Marsch is trying to build something uniquely Canadian

Jesse Marsch believed in Canada’s men’s national soccer team so much, so quickly, that he was willing to throw away a match for one of his players if it meant doing the right thing.

After Canadian defender Moïse Bombito was racially abused online following Canada’s loss to Argentina in last June's Copa América opener, and just hours before its must-win game against Peru, the Canadian head coach stood up during a video session in Kansas City, in front of a team he’d only met a month before, and said he would protest the game – forfeit – if that’s what Bombito wanted.

“We’ll do whatever you think is best,” Marsch told Bombito.

It was a sudden, deferential turn that surprised the room. In the few days the players had acquainted themselves with their new coach, they quickly learned that Marsch was demanding.

Marsch constantly intones that his teams must do “what’s required” when competing at the highest levels. Prior to the Argentina game, he demanded Canada train as hard as it could in near 100-degree heat in Atlanta in mid-June. He then demanded they show heads-up, shoulders-back confidence off the field, and full-throttle intensity on it. During warm-up drills in practice he would tackle his players as if he were still one of them, because that’s who Marsch was during his playing days.

As a central midfielder in Major League Soccer for 14 seasons, Marsch ran, passed, and tackled – anyone at any time – if it would help his team win. Search YouTube for “Jesse Marsch tackles David Beckham.”

That driving energy is still part of the 51-year-old’s presence as coach. He has a confident stride, a big smile, and a persuasive message. Marsch’s first impression to a Canadian might be that he acts very American. But if you’re on Marsch’s team you not only get his demands, you also get his loyalty.

Marsch saw the abuse Bombito received on social media after he tackled global soccer superstar Lionel Messi. It angered him, and he wanted to do something about it.

He felt that giving the ultimate decision to Bombito was his obligation. Marsch had already given the Montreal native three consecutive starts for Canada in central defence, but this was a different responsibility. Bombito, 24, is 6-foot-3 and lighting quick, with a friendly, open smile and a more understated – more Canadian – kind of confidence.

Bombito didn’t hesitate. He told Marsch he wanted to play because he knew his team had his back.

“I told [Marsch], ‘To be honest, in that moment for me, in that tournament, what matters was our team,’” Bombito said, admitting that Marsch’s proposal shocked him.

“[Marsch] chose to be Canada’s coach for a reason, but he needs results to keep his job. For him to be able to put his job at risk to make a statement really emphasized how much he believed in us, and how much he supports the group. I really appreciated it.”

When Marsch remembered the interaction later, it made him emotional.

“I spent almost my entire time [coaching] trying to create that kind of feeling in a team. And [Canada] already had it,” he said.

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Canada didn’t win Copa América. Canada didn’t even win the third-place game. The team made it to the semifinals, and that was a significant moment for a still-rising program. That’s also Marsch’s job: He’s being paid by an alliance including the owners of all three of Canada’s Major League Soccer teams to get results on the sport’s biggest stages.

But team above all else is how Marsch played, and team above all else is what he preaches. And for all his managerial moments in Europe – two Austrian league and cup doubles, Champions League experience, and a memorable, last-day relegation escape with Leeds United – Marsch has quit jobs and been fired, searching for something that really fits him.

He now feels he has found something “perfect” with Canada and his top priority is to use the next 15 months to prepare the 26 players he will take to the 2026 World Cup.

From their perspective, his players are sure Marsch can elevate them from World Cup qualifiers in 2022 to World Cup hosts primed for a long tournament run. And it’s not just because Marsch says he won’t accept “anything but their best every time they step on the pitch.”

Long-time midfielder Jonathan Osorio was also in that video session that day last summer and felt an important understanding between a coach and his team.

“[Marsch] knows what’s important, and he knows there’s bigger things than football,” Osorio said. “He’s so appreciative of how this program has welcomed him and you can feel that when he speaks to us. This guy has come at the perfect time.”

