Jesse Marsch's communication style and the importance of video
Red Bull Salzburg coach Jesse Marsch is making a name for himself in Europe.
He is a coach with a detailed plan and prides himself on his ‘open’ communication style and forensic video analysis sessions.
The superb Modern Soccer Coach Podcast recently caught up with Marsch to examine his Red Bull environment.
The 47-year-old is one of the most successful US coaches of his era. His Red Bull Salzburg side won the double in Austria in his first season last term.
His side sit a point off the top of the Austrian Bundesliga and will go into the Europa League after finishing behind Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid in their Champions League group.
Marsch has been touted for some of Europe’s top jobs. His side, like the rest of the Red Bull family, are a high-tempo, pressing side and it’s no coincidence some of his better players have moved on to bigger clubs.
Erling Haaland, Takumi Minamino and Hwang Hee-cha recently have all left for teams with similar styles. The prolific Haaland joined Borussia Dortmund, Minamino joined Premier League champions Liverpool and Hee-cha joined Leipzig.
As he recently highlighted in a Sky Sports interview, Marsch “believes in young players”. He also stated the young talent are “a core part of our philosophy”.
His philosophy is paramount.
“Have a plan. A plan to me is a tactical way of playing, a philosophy. What you do with and without the ball, transition and on set-pieces, this is vital to your team’s success,” Marsch told Gary Curneen from MSC.
Communication
“The communication style, its a big way to define your identity as a team and as a coach. I’m very open. In Austria they describe Americans as open and they describe me as very open and that is very important.,” says Marsch.
“You can have conversations one on one, in small groups and in a team and you can communicate clearly but you can also share your personality in a way that makes it clear how to interact.
“The things we say and do as leaders are very important, but I it’s more the way we say and do those things, the body language, empathy and listening ability. So that is vital, and the communication also extends itself to how you educate.
“The daily routine and the methods and what the work is like on the training ground, how you translate training sessions to the way you want to play. All this is part of the plan.
“It’s very important that you as the coach embody these things 100%.
“The learning environment v the result-based environment."
The Process
“We all say that we like to create learning environments and that we are about development and I think it’s very important to do that the right way. But winning is also a learned quality. In the professional game, where we are often judged by results, how can we create a learning environment that leads to being result based?
“I call it a process, but it has to be tilted over the course of a season, and the results become more and more important,” Marsch says.
“Your ability to create a process which is moving towards being a champion is vital to your success.
“One of the things we talked about was being at our best when things are difficult.
“At New York they were desperate to win a Championship. I was trying to empower them to perform their best in the biggest moments.
“How do we get better, how do we learn? When I first came to New York the training facility was grey, but it had no life. It was grey, there was nothing on the walls.
Messaging
“So the first thing I said was we need pictures up here, Red Bull banners, messaging. I am a big fan of messaging and so we had things you had to do before you went on the pitch, visualizations,” says Marsch, who was named MLS coach of the year during his time with New York.
“Video is very important. Setting goals and understanding how to measure things. We would break the season into quarters and set goals for set-pieces and things like that.
“In the video room in New York, the screen was huge, because it’s hard to capture the players’ imagination.
“We had a spinning wheel with a whole load of different fines on there. They had to spin that if they had worn the wrong uniform on the road etc.
“We also had a huge fan in there because it got hot. And after a while the players used to call the video room the classroom - that in itself I consider success. It was about teaching and learning.
‘Video is the only way’
“I try and do a lot of the coaching and teaching in the video room. Then on the field we can train and have a flow.
“The field is the place to be the practice into place. I’ve had hour sessions, but I try not to. I have a video man, he is the only person I brought to Salzburg from New York. He makes sure everything we do is so precise, clean and accurate. The efficiency at which the video is presented is vital.
“If it takes an hour, it takes an hour. The players have to adapt. They told me everywhere you can’t have video that is too long, you can’t do that in Germany, you can’t do that in MLS. But video is the only way in which the players can fully understand how we do things.
“I try to put funny things in there, I try to make it interactive, and I put questions in there. I sometimes have players present, I have small groups, individuals, but the team setting is the most important.
“ I try to create vulnerability. I try to use the way myself learning German in Salzburg to show how vulnerable I am,” explains Marsch.
“In general when you sit in a classroom setting if everyone is sat there thinking when is this over you are not achieving anything. I constantly here this is too long. But it has to have them engaged and they understand what we are trying to achieve.
“And they are ready to be called on, so their attention span stays strong.
“That becomes very important.”
Older players
Marsch also explains how older players in his squad have a role in development and how they are still able to evolve themselves.
Marsch said: “Bradley Wright-Phillips was our best player and our oldest player. I get the argument that older players don’t develop. But as a coach do I not develop as I get older? That’s an awful concept.
“Do you create an environment where your players want to get better? And maybe to measure that you look at how your oldest player develops.
“But also Red Bull were so keen to develop that I said to the older guys that you have to commit to developing younger players that maybe might go on and take your position.
“That might mean that if you do such a good job they might take your position. But in theory the more you are going to continue to contribute to developing the younger players your value to the club will grow.
“Regardless of whether you are performing on the field, you are helping the younger ones develop and helping the team. It’s going to help the club and we might get a chance to sell these players and your chances of staying at the club longer increase.
“It took a lot of convincing in some of them, but the more I engaged them and the more they trusted me the better they got at that.
“Bradley Wright-Phillips was an incredible example of that at New York, he was brilliant for us.”