Accrington Stanley v Leeds United: Jesse Marsch on a journey of discovery

Marsch and Chris Armas go way back, team-mates for Chicago Fire and the USA as players, manager and assistant at the latter's local club, New York Red Bulls.

The last two words are significant because the network of Red Bull clubs have become factories for exciting coaches playing different interpretations of the intense, pressing football all the rage in Europe.

When Marsch went on to ply his trade at the Salzburg and Leipzig franchises, Armas succeeded him in New York. His last job was at Manchester United, nothing to do with the energy drinks company but then managed by Ralf Rangnick, credited with setting the framework for its football universities.

Now the Marschist strand of Red Bullism has a home in West Yorkshire, and this week Armas joined to give his spin on it.

"You could call it Red Bull or the German way of thinking," says Marsch. "It's taught us all a lot.

"Every coach had their own way of interpreting exactly what those philosophies, principles and tactics are.

"Maybe it's similar to how Pep (Guardiola) and (Mikel) Arteta do things differently, or Vincent Kompany trying to play similar football but doing it a little bit differently.

"It's about modifying for what you think is important, what your player pool is and how to use the principles and experiences to reward he team you're working with and help make them the best you can possibly be.

"I've always had good mentors and a lot of the people I met through Red Bull and in Germany were a big part of their development."

Just the Who's Who of names Marsch and Armas were able to bounce ideas off is impressive.

"Red Bull was developing sporting directors, academy directors, scouting departments, video analysts, coaches, players and in all of those areas a lot of people have developed to take on big responsibilities at some big clubs all around the world," says Marsch.

"I had exchanges with guys like Marco Rose, Julian Nagelsmann, Gerhard Struber, Ralph Hasenhuttl, Ralf Ragninck, Adi Hutter and Oliver Glasner, who won the Europa League with (Eintracht) Frankfurt and is in fourth place in the Bundesliga this season. To see how each one of them interpreted what they thought was important in the game differently and the similarities was very interesting."

Not that Marsch only learns from the Red Bull hot-houses.

One thing spotted on Twitter this week was a picture from Leeds' dressing room showing the message "minimum width" pinned to a wall.

"That's actually a Pep Guardiola principle," says Marsch. "It's about controlling the space of the opponent. Whether you have the ball or don't you want to be compact so you can manage moments of transition (counter-attacks).

"We're trying to manage spaces so we're very aggressive and effective in attacking transition and very clear on how to win the ball back quickly and protect ourselves from vertical transitions.

"Being a manager is part imagination, part innovation and part thievery.”

To some critics his coach-speak will sound like bull from an American who does not like wingers.

"We always have width, it's just a matter of how wide, where we want to play with the ball, and what we want to do when we win or lose the ball,” Marsch responds.

"I joke often the goal's not on the sideline so when we win balls we don't want to run to the corner, run to the middle of the pitch.

"I feel like lately we're more effective in both aspects of transition."

The key now is putting theories into practice. Leeds' football this season has been better in the former than the latter, and against Accrington there will no points for artistic impression. The team who scores most goals will be in the FA Cup fifth round – in Leeds' case for the first time since 2016, in Accrington's case just for the first time. End of.

Marsch has done his homework, taking his lucky wife Kim for a Tuesday "date night" in Lancashire.

"You can see their team competes hard," says a man for whom the FA Cup had more resonance as something he tried to visualise on playing fields than concrete memories of actual games. "They competed in every moment, a lot of set pieces and long throw-ins. They will try to defend hard and play well against us."

The FA Cup throws up challenges you can only learn about from going through. Marsch and Armas' feted education is about to take in another big lesson.