OverDrive - Marsch on Canada Soccer's high optimism, the talent playing internationally and the winning culture of the squad

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

Canada Men's National Soccer Team Jesse Marsch joined OverDrive to discuss the heavy Canadian contingent across Europe and the development at the highest level, the high ceiling of the team, Alphonso Davies gearing up to return, the team's journey to the World Cup and more.

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Good, man. You guys are talking a little Italy, huh? Yeah, we could spend some time talking about olive oil and coffee. Yeah, we could have a good time. Oh, absolutely. I mean, both of us are our fellow Pisans. You know, we've both spent some time in Italy, and I know that you're down there right now.

Like, what's it like? Great. We just had a huge storm, which is a little unusual in the summer. But I live in Tuscany. Great, great air. of great, great food. You know, I actually, to speak to you guys, I had to leave dinner because dinner starts here at like 9.30, you know, so I had to leave like after the aperitivo and come and just

come back and say hi to you guys. So all good, man, but nice to talk to you guys. Can you put it into perspective, you know, if you're just like a casual soccer fan, you would know Juventus, but to have a Canadian player playing on that team, just kind of put that into perspective for us. And, of course, we're talking about Jonathan, David, who's now a member of Juventus. I mean, I always kind of describe that in Italy, every area has their own, like, local teams, right?

And usually that's your team you root for. But if you don't like your local team, or if you're not close enough to one of those teams, then your team is Juventus and almost always your second team is Juventus, right? So where I live here, the restaurant that I was at tonight, if you walk 10 minutes down the road, all there's 70-year-old men that hang out there all day long. And they just sit and they smoke cigarettes and they drink coffee.

And they talk about Juventus all day long, all the time. And I didn't know that they knew who I was or what my job is or anything like that. And when Jonathan signed for Juventus, I drove by one day and they like stopped the car in the middle of the street. And they were like, hey, like tell us, you know, in Italian. They're like, tell us about Jonathan David. Like, is he going to be good? Like, what? That's amazing. I said, don't worry. You will not be disappointed. You will not be disappointed.

That's amazing to hear that they're just as jacked up as we are out in Italy about Jonathan David in Juventus. But he's not the only one that's made his way overseas. You know, I think it really speaks to the development, you know, of Canadian soccer players. There's a good number of them now over there. Like, how big is it for you guys as the men's now? national team to have, you know, the players, a lot of them playing against some of the top tier talent around the world. Yeah, there's no question.

This is the best player pool in the history of the Canadian national team. And at the timing couldn't be better, obviously, with the World Cup around the corner. And, you know, it's a pleasure to watch these guys. They're all playing at big clubs. They're all being challenged in big ways, which I think is a big part of, like, developing as a person and as a players, is them being put in environments that are very, very challenging and where the levels are very, very high. So they're gathering confidence.

I think they're gathering savviness and intelligence. And they understand now what world football really looks like and what it requires to be successful on the biggest stages. All these things are clearly going to be massively helpful for us once we get to the next summer and once we get playing the World Cup at home. So Canada on the men's side is now ranked 28th in the world. And I'm sure you and your staff would love to take that ranking even higher. You know, how is the preparation going, you know, just under a year away from the World Cup when it comes to, you know, anything or you're trying to implement with the group or evaluations?

Like how is that process, you know, this far out? Yeah, look, I think the FIFA ranking is, you know, it's a good thing and it's obviously something that gives the group confidence, but that's certainly not our end goal. Our end goal is all about how much can we prepare and understand what the games are going to look like and feel like when we play at home next summer. And so, you know, there's a lot of little things. We've been able to broaden our player pool. We have a lot younger players now, I think, that are developing into the national. team, which I think is a very good development. And then, you know, in the end, where I'm at right now with this team is I think a lot

of things are in place. And obviously, it's about levels and how much can we push the overall level at which we play. But a big part is, is I'm challenging the big players in the team to understand what real leadership looks like, how to manage things on the pitch, how to be better communicators, more vocal, how to really take over the team, right? because I say a lot of times, like I'm an American coaching the Canadian national team. They're Canadians, not me.

It's their team. I'm just here to help them be at their best. And the more that they can really understand what it is to be in the big moments, how to take things over, how to handle the toughest moments, then that will help us dictate exactly how successful we can be. So it's a pleasure. They're in for it. They're up for it.

They love it. They love playing for the Canadian national team. They're incredible patriotic and they understand how important this moment in time is and it's really a pleasure to be their coach. With Jesse Marsh head coached the Canadian men's national team. I mean, Fonzie and David are clearly the two biggest names on the team. Who else, you know, are you hoping or that you've seen develop over the course

the last few years since we've seen them perform at the last World Cup have taken positive steps that you're excited for in 2026? Well, I think there's a lot of guys to talk about, but Stefan Astakio and Alistair Johnston, and by the way, Alistair just got stretched off in his game with Celtic. And so he might have a hamstring injury that might keep him out a couple of months, so we'll keep our fingers crossed on that. But certainly those two guys are major contributors to everything we do. Kyle Laren's been a mainstay of the national team for so many years.

There's been some good developments in some of the attacking midfield positions with guys like Ali Ahmed, Tation Buchanan, Jacob Chappelberg, the goalkeeper, I think, is a real battle between Dane St. Clair and Maxime Cropot. But I really think that one of the guys that's a big key to

the overall development of the entire group is Mose Bompito. And he's really a talented centerback. He had a great year at Nice last year. And I just actually met with him about a week ago in Nice just to talk about how he's recovering from his injury and how he's developing.

