January window, but struck out multiple times on LBs and strikers. Now Jesse does probably deserve blame for that as well but this year I never really saw Jesse as being overmatched... sometimes being a bit too slow to make subs but not that he was being over matched technically. I'm not against Jesse as USMNT manager, but I don't think he's my first choice even as far as American managers go... think that's Dolo or Curtain. But with Leeds just going by stories going back to even Bielsa being there, I get the impression they never really had a plan on how to survive in the prem. Bielsa seemed to want tongo with who got him there which worked first season but not 2nd (though there were injuries) and Jesse seemed to have a better idea of what was needed but missed on a few key positions.