Jesse Marsch before Chelsea knows he doesn’t have to ask - The Square Ball 10/5/22

IN THE WORDS OF

Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman

It was Jesse Marsch’s pre-Chelsea press conference on Tuesday morning, and in the words of the man himself, why don’t I start? And we’ll address this motivational quote thing. Because the cringe has been going hard since, after the defeat to Arsenal, Jackie Harrison said Marsch had “showed a quote from Gandhi before the game, about having belief.” Marsch was asked about that twice today. But why? Harrison didn’t seem to think it was a bad thing, although the first ten minutes of the game were a sign it didn’t work. But what’s up?

“Inspiration is a big part of this job,” Marsch said today, and:

“And when you lead people, you have to find ways to have your finger on the pulse of exactly what’s happening at any moment. I have 52 articles, or excerpts from books, that I sometimes give players when, individually, I think they need something to motivate them, based on where they are in their development path or who they are as people, and how to reach them a little bit differently than just the conversations I have with them.

“And then I have hundreds of quotes that I use at different moments, that I try to think about how they fit with who I am, and the way we try to play football, and how it might fit in a scenario with with where we are in a season, in a moment, in a time, whatever. And I love quotes. I love learning from people of the past, sports figures, historical figures, whatever.”

There are particular ghosts around this sort of stuff for Leeds fans. Steve Evans once told us that he’d inspired a victory over Cardiff City by showing the players a video of ‘a kid with no arms or legs’ to get them motivated, after complaining their previous defeat had ruined his birthday. (There was another odd echo today when Marsch said, ‘I want them to be free on match day to go and play, but to do it with discipline and clarity’, a pre-watershed version of Neil Warnock’s infamous ‘Enjoy it — but enjoy it by being fucking disciplined here’. But I’ve always found that Warnock clip hilarious so I didn’t mind the laugh.) But in the end it’s fairly ordinary stuff. Marsch is not the first or last coach to use lessons from other coaches, sportspeople and historical figures as good examples for his players. Learning from history is good. There are some great people there.

Here’s why I think it has felt off, though, and if you’re someone who gets urges to rage-tweet at the mere mention of the coach who got Leeds back into the Premier League after sixteen years by playing the best football I’ve seen us play in my lifetime, please close this browser tab and go for a nice walk. The next bit will only upset you and I don’t want your misery on my conscience (or to read the tweets, but you can leave that part to me).

Last week Elia Caprile, our young goalkeeper playing on loan in Italy for Pro Patria, was asked about Marcelo Bielsa, because people all over the world find Bielsa fascinating. “There are so many anecdotes,” he said, “but what I always remember is one he told us before a game.

“He told us the story of his Chilean friend who was a miner. According to him, footballers and miners are a lot alike, since they both worked hard to bring the food home. Of course, there are the necessary differences since we earn a lot, but the story stuck with me, because it was evident that Bielsa was talking about a person he knew.”

That right there is the subtle but important difference. Caprile hasn’t been at Thorp Arch all season, but this story has stuck with him all this time, and why? “Because it was evident that Bielsa was talking about a person he knew.” In other words, because the story was original to Bielsa. Authentic. And when you want someone to believe in you, if you have authentic examples from your own life, that is an unbelievably powerful tool.

Marsch can only use the tools he has, so if his life doesn’t have examples to suit the situation and a quote from Gandhi fits the moment, or anyone else on the list he talked about today — “Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan” — that’s fine. When I talk to people about cool writing, I don’t give them something I wrote, unless it’s to show them how to do an attainably competent version of something much better. I give them examples from the best to do it. Maybe if I was actually Barbara Comyns or Ring Lardner I’d be quoting my own stuff, but in a way it’s reassuring that Marsch has got the old ego in check here and isn’t thinking his example is the way. He’s a young coach, and while something he did one time at Princeton might be a good story, it won’t cut through like Muhammad Ali. Jackie Harrison was happy to hear about Gandhi and was still thinking about it after the game, so he’s fine with that. I don’t imagine Marsch is exceptional for having a library of articles and quotes. This is all an ordinary part of coaching.

