Jessie Marsh is back in New Jersey and has a chance to make history with Canada

In July 1994, JC Marsh went to the Meadowlands for the semi-finals of a major international tournament.

Then a student at nearby Princeton University, Marsh had a front row seat in the upper deck of Giants Stadium to watch Italy and Bulgaria in the World Cup. Roberto Baggio scored twice to give the Azzurri a 2–1 win.

“It was an eye-opener for me,” Marsh wrote. athletic In 2022. “It was exciting, the possibility of having that kind of football culture at home… it made us dream.”

Three decades later, almost to the same day, Marsh would return to the Meadowlands for another international tournament semi-final.

The venue is more modern, the brand-new MetLife Stadium versus the demolished Giants Stadium, and Marsh’s perspective on the game will be slightly different as well. He will be standing on the sidelines this time as Canada manager as his team shocks the world by defeating defending champions Argentina in the Copa America.

It’s a full-circle moment for Marsh, who has a chance to make history, just weeks after landing his first head-coaching job in international football. He’s doing it in New Jersey, an American state that was formative to him as a student and athlete at Princeton and as coach of the New York Red Bulls (Manhattan), and beyond that to the rest of New York City, Just across the Hudson River) it’s not lost on him.

“I was just thinking about Canada and making sure we were prepared to play against Argentina,” Marsh said after Canada’s training at Pingree School in the city of Basking Ridge on Sunday (see top image). The Meadowlands, a ground a short drive to the west, was built in 1994 as a training ground for that Italy team. “But then when we landed here (after playing the quarterfinals against Venezuela in Dallas) and we started driving down the road and on the bus and I saw all the familiar sights and then all the people who have come up to me, it’s Reminds me how special it is to be here in this moment.

It was here that Marsh first developed under then-Princeton coach Bob Bradley, future United States men’s national team manager, and finished as the Ivy League’s top goal scorer in 1994 and 1995. It was here, after a deeply difficult start, that they won. His first trophy as a manager was the MLS Supporters’ Shield in 2015 with the New York Red Bulls. It was here that Marsh made his mark as a coach; A position that set him on his way to the Champions League as coach of Red Bull Austria and then to RB Leipzig in the German Bundesliga. He then went on to be in charge of Leeds United in the Premier League before taking up the Canada job in May.

Win or lose on Tuesday (Wednesday morning UK time), Marsh’s debut with Canada has been special and surprising. The Canadians emerged from a group that included Argentina, Chile and Peru before defeating Venezuela on penalties in the quarter-finals. Now they will get another chance to take on Lionel Messi and Co. with a place in Sunday’s final.

Marsh’s Canada is one win away from the Copa America final (Hector Vivas/Getty Images)

As Marsh said he was inspired by the Italy-Bulgaria game and how the 1994 World Cup revitalized the game in that country, this semi-final could have a similar effect in Canada, building momentum for the game and national The team will be ahead. The 2026 World Cup, which Canada will co-host with the United States and Mexico.

“I said after the (Venezuela) match that we probably have to play a perfect match (against Argentina) and maybe even then that’s not good enough,” Marsh said, after Argentina beat Canada 2–0 in the tournament opener. Was defeated by. weeks ago. “We understand how good Argentina is, but we are certainly not afraid. They have only lost twice in five years, Messi is the best player to play the game, but we believe we have a chance. And that’s how we are preparing ourselves.”

Those who know Marsh well say he is not surprised that Canada is already at this level.

The bluestone patio in the backyard of Princeton basketball coach Mitch Henderson is reminiscent of Marsh’s first years in New Jersey.

Marsh’s first head coaching job in MLS with Montreal lasted just one season – he and the team parted ways by mutual consent – ​​and the next year he and his wife Kim took their three children out of school and traveled around the world. of. As they traveled through Southeast Asia, they slept in hostels in Hong Kong and Singapore and visited Bradley, who was coaching the Egypt national team at the time.

Marsh in Montreal in 2012 (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

When he returned to the United States, he settled back in Princeton, where Marsh took an assistant coaching job at his alma mater under longtime coach Jim Barlow. Kim said it was important to return to Princeton, where she had friends who could help keep her rooted as she figured out what was next.

“It was nice to have a support system, because we were kind of the unknown,” Kim said from the back of the cab after landing from Italy to watch the Canada game on Monday. “Jesse’s dream was to be a coach and be a good coach, and there were no jobs coming up. … It was nice to have people we considered family in New Jersey.”

Marsh and Henderson became good friends when both were in Chicago – Marsh was playing for the Fire in MLS, Henderson was coaching at nearby Northwestern University – and their families quickly became close. At Princeton, they would work with each other on lawn projects and discuss coaching philosophies and experiences. They still have the same type of exchanges, just a few more years of wins and losses behind them.

