New Reader Mailbag; B-Sides from My Jesse Marsch Story
The 'Bag is Back! Your Questions on World Cup Qualifying, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ted Lasso and Lateral Career Moves
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The ‘Bag is back!
Now that my new Substack newsletter is off and running, I’m getting back to a regular Mailbag column where readers send in whatever questions might be on their mind—preferably thoughtful, probing and/or amusing—and I answer them for you. I’m excited about our growing community here, and the ‘Bag is a great way to communicate in both directions on a regular basis.
Sometimes I’ll also throw in some reporting that I haven’t put out elsewhere, and this time that involves some of the B-sides from my story from Germany on Jesse Marsch, the Leipzig coach who has risen higher in European soccer than any other U.S. coach.
On the day I arrived in Leipzig, August 17, Marsch invited me over to his family’s apartment, where he ordered Vietnamese pho and we watched his old team, Salzburg, in the opening leg of its Champions League qualifying playoff against Brondby. Salzburg went down early, and American Brenden Aaronson didn’t start. But Aaronson came on in the second half (to Marsch’s approval) and turned the game around—including scoring the late go-ahead goal. Salzburg eventually won the tie and qualified again for the Champions League group stage.
I asked Marsch what he thought of the possibility Aaronson could get a promotion in the Red Bull family from Salzburg to Leipzig.
“Brenden is an amazing player and an amazing young man, right?” Marsch said of the 20-year-old. “He has the work ethic and the desire to do whatever it takes that makes him unique, but also an American in Europe. Great kid, great family. It’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility [that he could come to Leipzig before long]. I keep my eye on that Salzburg team a lot, because there are so many good players there. So let’s see what happens.”
Leipzig won the game that I attended on August 20, a 4-0 victory against Stuttgart and its own American coach, Pellegrino Matarazzo. It was a cool moment to be in a stadium again—my first time in one since March 2020—and to be there for the first time two U.S. coaches had faced off in the German Bundesliga. It was also Marsch’s first Bundesliga win as a head coach.
Leipzig lost 1-0 to Wolfsburg on Sunday, bringing its record to 1-2 in the new season. I think American soccer fans are still a little scarred by how little time Bob Bradley was given to coach Swansea, but the situation Marsch has with his Red Bull bosses is different. He needs to win, obviously, but there’s a deeper relationship between Red Bull and Marsch, who has coached New York, Salzburg and Leipzig under the Red Bull umbrella.
‘The confidence I have in the relationships I have built and that I've shared within this Red Bull construct, it puts me in a place of security,” Marsch told me. “And I don't mean job security as much as like just mental and emotional and psychological security, where I don't have to think about anything other than doing the best job I can to help this team be successful.”
Some other tidbits that didn’t end up making the original Marsch story:
• I go back with Marsch to 1994 and our college days, getting to know him when we were both 20 years old. So I wasn’t surprised at his chagrin when he picked me up at my hotel in Leipzig driving a black Porsche Cayenne. Marsch is not a fancy car guy, or really a fancy anything guy; when his family went on an around-the-world trip several years ago, they stayed in inexpensive hostels. But Porsche is an official sponsor of Leipzig, and the head coach has to drive a Porsche, even if he feels silly doing it. As Marsch explained to one of the club’s press officers the next day, “I picked [Grant] up and basically apologized for driving this ridiculous car.”
• When Marsch and his family returned to Leipzig—they had lived there for a year in 2018-19 when Marsch served as an assistant coach there—they simply moved back into their old building in a different unit. Having that familiarity helps, obviously. More than a few people questioned Marsch when he left a head-coaching job at Red Bull New York for an assistant’s position to Ralf Rangnick at Leipzig. But making a lateral (or even not-totally-lateral) move to Europe helped set up Marsch for his current job as the Leipzig head coach. Matarazzo’s career path is marked by something similar; he chose to move from the Nürnberg Under-19 job to the Hoffenheim Under-17 job a few years ago—a lateral or not-even-totally-lateral move—so that he could work with Julian Nagelsmann. That ended up benefiting Matarazzo in the end. I think there’s a lesson here in some ways.
I’m flying to San Salvador on Tuesday evening for Thursday’s World Cup qualifier between the USMNT and El Salvador—I’ll be on-site at all 14 U.S. World Cup qualifiers over the next seven months—and I wanted to answer your questions before I take off. Let’s go!
How do you feel about the talent levels on this USMNT roster compared to prior potential qualifying rosters? Lots of European football played by those boys.
I’ve been covering the USMNT since 1996, and I’ve never seen a World Cup qualifying roster with so much talent on paper. Just look at the clubs these guys play for: Chelsea, Juventus, Barcelona, Leipzig, Dortmund, Man City, Wolfsburg, Marseille and more. But that’s on paper, and only now are we finally going to see this young group proving itself in games that really matter. We got a glimpse in the Nations League final against Mexico that these young Americans have a winning grit in addition to their talent. But they need to continue doing that as a national team now in conditions that will test their mettle more than their skillset.
