American coach Jesse Marsch is set to be named the new head coach of RB Leipzig for the 2021-22 season, according to a report from German sports magazine Kicker.
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The report also claims that Marsch turned down the vacant Tottenham Hotspur job to remain part of the Red Bull family of clubs and move into the organization’s top job this summer, replacing Bayern Munich-bound boss Julian Nagelsmann.
Marsch arrived at Red Bull Salzburg in the summer of 2019 (after three years at New York Red Bulls, plus a yearlong sabbatical in between) and immediately went to work to win over the fans in Austria. RB Leipzig hired Nagelsmann away from Hoffenheim that same summer.
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Marsch’s familiarity with the Red Bull organization is said to have played an important part in his appointment, beating out Stuttgart’s Italian-American boss Pellegrino Matarazzo and Wolfsburg’s Oliver Glasner as CEO Oliver Mintzlaff’s other two top candidates.
Red Bull Salzburg won the Austrian Bundesliga title last season and look set to repeat, but Marsch’s most memorable accomplishment to date came last season, in the fall of 2019, when they weren’t a million miles off advancing from the group stage of the UEFA Champions League despite having Liverpool and Napoli in their group. The thrilling 4-3 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield was one to remember and it undoubtedly put Marsch on the rest of Europe’s radar.
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The RB Leipzig job is one of the 15 most important — not necessarily the biggest, but most important — jobs anywhere in Europe, when you take into account the resources available, on-field expectations and the development and flow of world-class talent to the dozen or so bigger clubs throughout Europe.
All of the above is true and not at all an exaggeration, and it (reportedly) won’t be long until the club described above is coached by an American.
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