Red Bull Gives Marsch Wings
And I'm trying not to freak out BUT I'M KINDA FREAKING OUT
In it’s short and somewhat dubious history as a global football conglomerate, the Red Bull machine has set up something of a broken pathway for talent, a ladder that hasn’t quite connected most of the time. Sure, it’s been successful in its own way, with an abundance of transfers from Salzburg to Leipzig taking place (and we can debate the fairness of that pipeline or general morality of Red Bull in this sport all day, but that’s not really what this is going to be about). But, Tyler Adams aside, it’s easy to feel like the complete scope of the Red Bull Soccer World, the one that includes the New York Red Bulls, is often incomplete, not a true pathway from the bottom of the pyramid to the top. It’s for sure a better path than whatever City Football Group is doing, and given Angeliño’s success at Leipzig, you could make the argument that Red Bull has had more success pipelining CFG’s talent to their first team than Manchester City has.
That officially changed yesterday, when it was announced Jesse Marsch would take over Leipzig when Julian Nagelsmann leaves for Bayern this summer. That’s right: a Chivas USA player is going to manage a Champions League team.
Somehow, it’s Jesse Marsch who is the first person to move from the manager position at Salzburg to the manager position at Leipzig. It’s Marsch who is the player or coach, to my knowledge, that moved up the Red Bull ladder rung by rung, taking on the manager role at all three Red Bull clubs. And I’m freaking out about it a little bit. And I think we should all be given license to freak out about it a little bit, too.
It’s not that the move should surprise people, I think. Marsch has earned a chance at managing a top club, and the rumors that he had interest from clubs in Germany and England was deserved. The whole scope of the narrative, however, is something out of an American soccer fever dream: a Wisconsinite becomes an All-American at Princeton, plays in MLS his whole career, only lasted a season with the Montreal Impact in his first head coaching job, only for him to then take a new MLS job and spin that into coaching some of the most sought-after prospects in the world and eventually becoming one of the hottest commodities on the international market. AND I HAVEN’T EVEN GOT TO THE PART WHERE ANOTHER AMERICAN WAS ONE OF THE OTHER MAJOR CANDIDATES FOR THE JOB MARSCH GOT.
Pellegrino Matarazzo’s hugely impressive season with Stuttgart is its own odyssey of college soccer and Europe’s lower divisions, a playing dream that rolled immediately into a managing one. Their paths might have diverged in an Ivy wood, but Marsch and Matarazzo represent the next logical step for Americans in the game everywhere: embedding themselves in a place and culture and earning results. It’s the same path Bob Bradley forged when he went to Egypt, Norway, France, and then the ill-fated holiday in Wales. When Bradley was fired from Swansea, it felt in some way like a red mark on all American coaches dreaming of managing at the highest levels of the game. Today, it feels like the page is turned.
There will be ridiculous pressure on Marsch to deliver, sure. He replaces the most eligible manager candidate in the world, one who took Leipzig to the cusp of a Bundesliga title and to the semifinals of the Champions League. Red Bull doesn’t just want good performances. They want trophies. And while I think they will give Marsch time and resources to shape the team in his image, I also do not think they will be particularly forgiving of sustained poor performance. Success is expected.
For just a moment, however, I would like to take the time to enjoy Jesse Marsch, manager of one of the most best clubs in the world. Sometimes, the game is just that simple.
Things You Should Know
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Live stream today! Running through this weekend’s slate of matches and other assorted nonsense.
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If you want to know more about what type of pressure Marsch will face at Red Bull, this is a good place to start.
Here’s a video that’s worth your time.
All Hail the King
This Thierry Henry painting is absolutely wild.
That’s it, I don’t have any more commentary on it. It’s just that good.
AFCON DRAMA
Listen here, bub: I love the Africa Cup of Nations, mostly because it always feels like the most wide-open international soccer tournament around. Anyone can win this thing on any given year. Except for Democratic Republic of the Congo, who missed out on qualifying for the AFCON final thanks to Gabon. …unless?
Guelor Kanga isn’t some random player that only just showed up on the international scene; he’s played for Gabon for almost a decade and has spent the last several years in Eastern Europe, playing for clubs like Red Star and Sparta Prague. If DRC were to be correct about this, they would qualify for AFCON 2021, while Gabon would be expelled. Gabon, however, have already appealed, according to the BBC.
Roll of the Day
You may be wondering where the Goal of the Day is, and why the Goal of the Day is not Lucas Zelarayan stealing all of Monterrey’s lunch money, what are you doing, you absolute moron writing this newsletter?
Well, that’s because something even better happened during CONCACAF Champions League action in the midweek, and that was Pedro Aquino Little Mermaiding himself back onto the field of play so that everybody had to pay as much attention to his very hurt ankle as possible.
Just wonderful execution on the CONCACAFing here. Absolutely A+ stuff.
I heard there were refreshments if we got to the end.