Jesse Marsch’s first head coaching job was in Montreal, and it was not a success. He’d later say he hadn’t really figured out who he was as a coach, and that he’d been more or less just doing a Bob Bradley impression. So before taking another job, he went on a six month backpacking trip with his wife and three kids through southeast Asia, northern Africa, parts of the Middle East, and finally Europe (You can read a more detailed itinerary on the MLS website). It was during the Europe part that he first learned of a competition called The Champions League, and made it his dream to one day lift the giant chalice given to its winner.
Red Bull Salzburg loses bravely to Atlético Madrid
Unfortunately, his star striker, Patson Daka, went down with a hamstring in the 27th minute, which is why they only had ten men on the field a minute later when Atlético broke through to make it 1-0. Salzburg fought back to tie it before halftime, and then pulled ahead dramatically right after the break. But in the end, Atlético was too good and too experienced. The Spanish masters won three goals to two, effectively ending any realistic hope for a Salzburg Cinderella lifting of the beautiful and beguiling silver urn.
The real story, though, particularly for Americans cheering his ambitious return to Europe, was that Marsch’s team had been courageous in defeat. The internet was ablaze yet again in adulation for this manager on the rise. Let’s take a quick look at some Salzburg tactics from the game to start to try understanding Marsch’s philosophy.
Pressing from a 4-2-3-1
The Marsch family’s favorite thing from the Europe part of their backpacking trip was seeing how fast they could get through art museums. They’d plan over breakfast, but in the moment you see a room and attack it, then the next Marsch follows, then the next, and so on.
And it was basically the same idea with the Salzburg pressing scheme against Atlético. Since the front line of Salzburg pressers are going in very serious about trying to win the ball, they can’t be overly worried about the passing lanes that might open up as a result. They’re counting on their teammates behind them to come with them and fill the gaps.
Now this particular press didn’t work out -- partly because they (Salzburg) couldn’t move the possession all the way to the sideline. In general Atlético did a pretty good job of avoiding getting completely jammed up on the flanks because their defenders were quick to look for passes with some diagonality into their midfield.
Important note: We’ve been talking about Salzburg pressing in a 4-2-3-1 formation, but the formation itself isn’t essential. It happens to have been the formation Marsch chose for this match-up, but, as he’ll often say in interviews or coaching talks (and he does a lot of interviews and coaching talks), he’s employed a total of nine different formations in his brief tenure at Salzburg. So it’s not about the formation. It’s about the philosophy. Everything Marsch does, no matter the formation, is about dynamism, aggression, and initiative.
That’s how his family did The Prado Museum of Madrid -- more than 7,000 paintings, arguably the best collection in all of Europe -- in under forty-five minutes.
If pressing is doing The Prado’s 7 through 10 rooms and seeing, briefly, Nobleman with his Hand on his Chest and The Surrender at Breda as a fast, responsive unit, then counter-pressing is when the middle child suddenly needs to use the restroom, the entire family uses the restroom.
The idea behind counter-pressing (and why it’s so important to the Marsch approach) is this: You’re most likely to score a goal in the immediate aftermath of winning possession, and the best time to win possession is in the immediate aftermath of losing it. It’s a core component of playing against the ball, and Marsch employs it as aggressively as anyone in the world.
Salzburg counter-pressed throughout the game. Whenever they’d lose the ball, the nearest player (actually, ideally, the two nearest players) would immediately attack it. Atlético did some things to mitigate its effectiveness, like maintaining field balance to prevent getting burned too badly on quick counterattacks, but counter-pressing (or at least the essence of counter-pressing) was at play in some of Salzburg’s better chances created.
The key to remember with counter-pressing is it’s not just about getting the ball back -- it’s about getting the ball back in order to score a goal. That’s why it wasn’t enough for them all to simply follow and wait for the middle Marsch child to the restroom area. Every Marsch’s needed to actually use the restroom, so they wouldn’t have to stop again for a while.
When you ask Marsh how he likes to play when his team has the ball, he pulls up just short of telling you he doesn’t give a shit. He’ll hit on something about playing direct, but he’s going to change the subject to playing “against-the-ball” as quickly as possible.
The thing was, though, Atlético doesn’t necessarily love having the ball either. They don’t hate it, but they don’t want to have it all the time, and so they ceded about half the game’s possession to Salzburg.
This was a possible concern for Marsch for three reasons. The first, already addressed, is that extended possession of the ball is just flat-out antithetical to his being for reasons beyond x's and o's. The second is that possessing the ball for longer durations decreases the total number of opportunities to counter-press. None of this to is to say a team who has a lot of possession of the ball can’t also successfully counter-press (many very good teams do), it’s just that Salzburg is extremely against-the-ball focused and their work with the ball tends to be very direct. Which brings us to the third problem: Atlético likes, and is good at, forming a solid defensive block, sometimes even a quite low one, and those are difficult to break down playing direct.
