That is what Marsch knows he is up against now, and it is the reason he says he has tried to take a holistic approach to this new chapter of his life.

Under RB Leipzig’s manager, Ralf Rangnick, Marsch has assumed what he described as a fluid, all-encompassing role. At the same time, he is responsible for a weekly set of tasks — running different elements of training, game analysis and opponent preparation — whose strict implementation he has found exhilarating in a way only a knowledge-hungry coach can.

While RB Leipzig and New York’s Red Bulls are both technically part of the same corporate sports empire, his first months experiencing the nuances of German soccer culture — the structure, the specificity, the attention to detail — reiterated for him how much he still can learn.

“It would have been easy for me to stay in New York,” Marsch said about his last job in Major League Soccer, where he spent three and a half seasons and compiled the most wins in franchise history. “But in the end, that wasn’t really what I was interested in.”

Instead, Marsch, who had begun the process of obtaining his UEFA pro coaching license in 2017, accepted an offer to join the Leipzig coaching staff and left the Red Bulls in midseason. Rangnick, an experienced coach and former Red Bull sporting director, is in his second stint leading Leipzig but plans to coach only for this season. The club has previously announced that Hoffenheim’s Julian Nagelsmann, a rising star in German coaching, will take over this summer.

“I know the league, the team and I speak the language,” Rangnick said when he returned to the bench. “That isn’t the case yet for Jesse Marsch, so that’s why he will be working as an assistant coach.” Still, the club noted specifically when it hired Marsch that he had signed a two-year contract, with the expectation that he would continue in the role once Nagelsmann arrives.

Until then, Marsch has been stockpiling professional experiences like a backpacker collecting souvenirs. That mind-set was one reason he was not interested in pursuing the United States national team coaching job, which still sat vacant when he left for Europe. Marsch wants to hold the position one day, he said, but only after he has accumulated more experience.