And one of the arguments about Bielsa is, how much is too much, how much is enough? I’ve always admired his players for dealing with what he demands of them — the long training, the diet, the intensity — when the result of their work, last season, was finishing in the same middle of the table as Aston Villa, where Dean Smith was letting the players roll in for training at noon so they could stay up late playing video games. Half the Manchester United team do not give a toss and barely try, but they have riches and lifestyles the Leeds squad can only dream of. Bielsa never denies that there are much, much easier ways to achieve even better things than he can manage. A drawback he always had to overcome, and maybe in the last season at Leeds no longer could: without Bielsa, you could win twice as much by doing half as much. I guess his counter-argument about Leeds would be, ‘but you already tried that.’

But even if you can do without it, authenticity is worth something, in the mind of a player like Caprile, and in the cultural idea of a football club. These things are important and they last — it’s why the new issue of our magazine and accompanying t-shirt features Don Revie’s iconic dressing room message to our greatest players, a vehicle registration plate printed with ‘KEEP FIGHTING’. Nobody else had that. Fifty years later, it still matters. Part of the value of Bielsa to Leeds was that we had the original here. Today Marsch mentioned Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Phil Jackson, Vince Lombardi, Johnny Unitas and the 1998 French football team (he also mentioned Mother Teresa and JFK, but we’ll stick to sport for this). But when asked who inspires them, a lot of other coaches, Pep Guardiola for example, will say, Marcelo Bielsa. We didn’t have to photocopy anybody else’s quotes and put them on the wall at Elland Road, because the original was here. We had a coach who didn’t have to ask himself what someone else would do. Everything came from within. I think that’s why this just feels a bit off. It’s fine, but it’s a change, a cold shudder in the memory, a reminder of what we’re not getting back.

Anyway! Marsch’s cultural adaptation with our haunted, widowed fanbase was always going to be tricky, he gets that. He also gets what is required this week. After the ‘Yorkshire’ display against Manchester City, his own fist-pumping reaction, and the Stuart Dallas t-shirt giveaway at the Emirates, Jesse is understanding that Leeds fans do not actually need any encouragement to stand with the team through adversity. Yes, the players need all the support Elland Road can give them in this week’s vital games against Chelsea and Brighton. They have been getting it in the stadium all game, every game, all season. And Marsch is smart enough to know that he doesn’t need to start asking for it now.

He was asked what he expects from the fans this week:

“I don’t expect or demand anything other than what I’ve already seen, which is love and positivity in that stadium in every moment, to push us to where we want to go. I can promise to them we’re going to put a team on the pitch that is ready to go, that is aggressive, that plays with confidence, that represents the identity of what this fanbase is. I’m clear with that, clearer now I think than I’ve ever been in the time I have been here. We will make sure, when we put a match plan together, when we think about how we want to play on matchday, that it represents those things.”

Good. This is the right answer. This is not the week for flags or tifos or requests for more support. The Elland Road crowd will do what it has to do, without being told to, because nobody told it to. And probably the fewer potential projectiles on hand the better.

Other stuff from Marsch today:

Leeds thought Liam Cooper would be fit to play Arsenal, but he had a ‘small reaction’ just before the match. Marsch “believes” he can play against Chelsea but he emphasised that it’s belief, Coops might not make it.

Pat Bamford will “hopefully be in team training by the end of the week” but won’t be available against his former team. That’s Chelsea, in case you’ve forgotten which club ruined the first decade of his career by loaning him to halfwits.

Marsch had a talk with the players yesterday, trying to keep the situation in context, telling them they’d have taken that second half against Arsenal as a “big positive” had it come earlier in the season, under less pressure. Later he added, “If you play a man down at Arsenal and you win that half 1-0, you’d say well done.”

“Now on game day we have to be a combination of pragmatic, clever and do whatever it takes to tactically be sharp and clear. To defend our goal and find ways to be dangerous.”

About Luke Ayling’s red card, Marsch says Bill “defines what we want this club to be about, [but] in one situation he jeopardises all that he’s invested for himself and the team”; it hurts the team to be without him, “but honestly I think more about Luke as a person and how he has to deal with this moment.” Marsch says he has “supported Luke internally”, which I thought was Rob Price’s department, “and I will externally as well.”

