American manager Jesse Marsch fired by Leeds United after 11 months

Jesse Marsch, the highest-profile American manager in European soccer, was fired by Leeds United on Monday.

Leeds is in 17th place in the English Premier League, outside the relegation zone only on a tiebreaker over Everton. Marsch’s team committed over $70 million to new players this winter, but a 1-0 loss at Nottingham Forest on Sunday proved the last straw for a team part-owned by the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers.

A signature piece of Marsch’s coaching plan was the acquisition of three high-profile Americans: Medford’s Brenden Aaronson, U.S. men’s national team captain Tyler Adams, and fellow midfield star Weston McKennie. What happens to the three of them now is unclear.

Aaronson and Adams have long-term deals, but could attract interest elsewhere if Leeds wants to get rid of them. McKennie arrived just a week ago on an initial loan with a $35 million purchase option that won’t be activated if Leeds is relegated at the end of the season.

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Marsch started this season with a bang, coaching Leeds to its first win over rival Chelsea in 20 years. Leeds also won at perennial power Liverpool for the first time since 2001.

But Marsch’s team has gone three months without a win in the Premier League. With the risk of relegation too big to bear, his bosses ran out of patience.

“Jesse joined the club in February 2022 and was instrumental in keeping the club in the Premier League on the final day of last season,” the team said in a statement. “We would like to thank Jesse and his backroom staff for their efforts and wish them well for the future.”

Marsch is a leading candidate for the U.S. men’s national team job, but this firing could turn public perception against him. The 49-year-old Wisconsin native and Princeton product’s record was 11-16-10 in 37 games since being hired just under a year ago. He replaced Marcelo Bielsa, who brought Leeds back to the Premier League after nearly two decades in England’s lower leagues — and whose shadow hung over Marsch’s tenure because of it.

» READ MORE: What we learned from the U.S. men's soccer team in January, on and off the field

Nor does it help that this is the second straight job where Marsch has had a forced departure. It wasn’t quite a firing when Marsch left Germany’s RB Leipzig in Dec. 2021 after just 20 games, but he was just 7-9-4 there.

Marsch’s signature coaching achievement in Europe came with Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg, where he spent two seasons from 2019-21. With Aaronson as one of his key players, he took the team to the UEFA men’s Champions League knockout rounds for the first time in its history. There were also two Austrian league titles and two Austrian Cups, fueled by the wealth of the Red Bull conglomerate that made Salzburg’s Austria’s richest team.

Before taking the Salzburg job, Marsch managed the New York Red Bulls to two MLS Supporters’ Shields for the league’s best regular-season record (All three Red Bull teams are owned by the same company).

His first pro head coaching job was with the Montréal Impact, now known as CF Montréal, in 2011 and ‘12. Prior to that, he was an assistant coach on the U.S. men’s national team during Bob Bradley’s last year and a half in charge, including at the 2010 World Cup.

» READ MORE: What does Jesse Marsch’s firing from Leeds mean for U.S. Soccer, American players abroad?

The sum of all those pieces, plus Marsch’s liking of an aggressive playing style, is why he’s been among the top candidates to succeed Gregg Berhalter with the national team. If he wants the job — and there’s a lot of evidence he does — he’ll now have to navigate two hurdles.

The first, as mentioned above, is public perception. Plenty of fans will be sympathetic to Marsch being tossed aside by England’s notoriously reactionary soccer culture, where the fear of relegation trumps almost everything else. Others won’t want a guy who was just fired from a high-profile job, and whom Leeds fans criticized loudly for sticking too much to his preferred tactics.

There would be plenty of pressure as the national team’s leader, especially since the next World Cup is on home soil. But freeing Marsch from the relegation threat would give him a freedom he’s never had to plan and build toward 2026.

The second hurdle is U.S. Soccer Federation president Cindy Cone’s promise that the next full-time national team manager will be hired by the next sporting director. Cone said last month that she’d like to have the new sporting director in place before the women’s World Cup kicks off in late July. U.S. Soccer has hired a consulting firm to help with that process.

Will Marsch’s arrival on the market compel U.S. Soccer to speed up its search? We’ll have to wait to see. For now, Anthony Hudson has the job on an interim basis, and is expected to keep it through this summer’s Concacaf Gold Cup.

A U.S. Soccer spokesperson told The Inquirer that the Marsch news hasn’t changed the organization’s timeline.

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