And I met with his club and talked about him there. And I just think he's a big key to how we play, to the way we play, to the confidence we have, to how we defend. Like, he's a big personality and a big player, and I think he's going to be a massive contributor come next summer. In regards to Alfonso Davies, how is his injury rehab going and when do you expect him back playing with the national team? Yeah, we've been in contact.

and I think, you know, things are going well for him. And that doesn't surprise me because he's just such a physical specimen. And it was obviously devastating for all of us when he got injured. But he's about five months into his recovery now. He's starting to run on the pitch. He's feeling really good with everything that all the responses and all the measurements and all the scans have gone really well. Hopefully he'll be back in training.

in the next month, month and a half. And then we're kind of looking forward to November as the time that he can be back with us and be back on the pitch with Byron as well. So the last time we saw you guys on the pitch, it was the loss of Guatemala and the penalty kicks at the Gold Cup. What did you learn about your team that you could take and move forward into this upcoming duel of friendlies

in a couple of weeks? Yeah, we were, I mean, look, we were massively disappointed by the Gold Cup in general because we had big hopes. But I also knew that the makeup of the team was that we were challenging more players to start to integrate themselves into the group. And without some big leaders like Alfonso Davies, like Steph Vastakio, like Moise Bombito, like there was also the onus on others to start to step up and take things over. And a lot of them did.

And, you know, we wound up getting a little bit of a strange. double yellow card with Schaffelberg, which gave them a red and took them out of the game. And then, you know, we wind up going to penalties. And even in the penalty, it was like an entire match in itself because it was up and down. And we looked like we were up a gold and down a gold, up a gold and down a gold, and somehow we get knocked out. But I think still our understanding of who we are, our understanding of what we want to become, our understanding of how to continue to develop more players into the national.

team continues to grow and develop. And I think in some ways, you know, it would have been great to win a cup and build confidence into the group in all ways about what we can achieve next summer. But it was also a little bit of a reality check for me. You know, I mean, to know that if we don't show up on any given day, you can get punished by anybody. So look, that being said, you guys mentioned it, we're 28th in the world. In the last calendar year, we lost one match. like this team is clearly still strong and in a good way and we're very optimistic about everything and the possibilities of what we can become but the key is to stay hungry right to really stay grounded and hungry in every moment

to make sure that we can be at our best so when it comes to being at your best have you guys like or have you noticed that countries and teams they look at Canada a little differently now like it's like they got a lot of skill they got a lot of talent like we're, this is not just a throwaway game anymore, these guys, they're for real. Is that, is that part of it, like the changing perception from other countries? Yeah, I mean, I think that even when we've been talking about the kind of friendlies that we can create, there's a lot more big countries that are interested in playing us now because they understand that the challenge is real. And, and, you know, I mean, that, that, we don't even, I think we know that, you know,

We don't even need the exterior motivation or confirmation that we're moving forward. We know that. And the biggest expectations, as much as the country, I think, is going to light on fire next summer. And once the World Cup arrives, it's going to be so massive. The biggest expectations are the ones that we've put on ourselves. And we know we're a good team. We know it's going to require us to be at our best. Like, I like to say, like, you know, the U.S. national team, I think, is a team that I know well being an American,

but that a lot of people in North America know, and I think that has been very successful in a lot of World Cups. And I believe total in the history of the World Cup that the U.S. only has seven wins. Like, it is really hard to win at the World Cup that every country in the world is putting all the amount of energy they have and trying to represent their country at the highest level, and games don't come cheaply, right? So we have to understand that the ability to be resilient, the ability to be at our best when it's difficult, the ability for us to handle really good opponents that are really well prepared with great players and great coaches. We have to understand that a lot of the X factor for what we can achieve is being at

home, being totally unified, and being totally clear with exactly who we are and what we want to be. I don't know if you get TSN out there in Tuscany, but our buddy, Stevie Caldwell here, our coworker has been doing a roster prediction, his starting 11, every single week he's got players moving in and out. Have you been following this? Do you know what Stevie's got cooking? I see some things here and there, you know, and like I see Steve reacting to some matches, some games that guys are having with their clubs, some comments that I'm making in the press. I could, I could, yeah, I think by just making one or two comments, I could, I could, I could, I could

alter Steve's starting lineup anytime. But I think more than anything, I think it's great that the country is really alert, right, to the fact that this is going to be a really big deal. And all the attention that we can gather, all the momentum, from the beginning, I've wanted to create a movement, right, and a movement about these players. Because the country should be really proud of these guys. These are really talented players. These are really good people. They're really hardworking. They care about the right things. They're family people.

They want to represent the country. Like, in all ways, this team just represents Canada in all the best ways. And we, we no doubt want to make everyone proud next summer. Jesse, we really appreciate you taking the time to do this, you know, leaving away, leaving your... What was on the dinner menu, by the way, tonight? Well, we have Tordali here, which is like a little meat in Luka. So I live in Tuscany and Luca, near Pisa and Luca, and they have like a meat ravioli with like a bolognaz, a ragu. And so I've gone to this local restaurant, I'd say like maybe 75 times, and I think 74 times I ordered Tordelli.

Amazing. They know when I come in at Tordelli and the local red wine. And I'm good. I'm ready to go. And then a little grapah to wash it down, right? Maybe a little DGISivo or a little grapah. We won't tell anyone. All right, Jesse, really appreciate the time.

Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires, bonnet, grati, me, like, chao. Chao, chas, me, Michi. Ciao, chasie, Jesse Marsh, head coach of the Canadian men's national team. The biggest songs in the world. You've heard them countless times.

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