Under the leadership of first-year American manager Jesse Marsch, RB Salzburg is running riot at the top of the Austrian Bundesliga. The club is undefeated after nine matches with eight wins, one draw and a goal difference of +31. They’re also through to the Round of 16 in the Austrian Cup, but it’s the club’s early performances in the Champions League that've made Europe take notice.
Things are heating up in the Champions League (read: Real Madrid bottom of Group A) and there’s no surer sign of the increase in dramatics than managers getting booked. In a first for the Champions League, coaches can now be on the receiving end of both yellow and red cards from the match official, and although Match Day 1 of the competition came and went without history being made, Match Day 2 brought the moment we’d all been waiting for.
Coaching soccer can be quite fun.
I know this because I am a soccer coach. It’s especially rewarding when players, especially the younger ones, have that lightbulb moment where things start to click about what they’re supposed to be doing on the field and they do it well.
You may have missed it with all the games on, but RB Salzburg manager Jesse Marsch made history on Tuesday. After an emphatic 6-2 victory over Belgian side KRC Genk, Marsch became the first coach from the United States to not only coach a Champions League match, but to win one.
It’s been an eventful week for building from the back. It began with Mexico’s beatdown of Gregg Berhalter’s longterm vision for the USMNT in East Rutherford, a result which led to a cry for abandoning the philosophy.
Things reached a crescendo yesterday with Arsenal — the masterful architects of their own downfall in recent times. Sokratis Papastathopoulos showed exactly why 2-0 is the most dangerous lead in football by passing the ball straight to Gerard Deulofeu in his own area.
In time, the coaching tree that expands out from Pep Guardiola is going to be massive. Some will fail (like if Mikel Arteta had taken the job at Newcastle), but the Spanish tactician’s otherworldly training methods will almost certainly be absorbed and even expanded upon by some future coaching Übermensch that worked under Guardiola for a long period.
MLS youth academy coaching is about to get a serious revamp along with a fourth iteration of the visionary partnership between MLS and the French Football Federation (FFF).
Steven Gerrard may still be managing Scottish Premiership club Rangers, but it looks as if he has his next job all but booked up. After a 2-0 defeat to Celtic before the break began, the former Liverpool midfielder managed to forget all about it and enjoy himself while kicking back on the golf course.
When it comes to touchline fashion, the game runs a pretty wide gamut from the track suits favored by the likes of Maurizio Sarri to the beloved hooded cardigan of Pep Guardiola. I believe, however, that we’re on the verge of another major transformation in managerial style — one that would require André Villas-Boas to swap his preferred trench coat for a bean-bag onesie.
Last week, one of the greatest players in University of North Carolina and USWNT history announced that she’s returning to her old stomping grounds. This time, Heather O’Reilly will be telling others to “get on the line.”
O’Reilly is joining the UNC women’s soccer team alongside Anson Dorrance as the assistant coach. Dorrance’s introduction of O’Reilly truly explained her importance to both the UNC squad and the USWNT — along with, of course, calling her out for mistakes.