Can the U.S. get to Pot A for the [World Cup] draw? They sit 10th [in the FIFA rankings] after a great summer. They'll bring superior talent to most if not all matches. Are we underselling the talent or is every match gonna be Roadhouse fights?
The USMNT was the big mover in the most recent FIFA rankings, rising from No. 20 to No. 10. I know, I know, the FIFA rankings have had plenty of issues over the years. But the fact remains that for World Cup 2018, FIFA seeded all 32 teams for the World Cup draw for the first time using those rankings. The USMNT would have to get into the Top 7 to ensure being one of the top seeds for the World Cup 2022 draw (host Qatar will also be a top-seeded team), but there’s also a benefit to being in the Top 15 and getting a seed in the second group (Pot B). Obviously, the main objective is simply qualifying for this World Cup after missing out four years ago. But if the U.S. could tear through the Octagonal? A top seed for the World Cup draw isn’t out of the question.
What do you think of the Premier League’s decision (already being disregarded by Aston Villa) to not release players for World Cup qualifying to red-list countries in qualifying? Should FIFA sanction the English FA for it?
With a lot of players not being allowed to participate in World Cup qualifying games because of their country being on a quarantine list, should these matches be pushed back? Doesn't seem fair and could have huge ramifications.
I feel like we could still see the UK government choose to give special exemptions to players traveling to red-list countries the way it did for bigwigs and others to be able to attend the Euro final at Wembley Stadium in July. I hope that’s what ends up happening, but we’ll see. You’d like to think a compromise is possible, because teams like Jamaica are facing a real downgrade if their top players can’t join the team this week. But I don’t think these World Cup qualifiers will be pushed back. We’ve already reached a point where Covid has cause UEFA, CONCACAF and CONMEBOL to schedule three games in this FIFA window, as opposed to the usual two, and postponing qualifiers this window would create an enormous headache that I don’t think the international soccer calendar could handle.
What’s the best piece of journalism advice that you have ever received and what is the funniest?
The best: Ask questions you don’t know the answer to. (Dave Wilson, Miami Herald.) That way you actually learn something instead of just trying to get a player or coach to say something you specifically want them to say.
The funniest: Don’t ask Bruce Arena long-winded questions. This was back in the late 1990s when he was the USMNT coach the first time around. Another reporter had the habit of asking meandering questions to Arena and essentially telling him what he thought about something, and at the end of it Arena just said: “Sounds like you’ve got it figured out.”
What is the reaction to Ted Lasso within the professional soccer community? Do “big” managers and players like it? Are they angling for guest appearances? Is it even on their radar?
It’s funny. Jesse Marsch told me he hadn’t had time to watch Ted Lasso, and Bob Bradley told The Cooligans this week that it’s down his queue because he still has some residual effects from his time at Swansea as an American coach. I thought it was cool that Eniola Aluko and Ian Wright had cameos recently, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see more players and coaches pop up with the size of audiences the show is getting.
Is Mr Pulisic going to be available for none, 1, 2, or 3 qualifiers?
Well, Christian Pulisic already got past the first hurdle by clearing quarantine and being allowed into the U.S. for camp after testing positive for Covid two weeks ago. (He says he was vaccinated and wasn’t having symptoms.) Pulisic did miss Chelsea’s last two games, though, so his fitness may not be ideal. I’m no health expert, but I think there are some encouraging signs that he might be able to play in a couple games here. Let’s see.
Stadio today had yet another excellent podcast- they discussed the sexual assault allegations against Cristiano Ronaldo and how major media outlets have ignored them, blindly celebrating his transfer. Do you think it's important to mention the allegations in covering his return to the Premier League?
I think Stadio is a great podcast, and I’m glad they had the discussion. Ronaldo has denied all the allegations by a woman in Las Vegas for an incident that happened in 2009. Der Spiegel, a respected German outlet, did cover them at length. I also spoke about the allegations on my podcast and on the Hang Up and Listen podcast on Monday. The District Attorney in Las Vegas declined to pursue criminal charges against Ronaldo, but a civil suit in a federal court is still alive.
What are your thoughts about Freddy Juárez leaving a playoff team midseason to become an assistant? And who do you think will be the next RSL coach?
Weren’t we just talking above about making lateral moves that might not even be lateral in the hopes of getting something better down the road? That’s what’s happening here. I think Juárez’s decision is the result of 1) the uncertainty around Salt Lake’s future ownership, 2) his own expiring contract with RSL and 3) the allure that has developed around being on the Seattle coaching staff. We may not see a non-interim Salt Lake coach named until the new owner is in place.
Thanks for reading, and see you soon from El Salvador!
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