Brighton & Hove Albion v Leeds United: Learning curve big part of picture for Jesse Marsch and Whites - Yorkshire Post 27/8/22

Intelligence is important to Jesse Marsch but with every year that passes it seems more important in football as a whole.

By Stuart Rayner

There is a difference between footballing intelligence and book intelligence but Marsch has both, having learnt his sport in America’s college sports system which makes academia part of the package for young sportsmen and women, whereas too often here in the past young footballers have been made to choose between one or the other.

Marsch has been encouraging Archie Gray to study for A-levels after some good GCSE results this week, while his own education in Yorkshire life continues apace – even taking in cricket.

As long as managers like Brighton and Hove Albion’s Graham Potter are on the rise, players increasingly need a bit more between the ears.

Like an increasing number of coaches, former York City left-back Potter has an academic degree – in his case in sports sciences. Two Yorkshire universities – Hull and Leeds Metropolitan – set him on the path to football coaching.

What is so impressive – though less unusual these days – about Potter’s Brighton is the ease with which they can switch from one formation to another. Many of his players are capable of switching between roles with not much in common at the click of a finger.

It means the Leeds players who face them on the south coast this afternoon will have to be bright of mind too.

Coaches can do their best to help but Marsch admitted last weekend he is developing a baseball-like range of hand signals because having his message heard – especially at Elland Road – can be difficult, so better to find players capable of thinking for themselves.

“It’s massively important,” says Marsch when asked about football intelligence. “It’s always easy to evaluate when watching video how talented a player is and what his qualities are. The tougher thing is to evaluate is his exact mentality – mostly how he handles difficulty – and to really process how quick a learner he is. Maybe those two things wind up being as important, maybe more important, than the actual football talent qualities.

“I’ve found getting to the core of their learning abilities and mentalities winds up dictating what the potential of that player can be.

“I’ve been lucky to work with some incredibly talented players like Erling Haaland but also Dominik Szoboszlai, Christopher Nkunku and a lot of the guys here and what really defines their learning curve and their potential is who they are as people.”

Marsch sees that intelligence in 16-year-old Gray, the latest in a line of Leeds footballing aristocrats. Back in the day, some managers might have demanded a player give their career 110 per cent of their attention (maths did not really come up on coaching courses) but Marsch wants to develop people, which is why he took an interest on GCSE results day this week.

“I asked him in front of the team (how Gray did) and he said he got Bs and As, which made me think more Bs than As but clearly he’s a bright kid,” says Marsch.

“His family and him are committed to him educating himself. He’s talking about taking some of his A-Levels which I fully encourage.”

Next up is teaching his youngest son about cricketing etiquette, whilst trying to drag his eldest into the English education system.

“My son has been playing cricket at his school,” says Marsch. “The rules aren’t that complicated and he finds some similar things to baseball.

“They let him bowl one game I watched and he did okay. One time he made a play and he celebrated like (Cristiano) Ronaldo so I’m not sure he knows cricket etiquette.

“We love it here. So much so my older son is in Salzburg and we’re trying to convince him to finish high school here in England because we know he would love it too.”

Marsch has often said how the football Leeds play has to represent Yorkshire and he is not just talking about some vague notion of what he has been told that is, he is putting in the miles to learn it first-hand.

Unlike some in the public eye, he actively encourages members of the public to come up and chat to him which is just as well because he does not sound like a master of disguise.

“I’ve now been to Whitby, I’ve driven through Scarborough one day so I’ve tried to hit the coast a little bit more, we’ve driven through the Dales,” he says.

“On free days we try to go for a drive or we hear of a nice restaurant, we try to be out and about.

“It’s cool here, it’s really neat to see the club, the people, the culture, the environment and what a sports team can mean to a part of the world.”

Our supposed suspicion of outsiders is not something he has come across.

“In the community people are incredibly positive and supportive,” he says. “I’ve not had one negative experience, not one. Maybe I’ve had 5,000 now. I’ve seen a million Leeds tattoos!

“I always think I’m such an average-looking bloke but even when I’m wearing a hat and glasses people see me and they come right up and we have five-minute conversations. I’d encourage them to come and say hello.

“I enjoy being here, I enjoy the plainness, the easiness of what we are in this region of the world – and I see ‘we’ because we’re part of it now.

“I just need to develop a few Yorkshire sayings.”