Canada coach Jesse Marsch shoots barbs at US Soccer, denies interest in USMNT job

One of the biggest names being connected to the vacant U.S. men’s national team job has forcefully rejected such talk.

Jesse Marsch, who was appointed the manager of USMNT rival Canada just two months ago, laughed off a question about whether he’d be coaching against his current employer when the two sides meet in a September friendly.

“Come on, man,” chuckled Marsch at a Friday press conference ahead of Canada’s Copa América third-place match against Uruguay. “I’m not leaving this job. I have no interest in the U.S. job.”

Marsch took a pause before deciding to carry on and make his answer more clear: he’s not pursuing the USMNT job today, and probably wouldn’t want to pursue it tomorrow without significant changes at U.S. Soccer.

“To be fair, unless there’s a big shift in the organization, I don’t think that I’ll ever have interest in that job in the future,” insisted Marsch. “I’m really happy here. I couldn’t be happier, actually, in terms of what it’s like to work with the leaders in this organization, and what it’s like to work with this team.”

Marsch and U.S. Soccer have not quite managed to see eye to eye over the past couple of years. In 2023, with U.S. Soccer working out whether it wanted to bring Gregg Berhalter back or not, Marsch’s agent Ron Waxman publicly declared that his client “will not be the next USMNT manager.”

Marsch would later declare that he “wasn’t treated very well” in being evaluated for the job. In March, the 50-year-old coach outright said “I don’t want that job” when it came up on CBS’s Call It What You Want podcast, which he co-hosted.

This latest, more forceful rejection may well indicate some history between Marsch and U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker. In his previous job at Southampton, Crocker held extensive talks with Marsch over whether the ex-Leeds manager would take charge at St. Mary’s, only for a reported disagreement over contract length to scuttle any hopes of a deal.

It will also be a major reassurance to Canada Soccer. The federation’s financial problems are deep enough that it took patronage from the owners of CF Montréal, Toronto FC, the Vancouver Whitecaps, and other donors to fund his salary as what is officially called the “MLS Canada Men’s National Team Head Coach.”

In the meantime, U.S. Soccer has reportedly been turned down by former Liverpool coach Jürgen Klopp. LAFC boss Steve Cherundolo, on the other hand, was distinctly non-committal when asked whether the federation had made any outreach.