We’ll need a right-back. Jamie Shackleton is an option, and Marsch has been watching lots of videos of him, because he’s been injured most of the time he’s been here. “I potentially think he can fit into that whether we play four or five [at the back]. We’ve also visited the possibility of playing one of our centre backs in that position. And also with Raphinha and Dan James who did that admirably in a five against Arsenal. So I’m certainly not going to give away what we’re going to do, but Jamie is certainly is the mix.”

Raphinha at right-back is obviously not ideal. “He is a fantastic talent, we haven’t got enough out of him. That’s the truth,” says Jesse. “We’ve tried to find ways to play with him a little bit wider,” which has only looked like the truth to me when he’s been at right wing-back, but I guess Marsch’s point is that it hasn’t been working. “We’ve tried to find ways where he is in transition moments a little bit more, we’ve tried to find ways to get him around the goal more. Against these opponents, the best opponents, it’s not like we’re going to be in the final third for 50 per cent of the game where we can really get him on the ball.”

Marsch also doesn’t think Raphinha is distracted by speculation about him going to Barcelona this summer; “His emotion [i.e. going mad when Bill was sent off], it can be interpreted as lack of discipline. I look at it as total investment; he’d do anything to ensure this club stays where it belongs.” We get to stay up if our best player clobbers the ref? I like the sound of this rule change! “That part for me has been no talking point or thought at all. He’s all in.”

Marsch always knew it would be difficult to pick up points from Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea, but “we believe we can get a result at home.” We still have a lot to play for in the coming games, but “Credit to Burnley and Everton, in a difficult moment they’ve also fought for their lives and done whatever is possible to claw themselves back into this situation. We’ll do the same.”

That Chelsea have the FA Cup final at the weekend shouldn’t change things; “that is a quality club, with a quality manager, incredible players, they all know how to manage difficult situations. Who they bring, what their line-up is, it doesn’t matter.” I vote they bring Mal Donaghy and Joe Allon and wear that orange and grey kit.

The Leadership Council are still important, although when Marsch reeled off the list — “Liam Cooper, Kalvin Phillips, Luke Ayling, Adam Forshaw, Rodrigo, Patrick Bamford and Stuart Dallas, five of those players have been injured” — he made it sound like a leadership curse. Marsch has “challenged those guys” to keep “bringing the kind of energy to our training ground” and help other players understand leadership and how to be strong.

Marsch, asked how he’s dealing with things personally, says he’s calm, because stress doesn’t help. “This is why I love our fans in the stadium because I think that they get it. They are the ones, when I see them in the street, they’re positive with me. Or their energy in the crowd at Arsenal, or after the Man City game or during the Norwich game or whatever. This is what pushes us, this is what I think will help us achieve our goal in the next three games.”

He’s staying positive with the players, “to let them know this is not just about one, two, three matches, that we continue to stay strong and fight until the very end and stay clear until the very end.”

And he’s spending hours doing video analysis. “In some ways I’ve found that in the last few months I have been a video analyst more than a manager. I’m tired, my wife is tired of me sitting with my computer that’s for sure.”

He got asked about the note to Dan James, that went down Dan’s pants then into Kalvin Phillips hands. “We just changed the tactical look. The second half went almost exactly how I wanted it to go,” says Marsch, meaning keeping it tight and nicking a set-piece goal, with time left to then try and poach an equaliser. “We switched and played more 4-3-2 with Dan up top. That’s what that was, with a couple of instructions … The benefit of Covid, was when playing in empty stadiums you could communicate with the players more. I don’t think the players like that. I think they like playing in front of fans and listening to their manager less, which is the truth. Game day isn’t for managers, it’s more for players.”

About his former Salzburger, Erling Haaland, coming to the Premier League, “I wish he was coming back home here to Leeds, this is his hometown and birth place but I understand the decision for him to go to Manchester City … I always wish the best for Erling, he’s an incredible human being.” I’m with him there, especially when Erling is wearing his dad’s Leeds United shorts.