Salzburg did do some good things in possession, though. Their goal at the beginning of the second half involved a surprising number of passes before they played a long diagonal and then cut the ball through the box.
That doesn’t mean there was anything wrong with Marsch’s approach. He believes in taking the game to the opponent no matter how big they are or how many paintings they have. And he doesn’t think the mindset of the team should be built on results. It should be built on growth, and that part of growing is understanding it’s okay to make mistakes.
That’s why Marsch didn’t yell at his family when they were back at their hostel on the outskirts of Madrid, and he realized they had walked straight past room 12. The room where they keep Las Meninas. Diego Velázquezes masterpiece. The museum’s crown jewel.
Over dinner they sat as a family and talked about what had gone wrong. Not to dwell, but to learn. When you make mistakes in Europe, you pay for them, so he was disappointed, but he was proud of their performance. Then Marsch, his wife, and their three children formed a circle, wrapped arms around each other tightly, and resolved to next week give the Louvre absolute hell.
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Counter-pressing
If pressing is doing The Prado’s 7 through 10 rooms and seeing, briefly, Nobleman with his Hand on his Chest and The Surrender at Breda as a fast, responsive unit, then counter-pressing is when the middle child suddenly needs to use the restroom, the entire family uses the restroom.
The idea behind counter-pressing (and why it’s so important to the Marsch approach) is this: You’re most likely to score a goal in the immediate aftermath of winning possession, and the best time to win possession is in the immediate aftermath of losing it. It’s a core component of playing against the ball, and Marsch employs it as aggressively as anyone in the world.
Salzburg counter-pressed throughout the game. Whenever they’d lose the ball, the nearest player (actually, ideally, the two nearest players) would immediately attack it. Atlético did some things to mitigate its effectiveness, like maintaining field balance to prevent getting burned too badly on quick counterattacks, but counter-pressing (or at least the essence of counter-pressing) was at play in some of Salzburg’s better chances created.
The key to remember with counter-pressing is it’s not just about getting the ball back -- it’s about getting the ball back in order to score a goal. That’s why it wasn’t enough for them all to simply follow and wait for the middle Marsch child to the restroom area. Every Marsch’s needed to actually use the restroom, so they wouldn’t have to stop again for a while.
Salzburg in possession
The thing was, though, Atlético doesn’t necessarily love having the ball either. They don’t hate it, but they don’t want to have it all the time, and so they ceded about half the game’s possession to Salzburg.
This was a possible concern for Marsch for three reasons. The first, already addressed, is that extended possession of the ball is just flat-out antithetical to his being for reasons beyond x's and o's. The second is that possessing the ball for longer durations decreases the total number of opportunities to counter-press. None of this to is to say a team who has a lot of possession of the ball can’t also successfully counter-press (many very good teams do), it’s just that Salzburg is extremely against-the-ball focused and their work with the ball tends to be very direct. Which brings us to the third problem: Atlético likes, and is good at, forming a solid defensive block, sometimes even a quite low one, and those are difficult to break down playing direct.
Salzburg did do some good things in possession, though. Their goal at the beginning of the second half involved a surprising number of passes before they played a long diagonal and then cut the ball through the box.
And also, there are, in fact, some strong parallels between playing with the ball for longer stretches than you prefer and navigating very big museums. Here’s a compilation of Salzburg in possession:
The truth is that despite Salzburg controlling the game in stretches, particularly in the second half, Atlético had reasonable success breaking down the Salzburg press.
So it can go with the Spanish Masters
The truth is that despite Salzburg controlling the game in stretches, particularly in the second half, Atlético had reasonable success breaking down the Salzburg press.
That doesn’t mean there was anything wrong with Marsch’s approach. He believes in taking the game to the opponent no matter how big they are or how many paintings they have. And he doesn’t think the mindset of the team should be built on results. It should be built on growth, and that part of growing is understanding it’s okay to make mistakes.
That’s why Marsch didn’t yell at his family when they were back at their hostel on the outskirts of Madrid, and he realized they had walked straight past room 12. The room where they keep Las Meninas. Diego Velázquezes masterpiece. The museum’s crown jewel.
Over dinner they sat as a family and talked about what had gone wrong. Not to dwell, but to learn. When you make mistakes in Europe, you pay for them, so he was disappointed, but he was proud of their performance. Then Marsch, his wife, and their three children formed a circle, wrapped arms around each other tightly, and resolved to next week give the Louvre absolute hell.