Digging up the scoop on U.S.-South Africa friendly

Before Jesse Marsch became an assistant under U.S. manager Bob Bradley, he was a longtime MLS midfielder. In his penultimate year at Chivas USA, I talked to him inside the Home Depot Center after a win for the Goats.

The previous match, a sideline reporter with a clear imbalance of “gym time” to “library time,” if you know what I mean, had done something remarkably silly. During her post-game interview, she giggled out some question about how Marsch and Chivas USA would rebound from that night’s loss? It would have been a reasonable question to ask – except that Chivas won that night!

So, a week or so later after another Chivas USA win, there I was in the HDC locker room, talking to a few Chivas guys when I spotted Marsch. I wandered over, introduced myself and asked with proper snark and irony – or so I thought – about how they might rebound from such a loss?

He looked at me like I had three heads.

I didn’t know whether he didn’t get the joke, wasn’t in the mood for wise cracking or just didn’t like me. So, I just moved on without further comment and asked my questions with the proper weight and gravity.

Anyway, that’s just a funny story about Jesse Marsch, whom I spoke to early this morning in South Africa. (Skype rocks, eh?) We talked about the new faces in camp for tomorrow’s friendly against South Africa. You can read all about it here, in my advance at SI.com.