Leeds United: ‘I wanted Bielsa to finish his legacy’ – Jesse Marsch

He is not Marcelo Bielsa and he is definitely not Ted Lasso.

Over 45 minutes Marsch spoke about the values his father – a tractor production line worker –imbued, his coaching experiences and tactical ideas.

He did so in English. To criticise an Argentinian sexagenarian for relying on a translator would be hypocritical for those of us not fluently multilingual. The relief was less the absence of Spanish, more – with the exception of one “roster” and a strange pronunciation of Toshack (John’s son Cameron is an assistant, along with Franz Schiemer and promoted Under-23 coach Ben Jackson) –the lack of American. Coaching in Austria, Marsch mastered German and the Premier League’s second American-born coach spoke the right lingo in Leeds too.

Whilst respectful of Bielsa, saying he almost contemplated trying to talk director of football Victor Orta out of sacking him, it was crystal clear the man-for-man marking which became a suicidal weakness has been binned.

“I don’t have to be Marcelo Bielsa,” he stresses.

It is becoming very clear Marsch had long been in his friend Orta’s thoughts as Bielsa’s successor but the plan appeared to be crystallising around a summer handover until six games without a win and 20 goals conceded in the last five saw events hurtle out of control.

“I didn’t want Marcelo to have to go out like this, I wanted to see him finish his legacy and keep the team up,” insists Marsch.

“I wanted to make that argument with Victor when he called me but I could see the group was suffering.

“Even two weeks ago I wasn’t 100 per cent sure I was the next coach of Leeds United, next manager (he shrewdly favours the traditional English term).

“Clearly the adjustment of tactics is No 1 (priority). We’ll certainly be getting away from the man-marking, trying to create tactics that don’t expose us in transition moments as much.

“A lot of teams developed match plans that were starting to become very successful and easier and easier to implement.

“I know there are factions who may not accept me so well because of their love for Marcelo but I just want the team to show that as good as Marcelo is and was, the players are good too.”

The reservations are also partly about being from America, the land of opportunities to joke about a lack of footballing knowledge, as if 332 million people all fit one box. NBC Sports made a comedy series about American Ted Lasso’s attempts to manage in England.

“There’s probably a stigma,” chuckles the man from Wisconsin. “I’m not sure Ted Lasso helped! I haven’t watched the show but I get it.

“People hate hearing the word ‘soccer’. I’ve used ‘football’ since I was a professional football player.

“They don’t think we don’t have the experiences that can be created here in Europe – frankly, they’re right. It was the reason I came to Europe. This is the fifth country I’ve coached football in.

“The only way I know how to do things is to go all in, to give everything I have, to believe in who I am and the people I work with and to try and maximise what we are. If you do that effectively you can be incredibly surprised with the human spirit and what you can achieve. That sounds like Ted Lasso from what I’ve heard!”

One thing Marsch may have at Leicester City tomorrow which Bielsa did not for a long time is Patrick Bamford.

The striker took part in yesterday’s training having recovered from injuries to his ankle, hamstring, quad muscle and plantar fascia. Whether he will play with games against Aston Villa on Thursday and Norwich City on Sunday remains to be seen. Chief dead-ball taker in the set-piece drills he sat out was Joe Gelhardt.

“On Monday the medical team introduced a whole myriad of injury situations,” reveals Marsch. “There’s been a little bit of a cycle here of players playing through injuries and they’ve sometimes then picked up other injuries.

“Kalvin (Phillips) and Liam (Cooper) are both making progress, they won’t be ready for the weekend but they’re on the pitch working every day. Then we have a bunch of other guys who have missed a little bit of training this week and we’re trying to evaluate the risk and reward and how many minutes are appropriate for them to perform on Saturday.

“We’ll evaluate Patrick – will he be on the bench or does he need a few days? – but he’s close. Diego Llorente was not in training and he’s questionable.”

This is definitely not Bielsa Jnr.