Leeds United confirm Jesse Marsch as Marcelo Bielsa's replacement as coach - Yorkshire Post 28/2/22
Leeds United have appointed Jesse Marsch as their new coach to pull them away from the Premier League relegation zone without abandoning the pressing principles Marcelo Bielsa built the squad around.
By Stuart Rayner
With no transfer window until the summer, the 48-year-old's
job is to get the most out of a small, injury-hit squad created for the
Argentinian, who was sacked on Sunday after his fourth season turned into a
relegation battle.
It was concerns over Leeds's league position, two points
above the Premier League's bottom three having played two more games than the
teams directly below, Everton and Burnley, which caused Bielsa's sacking in the
absence of any significant fan pressure for it.
But the Whites had already been planning to bring Marsch in
when Bielsa's contract expired in the summer and the fact he is out of work and
has a good relationship with director of football Victor Orta made it easy to
bring him in quickly. Getting a work permit was the most complicated hurdle,but
he has now signed a contract until 2025.
Orta revealed Marsch had been in his plans for a number of
years.
“Jesse is someone we identified a number of years ago during
his time at Red Bull Salzburg and we believe his philosophy and style of
football aligns with that of the club and will suit the players very
well," he said.
“We have a long-term plan and firmly believe he can take
Leeds United to the next level and are excited for what the future holds.”
Marsch is only the third American manager to work in the
Premier League after Swansea City's Bob Bradley and Huddersfield Town's David
Wagner but he has had a global education in coaching as part of the famed Red
Bull network.
The twice-capped midfielder who spent his entire playing
career in Major League Soccer (MLS), began his coaching life as an assistant to
the United States national team in 2010, broken up by a spell with Montreal
Impact which was short-lived because of a difference over coaching
"philosophies".
It was joining New York Red Bulls in January 2015 that was
the most significant point of his coaching career to date.
Since Ralf Rangnick became the director of football at both
Red Bull Salzburg and RB Leipzig, the energy drink's franchise tried to play an
energetic pressing style with similarities to the football Bielsa so
thrillingly brought to West Yorkshire.
With the best win record in the club's history, having been
named MLS coach of the year and winning the 2015 MLS Supporters' Shield, it was
no surprise when he moved to the Leipzig franchise in 2018, as Rangnick's
assistant manager, then replaced current Borussia Dortmund coach Marco Rose as
Salzburg coach in the summer of 2019.
He won consecutive doubles before succeeding Bayern
Munich-bound Julian Nagelsmann in Leipzig for this season. That was the first
failure of his coaching career, cut short in December after nine defeats in 21
games. He has been out of work since.
Marsch's brief will be to build on what Bielsa achieved, not
rip it up and start again.
Chief executive Angus Kinnear described him as having
"the courage and ambition to build on the strong foundations we have
created over the last four years and elevate the performance of the club over
the long-term."
Tellingly, given Leeds's issues, one of the criticisms
levelled at him by German television pundit Steffen Effenberg was that he tried
to win games 5-3.
Having shipped 20 goals in their last five matches, Leeds
will need to tighten up defensively but Marsch is regarded as more pragmtatic
than the romantic he succeeds.
Assistants Diego Reyes, Pablo Quiroga and Luis Ouvina are
reported to have left with Bielsa, as well as fitness coach Benoit Delaval, but
head of analysis Guillermo Alonso and goalkeeping coach Marcos Abad, who both
worked with Orta at Middlesbrough, have not.
