Yes, Mauro Biello must have thought about it before accepting the offer to become Jesse Marsch’s deputy. It took him less than 24 hours.
“Of course I had to think about all my options,” Biello still assured La Presse in Bordeaux last week.
John Herdman’s former assistant coach of Canada was interim coach from August 2023 to May 2024. In the meantime, he had openly signalled his aspirations for the job.
“When I was acting, I wanted the job,” Biello confirms again. “But I knew the choice [wasn’t up to me]. Still, when I found out it was Jesse, I knew him, he was someone I had worked with before.”
Biello was Marsch’s assistant during the American’s only season with the Montreal Impact, in 2012.
So when his audition ended and the federation decided to take the route offered by Marsch, Biello might well have decided to move on, perhaps even try his luck in the club market.
But the call of this summer’s Copa América, the 2026 World Cup and his love for his national team were too strong.
“I was invested in it, and in the end, I decided to stay and help him,” said the Impact legend, in his calm tone.
Jesse Marsch consolidates the point.
“The first thing you need to know about Mauro is that he is a very good person,” says the coach, with whom we spoke a few minutes after our interview with Biello. It was on the eve of the match against France.
“The second is that he loves this national team. The combination of those two things helped him make his decision.”
It’s Marsch who informs us that Biello “needed less than a day” before getting back to him with his positive response.
“We already had a relationship,” he says. He knows the team. The players. He knows Canadian soccer, the association. When I arrive somewhere, I always try to bring what I believe in, but also to adapt to the environment in which I find myself. We have to make sure we have the right people, which allows us to acclimatize as quickly as possible. In this regard, Mauro was perfect. »
It’s not just the players who have to get used to the new playing system imposed by Marsch in this very busy month of June for the Canadian team: Mauro Biello is also in the process of adapting.
“It’s an adjustment for me to see how he works,” he says.
Biello has been an assistant for Canada since 2018. He knew the Herdman era (2018-2023) well, then tried to impose his vision when he was in the running for the position.
“John had this international experience, […] everyone was doing their job. Jesse, you see his club experiences. It’s different, but I adapt. He has his way of communicating his messages, his way during training. »
After Montreal, Marsch trained in the Red Bull family in New York, Salzburg, Austria, and Leipzig, Germany. The house’s style of play is essentially the same everywhere: high pressure on the pitch with the aim of forcing opponents to make mistakes in their zone, in addition to efficiency in transition, taking advantage of speed on the counterattack. -attack. He then ended up at Leeds, in the Premier League, two years ago, where he operated according to the same principles.
This is what Marsch brings to Canada, and this is what players and staff must put in place in a very short time before the Copa América.
“He is very fixed on how he wants to play,” judges Biello. It’s a good thing because you bring everyone along with you saying, “We work like this.” »
In this sense, the maple leaf experienced a real baptism of fire last week in Europe. The 4-0 thaw against the Netherlands was Marsch’s first game in the job, but the 0-0 first half was encouraging. Then there was the famous goalless draw against France in Bordeaux. It was potentially Canada’s “best result in history,” according to defenseman Alistair Johnston.
We speak to Biello ahead of this clash against Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappé. The goal at this time, according to him, was to establish “the foundation” of the style of play desired by the new coach.
And why not take the opportunity to learn from a player like Mbappé. The talisman of the Blues ultimately only played around fifteen minutes at Matmut Atlantique, but already the day before Biello pointed out to us that he has “a bit of the same tendencies” as Lionel Messi…
…which Canada will face in four days, in the curtain-raiser of the Copa against Argentina, in Atlanta.
“We’re going to see things in transition that we need to pay attention to,” he said. His ability on the dribble, all that. »
“It’s good preparation for what we’re going to experience against Argentina,” continues Biello, who also notes the speed of the game against teams at this level, and the importance for his players to seize the difference.
“The vision is 2026. For us, yes, these are experiments, we want to do well. But at the same time, we want to grow as a team. »