A cold rain started to fall.
Jesse Marsch, the head coach of Canada’s men’s soccer team, watched his players begin another training session, two days before last weekend’s friendly against Iceland, 77 days before they take on the world for a cup. They ran in tight lines, the defenders on one side of the wet field, the attackers on the other. The shelter of a nearby dome, warm and dry, beckoned them. Marsch could have moved them indoors. He did not.
The 52-year-old stood in the middle of the grass, the rain dripping from his jacket. He scanned the team he’s built and the players he’s helped make.
There was Ali Ahmed, head up, chest out. “You don’t play hard enough,” Marsch told him after the Copa America in 2024. “You need to grow up, and you need to invest in yourself as a man.” Now Ahmed had earned a starting role on his side, as well as a place with Norwich in the English Championship.
There was Ismael Koné, the talented but mercurial midfielder. When he tore into Marsch after his substitution during a friendly against Romania last September, he could have been benched for the next game against Wales. Instead, Marsch named him a starter before anyone else.
“Every game I play with the national team is a chance for me to give back for that trust,” Koné said after.
There was Bim Pepple, the 23-year-old forward, given his first invitation to play for Canada. Like countless other fresh Marsch recruits — like Alfie Jones, Promise David, Marcelo Flores, and Tani Oluwaseyi — he’d finished his first day in camp doubled over, with his hands on his knees.
“Oh, my goodness,” Pepple said. “Unbelievable.”
Now their lines came together and faced each other, and the players began making short passes. They were still warming up, getting the feel for the ball at their feet. That’s not what Jesse Marsch saw. He saw another chance to get better.
“Quality,” he shouted across the grass. “Energy. No lazy passes.”
The rain fell harder.
Dining and Cooking