GB's new skipper knows he's bringing a 'bunch of freaking tough dogs' to next World Baseball Classic

Watch out, World Baseball Classic. Great Britain is showing up next year with “a bunch of freaking tough dogs” and an energetic new manager.

After its impressive performance in the 2023 WBC, in which it beat Colombia for its first-ever victory in the Classic and qualified for 2026, Great Britain’s coaching staff will have a different look this time around. Drew Spencer, who managed the club during the 2023 Classic, stepped down from his position earlier this year to focus on his role as a Minor League coach with the Yankees.

In his place is Brad Marcelino, a D-backs Minor League hitting coordinator who carries quite a legacy of British baseball into this new managerial gig.

• A guide to baseball in Great Britain

Marcelino grew up in a town called Enfield, which sits about 13 miles north of London, until he was 11. His dad, Oscar Marcelino, came over to England from the Philippines and built a long and respected baseball career on the British national team, entering the British Baseball Hall of Fame in 2016. Another mentor for Brad Marcelino was his godfather, Rob Nelson, a teammate of Oscar’s in England and best known as the co-founder of Big League Chew.

Even with this esteemed foundation, Marcelino still had to contend with sparse resources in England as he began to pursue baseball. This sometimes meant finding his way onto youth baseball camps his dad organized with Nelson, or school teams with kids that towered over him.

“My baseball experience in the UK, as far as organized, was through the American School of London, so high school kids, and then [me] a little 11-year-old kid playing with them,” Marcelino said in an interview with MLB.com. “When I played there, I played the outfield, they probably just tried to put me somewhere they could hide me. But it was fun.”

• Here's how baseball has grown in England, from factory towns to HRDX

While Marcelino’s friends would go off to play cricket and soccer/football. Marcelino’s father would pick him up from school, the car loaded with baseball gear.

“He would take me to the baseball field every day to work out or hit or train,” Marcelino said. “So my upbringing there was a little different, because it was always the baseball route, just because he played. But there wasn't much organized baseball from leagues or teams.”

After continuing his baseball career when he moved to the U.S., Marcelino held firm to his British roots. He first made the British national team in 1999 at age 17 and played in seven European Championships, ending his career ranking first all-time among British national team players in games and runs scored, second in hits and third in RBIs. He also played for Great Britain in the 2013 WBC Qualifiers and coached them in the 2017 WBC Qualifiers and the 2023 WBC. Marcelino even joined his father in the British Baseball Hall of Fame in 2018.

Even though he’s lived in the U.S. for several decades and has worked for two MLB teams (before the D-backs, he coached in the Mariners’ system from 2022-23), Marcelino has a great deal of gratitude for his upbringing across the pond. This gratitude, he said, was a driving factor in taking on the responsibility of managing the British team, in an era with much more widespread baseball infrastructure than he had when he was younger. Just this month, Great Britain celebrated its first European title in the 2025 U-23 Baseball European Championship.

“In ‘99 and 2001, we had to tape our numbers on the back of our jerseys,” Marcelino said. “As a country, we don't necessarily have the big funding … [But] you see this trajectory of the program and the types of players that we're bringing in, like, ‘Man, I can't believe this kid is eligible.’ So I see all these different things progressing for the program. And I knew eventually, after I retired and I was done playing, I was like, ‘OK, one day I want to give back.’

“I don't know how long I'll be managing the program. I don't know the length of it, but I want to be really good where we are in that moment.”

So, who are they planning to bring in for 2026?

While Marcelino can’t reveal the full extent of the players he’s trying to recruit, a few prominent eligible names have been floated, like Jazz Chisholm Jr. (who hails from the Bahamas, an independent British commonwealth nation), Aroldis Chapman (whose grandparents emigrated from Jamaica while it was a British colony) and Harry Ford, the Mariners’ No. 4 prospect whose parents are from Britain and who starred for the team at the 2023 tournament.

Ford and Marcelino have a close connection dating back to Marcelino’s days in the Mariners’ organization right around the time Ford was drafted. Marcelino has always spoken highly of Ford, referring to him as a “stepson,” and views him as a leader of the Great Britain baseball world before he even steps into a Major League game.

“He's going to take on that same persona that I want from the group, that toughness, that grit,” Marcelino said. “That energy, fearlessness, he embodies all of that, which I love.”

The new Great Britain manager is adamant about his whole squad embodying tenacity and grit. Marcelino referred to a “Wiffle ball mentality” that he wants his players to embrace, and wants his roster to be “absolutely tough as nails” and “a bunch of freaking tough dogs” when they step onto the field against international competition in a few months.

Above all else, Marcelino wants to impart upon his players that they should soak in the pomp and circumstance of the World Baseball Classic as much as they can – and embrace their scrappy character.

"It's good being the underdog, right? It's good being overlooked a little bit."

Marcelino points to the uniform snafu from the 2023 tournament when the “T” fell off of Great Britain's uniforms -- perhaps a small reminder of Marcelino's days when the national team had to tape numbers to the back of their uniforms.

But that's the attitude that Marcelino wants the players to bring to Houston in March: He wants a team that isn't concerned with anything outside the chalk foul lines.

"The character and identity I want guys to take on," Marcelino said, "is fearless."