Jesse Marsch’s time with Leeds United ended in frustration, but the American head coach is reportedly on the radar of one of Ligue 1’s prominent clubs.
Marsch is linked with French side AS Monaco for a potential move to Ligue 1, LeedsLive reported Tuesday. The 49-year-old could be hired as a potential replacement for Paul Clement with Monaco sitting sixth and in danger of missing out on European qualification for next season.
Monaco has one final league match remaining against Toulouse, but will need to earn three points to have any chance of cracking the top-four ahead of Lille and Rennes.
The American head coach replaced Marcelo Bielsa in February 2022, eventually leading Leeds United to league survival despite an inconsistent overall season. However, the Lilywhites struggles during the 2022-23 campaign ultimately led to Marsch’s dismissal in February.
Marsch posted a 11-10-16 record across all competitions with Leeds United. He was considered for the managerial openings at Southampton and Leicester City, but was not hired by either club.
A former MLS and U.S. men’s national team player, Marsch has also been linked with the head coaching job. Interim head coach Anthony Hudson recently left his role, forcing U.S. Soccer to elevate assistant coach B.J. Callaghan to an interim role.
Marsch previously was the manager of both Red Bull Salzburg and RB Leipzig in Europe before joining Leeds United last season.
story goes hudson is off to the middle east for a head coach job. israeli league is late august-may. saudi league is late august-may. UAE league is september-may. iranian league is october-may. the teams he would likely be coaching just finished their last season. i am pretty sure hudson could have coached at least NL but then it would be a little too obvious the split coaching is just babysitting.
why did he just leave our peak busy gig for his next team’s offseason. the story has to be more complicated than we are getting.
Leeds made a huge mistake by firing him before giving him a chance to work with his signings from January transfer window. I truly believe he could’ve saved them from relegation.
i think their expectation — realistic or not — was midtable. i think they believed their own press clippings there. i think he got fired because they were still hanging around barely off the relegation line, which was disappointing relative to their preseason hopes. they thought he’d plateaued no matter how much talent they bought.
you can argue their table spot progression over time supports your argument, as they seemed to get worse after the coaching changes. they never dropped below 17 while he was there, and i think were about 14 or 15 when he got canned. after a couple wins it went into freefall between 17 and 19.
that being said tyler adams was also out beginning roughly this time period as well. i am not a fan of high pressing but think it quietly depends on the aggression of the first line but also the anticipation and mop-up capabilities of the second line that has the chance to intercept the wayward passes by stressed opponents. adams is gifted at that.
that being said IMO high pressing to me is kind of a loser “play hard first 30” mentality. the fulham games i saw reminded me of waiting out hustle teams as a kid. you let them punch themselves out, don’t give up goals, then own the last hour. i thought we learned our lesson with wales on this but the zombie tactics survive.
not a marsch fan but i am concerned by a little bit of a loser mentality getting voiced where we keep the short list longer than we wish to cope with losing candidates. to me we have a prime job. we should be chasing prime cuts with serious salary. sounds like the houston dynamo a year ago where they wanted mastro and lost that race and then hired nagamura because he was the other finalist left. to me if you miss out and the remaining option is depressing you ran your coaching search wrong or weren’t aggressive enough. personally when it’s do you want to be head coach of a world cup host i wouldn’t be leveraged. you wanna go coach midtable france when we’re hosting, have at it, and we’re not paying a value hire with 2 bad stops in a row a premium for rumors.
i agree with JR the articles are really just RB connect the dots speculation but RB people do seem to hire RB people to play an RB style. but based on how RBL and then leeds went this would be failing upwards which makes me skeptical. but who knows.
does he really want a club job or does he want our gig. is he leaking this to raise our price or is he using us to leverage monaco or someone like that. would be an amusing bit of crony work if he was using stuff like crocker’s saints approach to twist our arm on price.
That is a move if it materializes could potential push his career forward for bigger teams if he performs well there. Marsch has time in the future to take over the USMNT.
Sounds like to me Crocker is waiting for other candidates to see who is leaving their club teams.
If you follow the trail as to where this story really begins it seems to be pure speculation just because the sporting director leaving is an old Red Bull guy and the incoming guy is a Red Bull guy so they would want a Red Bull guy.
JR,
There are a lot of Red Bull guys out there. like Hasenhuttl, and Julian Nagelsmann, guys with a better CV than Jesse.
I don’t see March succeeding in a top 5 league until he becomes much more tactically flexible.