“As we’ve gotten bigger now, the human element (in his coaching) comes more to the fore,” Henderson said. “Instead of, ‘Okay, let’s do this. This is my style, this is what I’m doing,’ this is mutual stuff.”

For Marsh, returning to Princeton seemed to connect him to his playing days and fond memories there. Barlow said Marsh was committed to helping the team find the same happiness he had during his college days. After a loss to Dartmouth early in the 2014 Ivy League season, Barlow said Marsh told the team they would not lose another game. Princeton was 3-3-2 at the time – they would finish 11-3-3.

Barlow said, “Jesse is very strong-willed, when he said that, people said, ‘Okay’ and we didn’t miss the rest of the season.” “If someone like Jesse says we’re not losing, we’re not losing. She has that kind of powerful will to make people believe in things, make them believe in themselves and come together.

Barlow recalled Marsh crying at the end-of-season banquet because he had become so attached to the team. Henderson recalls those years as being formative for both him and Marsh as they developed their coaching identities. Last year, when Princeton made a run to the Round of 16 of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, Marsh was in the stands cheering for Henderson, and Henderson will be at MetLife Stadium tonight.

Jessie Marsh is in the house to support @PrincetonMBB @FOXSoccer pic.twitter.com/ht42JlngdL

– Fox College Hoops (@CBBonFOX) 25 March 2023

However, Marsh’s next coaching move was to the New York Red Bulls, which set him on a new path. Shortly after being hired, he flew abroad for meetings with the company’s sports leaders. Marsh described what happened next as “an explosion in my brain”. …From a strategic point of view, it was an important event in my life.”

Sitting in business class on the flight home from Doha, Qatar, Marsh tried to write down on napkins and notebooks all the ideas that the meetings had inspired him. After watching Marsh write for a few hours, a glass of wine placed on the console next to his seat, Red Bulls sporting director Ali Curtis walked down the aisle of the plane to the man he described as the head of the MLS club’s project. Was hired to direct.

“You’re killing me,” Marsh recalls Curtis saying. “I want to know what you’re thinking.”

“That’ll do,” Marsh replied.

Henderson said that Marsh was “playful” upon returning to America. Wife Kim recalls dinner with assistant coach Dennis Hamlett and his family, in which Marsh turned over a child’s placemat at the pizza place and began figuring out how the team would play.

USMNT midfielder Sacha Kljestan signed with major Belgian club Anderlecht after some talks with Marsh. Strategy was never discussed. After his last game in Belgium, Kljeston boarded a flight the next morning, took a physical test in New Jersey and then boarded another flight to Orlando to join up with the team. The next morning, Marsh brings him to his table to have breakfast and talk.

“He started writing on a piece of paper how he wanted us to play,” Kljeston recalled. “I was like, ‘Wow, you want our outside backs (full-backs) to put that much pressure up the field? Are you crazy?’. He said, ‘Trust me, it worked until Will do, as long as everyone buys it. We all bought in from day one and we had a very good team. At first everyone had their questions, but we had a really good pre-season and the success of 2015 (when the Red Bulls won the MLS Supporters’ Shield). , as the team with the best regular-season record) is proof of everything.

Marsh at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey in May 2018 (Rich Gressel/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Now with Canada, Marsh’s playing style is being tested on the international stage. He has pushed back those who doubted it could work, because coaches have less time to prepare with their teams. Instead, he argues that, with clubs, especially in the Premier League, the cracks in the way good teams play are “so thin that they are almost impossible to get through”. In the international game, those cracks are bigger because teams aren’t as deep into their systems because they don’t have as much time to train together, Marsh says.

“The way we’re playing isn’t the most complex version of what I usually do with teams, but it’s enough to give us enough organization and enough identity to the players so they can understand how to execute. And what their roles are and are.” The plan is there,” Marsh said of Canada.

Kljeston, for one thing, isn’t surprised to see it working so quickly.

He pointed to the structure of Canada’s national-team pool and players who fit a more consistent style of play, but for Kljeston, there is another reason his team has been successful at this tournament. It goes back to the confidence that Marsh has long had in himself, and the confidence he’s built in making his mark as a coach isn’t far from where his team will take the field on Tuesday.

“You can see with the Canadians, they all take great pride in playing for their national team and are excited to try to advance soccer with their country,” Kljeston said. “So it’s a mix tactically of what Jesse is trying to do, what Jesse brings as an X-factor, which is his love and care for the players and how the players respond to him. It all comes together really well.

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(Top photo: Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images)