Argentina Lionel Messi Canada Jonathan Osorio

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And yet, the guy who came along at the perfect time wasn’t sure he wanted to come at all. In fact, after missing out on coaching the U.S. men’s national team the year before, Marsch spoke with several clubs and four countries, eventually picking the South Korean men’s national team.

“I told Korea I would do it,” Marsch said. But then Canada Soccer’s general secretary and CEO Kevin Blue changed Marsch’s mind.

Having served as the athletics director at the University of California, Davis, and then as chief sports officer at Golf Canada, Blue estimates he’s hired 40 to 50 coaches. He never pretends to be an expert in a sport, so he invests in conversations to build his understanding.

“When you get to conversation 70 or 80 you start to get confident in your knowledge,” Blue said.

Blue joined Canada Soccer in February 2024 and started to learn about the complicated history of the Canadian men’s national team.

The joy of making the 1986 World Cup that faded over 30 years of failed qualification campaigns. The hope after winning the 2000 Concacaf Gold Cup and the setbacks that mutated into bitterness and paranoia among players and fans about Concacaf games and referees. The rejection and anger felt when some players chose to represent other countries.

John Herdman’s passion and the rise of Alphonso Davies, Jonathan David, and a golden generation of talent propelled Canada to the 2022 World Cup. The slide backwards started after three defeats in Qatar and Herdman’s departure in August 2023.

Blue spoke to former Canadian captain Atiba Hutchinson and former players Rob Friend, Josh Simpson, and Tosaint Ricketts, who all know the resilience required to represent Canada. Those voices were also among the ones Blue relied on as he searched for a new head coach.

Bob Bradley, Thomas Christiansen, Thierry Henry, Frank Lampard, Hervé Renard, Bobby Smyrniotis, and Tommy Wheeldon Jr. were all reported to have been candidates, but Blue won’t share whom he interviewed. He does say he probably had “30 to 40" conversations about Marsch.

Blue won’t disclose who those conversations were with either. But as he unpacked Marsch, Blue would’ve learned how Marsch grew up in Racine, Wis., just outside Milwaukee, and how his dad, Larry Marsch, worked in a tractor factory for more than 30 years and taught his son to always give everything he does everything he has.

Of all the sports Marsch played as a boy, he felt soccer was the best outlet for his energy and intelligence. The game led him to Princeton University, where then head coach Bradley taught Marsch that “Everything you do towards the game matters, and that intensity resonated with me right away.”

Jesse Marsch Canada

Blue might have spoken to someone like Marsch’s long-time teammate and friend Chris Armas, who said Marsch’s unshakeable confidence and competitiveness is “in his DNA,” but that his work comes second to his wife, Kim, and their three kids, Emerson, Lennon, and Madux.

Then, as he began to examine Marsch as a coach, Blue likely would’ve gone through a resumé that includes being Bradley’s assistant on the U.S. men’s team at the 2010 World Cup, then coaching the Montreal Impact in its first MLS season. Marsch then progressed through Red Bull’s soccer system, from the New York Red Bulls to Red Bull Salzburg in the Austrian Bundesliga to Red Bulls Leipzig in the German Bundesliga, while learning from venerated soccer minds like Gérard Houllier and Ralf Rangnick.

Blue also might’ve spoken to someone like current Princeton men’s soccer head coach Jim Barlow, who Marsch volunteered with in 2012, to understand why teaching the game is so important to Marsch.

“[Marsch] emanates joy when he plays and when he coaches and it rubs off on his players that [the game] is supposed to be fun and it is fun,” said Barlow. “But it’s more fun when you’re doing it as well as you possibly can, so let’s dive into this together, as a family.”

And while Blue would’ve learned how Marsch subscribes to Red Bull high performance director Andy Walshe’s belief that the human body can be pushed beyond the mind’s perceptions of fatigue, Marsch also equally invests in player-led leadership councils.

