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<\/p>\nMarsch, who hails from Racine, Wisc., raised ire this week with comments he made about American mentality in a wide-ranging interview with The Guardian.<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
He told the newspaper that Americans are \u201cinundated with propaganda\u201d from a young age and \u201cfeel like we deserve to be treated differently because we\u2019re Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n
The comments come as Canada prepares to face the U.S. in a friendly in St. Paul, Minn., on Tuesday, with an ongoing trade war between the two nations playing out in the background.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get that it\u2019s not always the job of a sports person to put themselves in the forefront of the political environments and everything else. But I\u2019ve had a unique perspective, being an American and having a bit of a Canadian mentality and representing a really important role in the nation,\u201d Marsch said in a press conference on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019ve taken that on as something that I take very seriously. And when I believe that there\u2019s things that need to be said and stood up for, then I do that. Do I cross the line sometimes? Yeah, probably. But so what? So what? If the team\u2019s ready to play on the weekend, then we should all be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heading into Tuesday\u2019s game, Canada sits 27th in FIFA\u2019s world rankings, and is coming off a 1-0 exhibition victory over Chile on Sept. 26. The nation then blanked Peru 2-0 in Montreal on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Americans are ranked 16th, and are 3-0-0 in the current international window with wins over Chile, Peru and Mexico. <\/p>\n
Both Canada and the U.S. were host nations for this summer\u2019s World Cup, and both were ousted from the round of 16.<\/p>\n
Tuesday will mark the first time the two nations have faced off since March 2025, when the Canadians downed the Americans 2-1 to take third place in that year\u2019s CONCACAF Nations League.<\/p>\n
That game, too, was played in a politically charged atmosphere as U.S. President Donald Trump mused about wanting to make Canada the so-called \u201c51st state.\u201d<\/p>\n
The background isn\u2019t much different this time around, Marsch said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere we are now, the big talk in America is Lake Ontario, Lake America, this kind of crap,\u201d the coach said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the end, I don\u2019t have to sit in front of the guys and say, \u2018OK guys, we\u2019re playing the U.S., this is an important game, we have to get ready and we have to make sure that we\u2019re at our best.\u2019 They don\u2019t need reminders when we play the U.S. \u2026 So, I think the rivalry is better than it\u2019s ever been. More because the two teams are good, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 5, 2026.<\/p>\n
Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marsch, who hails from Racine, Wisc., raised ire this week with comments he made about American mentality in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":921970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[879,49,48,2467,2461,2468,2460,2462,2463,44,2464,2465,2466,561,82],"class_list":["post-921969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-breaking-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-central-vancouver-island","tag-nanaimo","tag-nanaimo-breaking-news","tag-nanaimo-news","tag-nanaimo-news-now","tag-nanaimonewsnow","tag-news","tag-oceanside","tag-parksville","tag-qualicum","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=921969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}