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Chapter 1: What are Jesse Marsch's thoughts on Canada's World Cup preparations?
Man that'll be leading the charge joins us now. He's the head coach of the men's national team. Here's our good friend, Jesse Marsh. How you doing, Jesse? What's up, Brian? I got to tell you, man, this is like my third or fourth time on your show. You're in serious danger of becoming huge football fans. It's coming. It's becoming a thing. Yeah, it's coming. We're getting excited.
What about we go down for like a workout, like we just practiced with the boys? Coach, can you set that up? Yes. I'll put you guys through some runs. That would be great. That would be inspiring for your group, I'm sure. You'd qualify for the staff, though. You'd qualify for staff runs, which are much lower intensity. I'll do the full meal. I'd welcome it.
No, the guys would not allow you on the pitch. They would see you. Yeah, I think you wouldn't last too long. I'm sorry to say. We'll see. Do you feel like the staff has to kind of keep themselves in shape? Is that something that's a priority for you and your group, or what? Well, I...
We don't want to be a bunch of fat guys running around the pitch, so we're trying our best to do what we can, but not easy. The older you get, the further away it seems, but yeah, we try to keep it going. Coach, have you been roaming around BMO? How's it looking down there? You got any updates for us? We saw some picks we couldn't really tell, but give us the skinny on what's going on.
I went down there today to shoot a couple videos for our fans and whatnot, and I can say that it's much transformed, and there is much, much, much work going on down there. It looks very different, and there's a lot of people wearing hard hats and orange vests, so I think they're getting it ready, and certainly we're excited for two weeks from now when we have a couple matches there.
Yeah, you've got a couple of friendlies coming up, and obviously we're bearing the lead a little bit here. Alphonso Davies is in the news throughout the world, certainly in Germany and throughout Europe, and obviously it's pretty big news over here. He left the game the other day. He's had injury problems the last 16 to 18 months.
What do you know about what's going on with Davies, and what are you preparing for in terms of his availability between now and the World Cup? Yeah, I spoke to him today. He's obviously down, you know, and frustrated a little bit. But he said that this little injury compared to even the one he experienced about a month ago is much less severity.
So, you know, he'll probably be two, three weeks before he's back again. But what it highlights is just when you come off these long-term injuries, right, like just managing things and being a little bit more cautious so you don't have setbacks. So... He's probably not going to be with us for March, which is okay.
We'll probably leave him there in Munich and make sure that he gets himself fully fit and fully back to 100%. But I'm confident that he will do that. Along with his frustration, my message to him was just stay positive. It's not easy when you come back from these long-term injuries. You're going to be fine. You're young. You're strong.
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Chapter 2: How is Alphonso Davies' injury affecting the Canadian team?
It won't be easy for them to qualify, but I think a lot of people in Toronto would be looking forward to an Italy-Canada matchup in that June 12th match. And how would you feel about that? Yeah, look, I think I respect Italy a lot. I don't necessarily want to play them because I do think they're one of the better teams in that group.
But I also would see that as a massive, massive opportunity to make a statement about where the game is in the country, how good this team is. And I think that I respect Italy a lot and it's a very good team, but I do think that there are certain qualities that we have that would make it difficult for Italy. So any team you play in the World Cup, you're going to get the best version.
You're going to get a really well-prepared squad with incredible players. So, you know, it's not like you're wanting to play any of those teams, but we'll be prepared for whoever comes our way. What is your take on these hydration breaks they're going to implement at the World Cup?
I think they're doing one in each half, which is obviously a change from the history of the sport, the way it's been played. Where do you stand on that? Well, in general, I think it's good because if you play in hot temperatures, and I don't know if you remember, but we played Peru and Kansas City and Copa America, and the line's been passed out before halftime, right?
So it's not just the players. It's the referees. It's the fans, like making sure that everybody is hydrated on these hot days. But I look at it also as an opportunity, right? I mean, they're already talking about it. It's another coaching opportunity. It's almost like a timeout in the middle of the half. So, yeah.
we'll use it the right way and make sure to help our team make adjustments and be prepared for whatever comes after those hydration breaks. Awesome. We're chatting with Jesse Marsh and the Canadian Cancer Society in partnership with yourself and the men's national team.
You're launching Soccer for Cancer, a national program that aims to engage and empower the Canadian soccer community at all levels to raise funds to fight cancer throughout Canada. This is obviously really cool, really important. Take us through this initiative and how you got involved.
Yeah, well, look, we're growing the CSA, the Canadian Soccer Association, through philanthropy, through a new contract and relationship with CSME, which is basically the league CPL and their ownership group. So we're making a lot of incredible advancements and inroads into supporting and creating a better infrastructure for the sport moving forward.
And we were also, in the meantime, looking for opportunities to have a really good out for some charitable programs, the ability to make a difference in communities, because at the end, this is still what matters the most about being able to represent the country the right way.
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Chapter 3: What strategies is Canada Soccer using to manage player injuries?
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