Soccer
Leeds’ American Manager Jesse Marsch in Postgame Fight With Opposing Coach After First EPL Win of 2022-23
Tim Crean started writing about sports in 2016 and ed Sportscasting in 2021. He excels with his versatile coverage of the NFL and soccer landscape, as well as his expertise breaking down sports media, which stems from his many years ing podcasts before they were even cool and countless hours spent listening to Mike & The Mad Dog and The Dan Patrick Show, among other programs. As a longtime self-professed sports junkie who even played DII lacrosse at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, Tim loves reading about all the latest sports news every day and considers it a dream to write about sports professionally. He's a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan from Western New York who mistakenly thought, back in the early '90s, that his team would be in the Super Bowl every year. He started following European soccer — with a Manchester City focus — in the early 2000s after spending far too much time playing FIFA. When he's not enjoying a round of golf or coaching youth soccer and flag football, Tim likes reading the work of Bill Simmons, Tony Kornheiser, Chuck Klosterman, and Tom Wolfe.
Get to know Tim Crean betterPublished06 Aug 2022
After the first 90 minutes of the football’s only American-born manager wasn’t without controversy, though. After the final whistle blew, Marsch got into a heated verbal altercation with Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Bruno Lage.
Leeds United manager Jesse Marsch and Wolves manager Bruno Lage got into it after match
Racine, Wisconsin native Jesse Marsch has managed the Montreal Imapct and D.C. United in MLS, RB Salzburg in the Austrian Bundesliga, RB Leipzig in the German Bundesliga, and, in 2022, Leeds United hired him to replace Marco Bielsa and help the club avoid relegation.
Marsch accomplished his task and kept Leeds in the Premier League with a dramatic final-day win vs. Brentford. In the 2022 offseason, Marsch and Leeds made several high-profile moves to, hopefully, not just avoid relegation in 2022-23 but make some noise in the EPL.
Two of these moves included bringing in American stars and USMNT players Brenden Aaronson and Tyler Adams.
These U.S.-centric moves paid off immediately for Marsch and Leeds. Both players started the side’s opening match vs. Wolves, and Aaronson forced the game-winning own goal by Wolves defender Rayan Aït-Nouri.
Despite the successful day on the pitch, Marsch found himself at the center of controversy after the match.
After the match ended, TV cameras caught Marsch and Portuguese Wolves’ boss Bruno Lage in a heated, finger-wagging confrontation.
In a postgame interview, Lage cryptically alluded to Marsch’s words and behavior during the match (and a lack of an apology for those words and behavior after) as the source of the conflict.
“In these days, we cannot say some things — and I heard that in the first half. Until the first half, end of the game, we have a lot of time to shake hands, apologize. It didn’t happen,” Lage told reporters.
For his part, Marsch explained, “It was nothing. I just had a quick word with Bruno Lage afterwards.”
Both managers downplayed the incident and praised the other in the end. However, in professional sports, nothing usually stays hidden for long. Marsch’s words and actions will likely come out, and this story will have more legs in the coming days.
Marsch might be playing the Ugly American now in the 2022-23 EPL season, but if he keeps winning like this, no one on Leeds will care.
Like Sportscasting on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter @sportscasting19 and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