Someone like former Canadian international Patrice Bernier might’ve told Blue how much he appreciated Marsch’s personal touch when he travelled to Denmark to convince Bernier to come home and play in Montreal.

“What you see from [Marsch], the passion, the enthusiasm, what he portrays when he speaks, that’s what I felt,” Bernier said. “I was still in Europe and I could’ve stayed there a few more years, but I felt I wanted to be part of the project because it seemed [Montreal] had someone stewarding it with a high belief in what he wanted to establish.”

But if Marsch doesn’t like a situation he will walk away, like he left Montreal and left Leipzig, because he insists he “doesn’t need to work.” Part of that comes from his firm belief there will always be a job for him, but the other side of that comes from Marsch’s sense of what matters to him.

He never felt like the culture at Red Bull Leipzig fit his personality or his coaching style. And as Marsch watched his wife battle cancer at the same time, it tilted his work-life balance toward his family.

Thirty to 40 conversations would’ve been more than enough for Blue to learn that Marsch is admired as much as a person as he is as a coach.

“It's a credit to [Marsch] and his value system,” Blue said. “And I think it's reflective of a person [who] knows what he wants out of his professional life and his relationships, and the impact that he wants to make.”

The two eventually met, had dinner, and spoke extensively. Blue would’ve known that Marsch felt mistreated during the interview process for the U.S. job, something Marsch still won’t discuss in detail. And though Blue was aware South Korea was also courting Marsch, he wasn’t aware that Marsch had already spoken to former South Korean head coach Guus Hiddink, who led the nation to the semifinals of its 2002 home World Cup.

Blue might have been unaware, but he was also unfazed. Blue knew that Marsch had already coached in Canada, took French classes during his time in Montreal, and had spoken to former Canadian coach and Canada Soccer executive Jason de Vos about the men’s job in November 2023. Blue was sure he could sell Marsch on his Canadian vision.

“You have to remember that I was very new at the time, only a couple months ahead of [Marsch],” Blue said. “So we were looking at the project together as an opportunity to do something very important to Canada, and make a difference.”

Marsch appreciated Blue for being an “advanced thinker” and recognized their shared belief system: a desire to effect change by investing in people. After their first conversation, Marsch was honest with Blue: “I said, ‘You’re naïve enough to think you can make a difference. And that’s exactly who I am.’”

As Marsch began to reconsider his future, the coach in him asked for time to study Canada’s defence, a much-debated concern at the time. But Marsch the person had already made a connection with Blue. South Korea was out. He chose Canada.

“I think that's a correct assessment in the best sense of the word, right?” Blue said of the connection he made with Marsch. “Like, the opposite of cynical is naïve, and I think that describes Jesse.”

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Marsch has never watched Ted Lasso – the hit Apple TV series about an American college football coach who unexpectedly finds himself in English soccer – and doesn’t really have a specific reason why.

“I don’t see a reason to get into it,” he said, and maybe that’s not surprising.  

Marsch worked his way up through Red Bull’s system by winning an MLS Supporters Shield with the New York Red Bulls, then multiple titles with Red Bull Salzburg, and managed both Red Bull Salzburg and Red Bull Leipzig in the Champions League. No American-born coach has that resumé. Along the way, Marsch learned German to better connect with the players and understand the local culture.

The character Ted Lasso navigates a foreign sport in a foreign land by offering more homespun life lessons than exacting tactics. Marsch is not Ted Lasso, but Ted Lasso has become a caricature of the ever-positive, ever-folksy American coach. Marsch must’ve been aware of that if he now admits he wanted to “attack” the issue when he arrived at Leeds United in February 2022.

“I’m sure there is a stigma [about American coaches], I’m not sure Ted Lasso helped,” Marsch said with a laugh during his first media availability at the club, before quickly pivoting. “I get it – [English] people hate hearing the word ‘soccer.’ I’ve used the word ‘football’ since I was a professional football player. I think more and more in the States we’re adapting to what the game is here in England.”

