No Hecky, no party

I'm feeling persistently flummoxed by the rhythm of the 2026 World Cup. Games are being quartered. Players — well, Sweden's Anthony Elanga — are leaving fields in fury, not knowing their result was good. The group stage was slow, bloated, creeping on forever in heat that was somehow here, in Leeds, not there were the hydration breaks are. Then it was over in a flash, a glut of matches at every hour of the European night, and the wrong games were exciting and the right games were non-events. And before anyone can process the groups, Canada have already taken Jesse Marsch into the last sixteen.

Through a Leeds lens Marsch is impossible to ignore, and from Leeds' history we know that's because he makes himself impossible to ignore. Canada's victory over South Africa was another game seasoned by his self regard. He was marching onto the pitch to confront the referee at half-time, then held back by Moise Bombito. When Stephen Eustaquio scored Canada's winner in stoppage time, Marsch was in the scrum of celebrations. After the final whistle, Marsch was at the centre of a ring of players, telling them all they're 'Canadian heroes', before parading solo in front of the fans, kissing the maple leaf on his shirt, making his own bid for icon status.

"People like to say it's performative to meet on the pitch after the game, and I don't give a shit," Marsch said afterwards, charmlessly, but we know damn well he gives a shit because of his two defeats with Leeds at Leicester: he was so mocked for huddling with the players after a 1-0 defeat in his first game, that he went straight down the tunnel after losing 2-0 on his second visit, angering the away end. He was always struggling with how the public perceived that stuff, and his fist-pumping strut around Elland Road after losing 4-0 to Manchester City. Everyone who has had any longish experience of Jesse Marsch knows that his whole thing is acting thick-skinned, like he doesn't give a shit, to cover up how thin his skin is and how much shit he really gives. Go on, mention Ted Lasso in his presence, see how much he doesn't care.

ESPN's report also described Marsch's post-game sermon as being 'overhead on the broadcast', when in fact the TV camera and microphone were inside the circle of players and right in under Marsch's chin, right where he could have shooed them away if he wanted his speech to be private. He might say he doesn't give a shit what people think about stuff like this, but he absolutely gives a shit about making sure people know he's doing it.

I know I dwell too much on Jesse Marsch but he's a fascinating case study in the performative delusions of a certain kind of grow-at-all-costs mindset, the brain of a podcast-CEO. Listen to Marsch when Canada lost their third group stage match, to Switzerland, and lost the home advantage they wanted for the rest of the tournament. "We are going to L.A. and it's probably going to be an away crowd, so it will be tougher," he admitted, before remembering his brave face. "We're exactly where we want to be." No! That was the whole point! Los Angeles is exactly where you didn't want to be, you wanted to be in Vancouver but lost that to the Swiss because you never tell your defenders to mark the back post! 

"Everything we do is about trying to gain an edge, whether it's strategy, tactics, match plan, messaging," Marsch went on, when he was pressed about whether Alfonso Davies was fit to play. "What if I tell you?" he said. "It's probably a lie anyway." Which is one sort of honesty, I suppose.

The obvious Leeds-lensed contrast that you know is coming had me wondering what people prefer, a bullshitting winner or a loser of integrity. Marcelo Bielsa wasn't wasting anyone's time by clutching for positives after Uruguay's acrimonious exit. "What I gave Uruguayan football is nothing," he said, "because any contribution a coach makes to a national team over three years is futile without positive outcomes."

I'm going to write separately about Bielsa and Uruguay, and Leeds, another time, after the press conference he has announced for this week is over. Right now the analysis is about whether, if Bielsa had changed his stance for the game against Spain the way the players wanted — or bowed to any of their many other demands before and during the tournament — Uruguay would have had a very different tournament. But it should be remembered that if goalkeeper Fernando Muslera hadn't given away all four goals Uruguay conceded, or if the forwards had done something more about having the third most shots per game of any team there, or if the players hadn't let their egos get in the way of their performances, things might have turned out differently for those reasons, too. 

Before their final game, Uruguay's senior midfielders all begged Bielsa to be allowed to counter-attack Spain from a low block, and first of all, what a bunch of cowards? Secondly, though, I think Bielsa tried to tell everyone this was coming. First was the press conference months ago, when he talked about how he is 'toxic' to be around, but more importantly about the challenge of motivating modern footballers and how 'playing with enthusiasm' is integral to the running that's required to avoid playing badly. He talked about trying to inspire the players with a Uruguayan song about the joy of playing football as a child and dreaming of wearing the national team's light blue, how old techniques like videos of loved ones wishing the players well don't work anymore, how he's realised he's "a terrible actor, a very bad clown" because nobody laughs at his jokes. 

Then there were Bielsa's opening remarks at the Uruguayan FA summit shortly before the World Cup. He referred to comments made about Bielsa's work by former Uruguay international Hugo de León, and what he'd said about the essence of Uruguayan football: "He said that Uruguay doesn’t propose a style of play, but rather responds in its own unique way, in its own way of experiencing soccer." 

Bielsa continued:

"That’s absolutely valid — rather than proposing, it responds. In other words, rather than driving the initiative, it constructs responses to what the game or the opponent presents.
"And when I heard him, I thought, 'How well put! How true that is!'
"I wish I’d been more aware of that from the start, because, well, whether it’s wrong or not, I always think in terms of taking the initiative.
"But anyway, I loved that way of describing soccer, especially because, as someone working in this field in a country that isn't my own, and within a culture to which I don’t belong, it's always good to keep firmly in mind what constitutes the soul of a sport that has achieved extraordinary things."