That’s Marsch with the media: confident and straightforward. But there’s a hyper-focused scrutiny vibrating around the English Premier League. The pressure from the fans, the money, and the stakes never stop.

“The Premier League is the be all and end all,” said Graham Smyth, the chief football writer for the Yorkshire Evening Post, who covered Marsch at Leeds.

Marsch talks about his Premier League opportunity with a little reverence, too.

“It was a beautiful challenge,” he said.

But the microscope fixed on an historic club like Leeds United magnifies everything a manager does.

So much about Marsch’s near year-long tenure at Leeds has been dissected again and again in England: the roster and the boardroom politics, and how Marsch compared with the guy he replaced – renowned and beloved Argentine coach Marcelo Bielsa.

Jesse Marsch Leeds

Smyth said Marsch’s personality didn’t resonate with Leeds supporters.

“I remember asking him about the issues [Leeds] were having [in defence] at fullback. The fullbacks were sometimes looking overexposed and outnumbered, and he came out with an answer: ‘We know where the goal is, it’s in the middle of the pitch,’” Smyth said, referring to a sarcastic answer Marsch gave when pressed about his tactics. “That led to some ridicule from fans, and it was almost like, not that he knew better, he was so confident in what he was saying it didn’t shine with the fans.”

As time went on, Smyth says Marsch might have also appeared a little imprudent, too. It’s not out of the ordinary for fans and players to applaud each other after games, even losses; but after a home loss to Manchester City, Smyth recalls watching Marsch appear to “love” a postgame applause interaction, and perhaps got too swept up in the moment.

“[Marsch] was trying to convey that our fans have just given our team this incredible ovation but it came across as celebrating mediocrity, celebrating defeat. That's how it was kind of viewed,” Smyth said.

For a Leeds fan base that still reveres its hardworking and hard-tackling title-winning years in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1990s, that kind of thing from a coach would grate some fans. And as much as that’s part of Marsch’s ethos – to build strong bonds between fans and players and create a shared objective – that unwavering self-belief in his own purpose eventually wore thin.

“He has strong convictions, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that,” Smyth said. “But if people don’t share your convictions, then your defence of your convictions doesn’t win you fans, because they don’t see it [how Marsch sees it].”

Leeds were 16th in the table when Marsch took over. When he was fired in February 2023, they were 17th. After Leeds spent years tearing through the thicket of the lower league wilderness to get back to the Premier League, Marsch says he struggled to change the team’s mentality amid a managerial change and relegation fight.

“It's like everybody’s waiting to fail instead of believing that they deserve to succeed,” he said.

There came a point when even the ever-sociable Marsch found it all draining.

“I couldn't go anywhere within an 80-mile radius [of Leeds] without everyone knowing who I was,” he said. “I’m going to appreciate the fact [people] appreciate me, so I was never, ever sour. But what it meant was I either had to be on all the time or I just stayed home.”

While Smyth says he doesn’t think people are “sympathetic enough with the plight that Jesse Marsch was handed at Leeds because it was almost an impossible situation,” Marsch did help Leeds avoid relegation on the final day of the Premier League 2021-2022 season.

Winger Jack Harrison scored the goal in stoppage time against Brentford that kept Leeds in the Premier League, and former Leeds and current Barcelona star Raphinha walked on his knees – prayer walked – the length of the field in celebration.

For a short time at least, Marsch’s earnest approach worked, because he now calls saving Leeds from relegation in 2022, “More euphoric than any title I’d ever won.”

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When he returned to Princeton as a volunteer coach with the school's men's soccer team in 2014, Marsch occasionally found himself at the Shea Rowing Center by Lake Carnegie in New Jersey. Marsch enjoyed watching Princeton’s rowing eights. He uses his hands to illustrate how racing shells battle neck-and-neck across the water.

“When you watch a regatta, and there's three boats all neck-and-neck, and the investment that [the rowers] physically put in, when they're done they look like they're all gonna die and drown,” Marsch said. “I thought to myself, ‘How do I get a f--king football team to play like that? Like, how do I get absolute, 100 per cent physical investment out of players?”

In rowing, near-perfect synchronized moment between all eight rowers is called “the swing.” Marsch has his own version for soccer, he calls it “the contagiousness of collective aggression,” when 11 players begin to surge and chase and sweep across the field, like a tide.

“That's when it just takes off,” Marsch said.

In his 10 months as Canada’s head coach Marsch has constantly said to his players and in the media that the team must, “Win every moment.”

That standard starts in training, and by the end of a full practice ragged players are throwing off their boots and stripping down to the shorts, searching for shade, and dousing themselves with water.

“Energy,” is the word Canadian winger Jacob Shaffelburg used to describe a Marsch-run practice. He jokingly used other colourful words while laughing, but doesn’t want them on the record.

“I don’t want them to come and backfire on me,” he said.

Shaffelburg then explained why the players have bought into that kind of suffering.

“[Marsch] believes in us so much. He knows what we can accomplish, he truly means it, and we can feel that energy from him,” Shaffelburg said. “We just want to run through a brick wall for him and for the country.”

Jacob Shaffelburg Canada

Marsch gave Shaffelburg, a former Toronto FC castoff, a place in Canada’s midfield, and Shaffelburg took it and stormed down Canada’s wing during Copa América. He gave Derek Cornelius, a defender who wandered MLS, Greece, and Sweden for his best shot at a job, a starting spot in Canada’s defence, and Cornelius parlayed that into a big move and a regular starting spot with Olympique Marseille. And even as Ismaël Koné struggled at Marseille and had to navigate being publicly admonished by his head coach and then being loaned away, Koné found his most ardent support in Marsch.

“He was the one who reached out to me the most in my toughest situation, and that says a lot about him and we’re able to have a fair understanding of each other, and I think that comes from him being true, and just being a true winner and just making sure everything is right to win,” Koné said.

“And when he sent me those messages [of support], to be honest, I was shocked but in a good way. I knew he was a good person, but to do that, not every coach would do it. He didn’t let me down.”  

The deeper message inside Marsch’s demanding nature is that the more you give, the more you’re going to get.

“I love being their coach,” Marsch said.

It’s the kind of connection that can make the want and will to be aggressive contagious.

Canada’s road to the 2026 World Cup is becoming demanding. This week's Concacaf Nations League Finals and this summer's Gold Cup are both opportunities to win their first trophy in 25 years. Newly announced friendlies against Côte d'Ivoire, New Zealand, Romania, Ukraine, and Wales means Canada's international friendly schedule is filling up with nations it could potentially face at the 2026 World Cup.

From this point, there are no guarantees Marsch's plan for his players will succeed. But he sounds confident and sure that he is building something that will work, succeed, and endure.

Marsch doesn't just want to build a team, he wants to build a national movement. He's travelled across the country to hold coaching clinics and wants to have a stronger relationship with the women's national team and its new head coach, Casey Stoney.

Marsch wants to build something uniquely Canadian.

"The people in Canada are better," Marsch said. "They're better people. They're more open, they're more connected, they're more selfless. I really believe that the culture really breeds kindness, and this is something that Canadian people really know is important – to be thoughtful, respectful, kind, generous, and a decent human being.

And when Marsch talks about winning, he doesn't talk about one moment or one trophy. He talks about bringing 26 men to the 2026 World Cup, setting a standard, and staying there. 

“Now that [Canada] has had a taste of what the highest levels are like, and what real football is about, now they can't go back," he said. "They can't go back.” 

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article posted March 20 said that Jesse Marsch's salary with Canada Soccer was a "reported $3.1 million a year." That figure has been removed from the current version because it is inaccurate.