Bruce Arena's "Three phases of preperation"

[dark knight]

How the heck was what I said rude? Feel free to discuss Bruce Arena, do NOT feel free to personally attack another poster. Re-read what you last said to Wanderer and then try to lighten up.

[Martin Fischer]

Dark Knight: I don't know how old you are, but I stopped calling people solely by their last name when I was in high school. Since I am not in high school, or even close, referring to me in that manner is not polite. As a moderator, obviously, you can ignore my request and be impolite.

As for your moderating rule, please help me to understand. Let's say that I post that Bruce Arena was brilliant because he did the unexpected by using Wolff against Mexico and then another poster responds that he would have done that too, when I know for a fact that he was advocating something different at that time. I am not allowed to challenge what I KNOW to be a LIE?

Anyway, the only personal attack in my posts is implying that he is ethically challenged, which I think is a very restrained way of saying someone lies. Referring to a post is crap is not a personal attack as it attacks the message not the messenger. Discussing someone's ability to process what he sees on the field is also a legitimate way of differentiating between opinions.

[dark knight]

I apologize if I insulted you by not typing your full name - I only did it because I'm a lazy typist, similar to the way people refer to me as dk or whatever. If I had said MF, would that have been ok? BTW, people call me by my last name all the time - not saying you're wrong, just saying it never occurred to me that it was rude.

Sure, challenge a poster if they make a claim you think is not true. But carrying on a debate about what a poster did or didn't say that ends in your questioning whether another poster lacks ethics is going too far, imo. Does your point really depend so heavily on whether or not Wanderer advocated the use of Wolff or not?

[flanoverseas]

Originally posted by Martin Fischer
Dark Knight: I don't know how old you are, but I stopped calling people solely by their last name when I was in high school. Since I am not in high school, or even close, referring to me in that manner is not polite. As a moderator, obviously, you can ignore my request and be impolite.

. sorry, I'm going to jump in here because, well, I can.

DK was not rude at all.

And as far as calling you by your last name - He just called you by the second part of your BigSoccer name. For some reason you decided to to use your real name.

I've been out of high school for 10 years now, and I still call a lot of people by their last name. It has nothing to do with any sort of maturity level. If anything your persistent badgering and asking of people to be polite to you tells us more about your maturity level than anything else said here. Especially when all he said to start it off, was take it somewhere else.

Sorry DK (and PS don't call me 'Flan') :)

[Martin Fischer]

Fine.

My opinion is that Arena's use of Wolff against Mexico is something that makes him stand out above BigSoccer posters who mostly excel in bitching and hindsight. For me, what made this move so brilliant that the soccer brains (I am referring to BS) all were arguing over whether Mathis, McBride, Razov, Donovan or Moore should play against Mexico. Wolff, at least in my memory, was very much an afterthought. The critical point in my argument is that only Arena thought that Wolff should be a top option in this game.

Yes, I probably should have stopped short of the ethics comment, but I was particualarily annoyed by the fact that I remember Wanderer talking during this game and he ignored Wolff just like everybody else -- that and the fact that he had already made two crude, though of course irrelevant, personal attacks against me.

OK I will stop wasting everyone else's time with this.

[Nutmeg]

Originally posted by Martin Fischer
I disagree that BA was "lucky" in the sense that he had more good luck than bad during the process. For me, a quarterfinal appearance was about what the USMNT deserved, though it could have been the finals with a little more luck and it could have been three and out with a little less luck.

I don't know if he had more bad than good luck. Then again, who does know, or who possibly could? I know that Arena did a great job of playing the hand he was dealt, a couple of aces and admittedly, a couple of deuces. Getting this group of players to the quarters was a significant accomplishment, and I applaud him for that. You know as well as anyone the about face I've made by even making that comment.

[The Wanderer]

Originally posted by Martin Fischer
You may have generally called for Wolff to start since Sydney. What I do remember is that by the time of the first Mexico qualifier (as I recall Wolff had been mostly injured since the Sydney games), not one poster called for Wolff to start that game, with Razov and Donovan much hotter at the time.

Wolff was not injured during that time according to my memory. He had reconstructive knee surgery about a year and 1/3 prior to that, but he was completely healthy from that last fall friendly against Mexico to the qualifier in February.

Originally posted by Martin Fischer
And, frankly, I think "crap" is a good word to describe someone who takes credit for a brilliant move that he never thought of at the time.

You can believe that, but you have no way to prove it and neither can I since the crash. Of course I've never advocated one or two players to get all the starts just that it should be tried. I never wanted Mathis at attacking mid either, and of course Bruce went and put him there.

Anyways, back on topic. The Australia friendly last time('98) produced like 6-8 players that made the final 23 IIRC. I suspect that Bruce has already evaluated most of the current player pool and has a decent idea about which players will make it to 2006(barring injury). A few of those 6-8 players were not quite ready to be on the national team at that time, so since 8*3=24(almost the size of the WC squad), perhaps The Bruce breaks his selection criteria down into those three areas also. Or he could have just gotten lucky, but somehow I doubt it:)

[Nutmeg]

You know, it really is too bad that two posters whose opinion regarding soccer I respect, and two posters whose opinions have made this board worth visiting for well over three years, are tit for tatting like this.

Martin and Wanderer, if I understand the arguments correctly, they are laid out something like this:

Wanderer - Bruce Arena, in the past, has errored on the side of being too conservative towards bringing and playing young players on the MNT.

Martin - Bruce Arena's track record of developing players into the MNT shows that he is doing things at the right pace and the right time.

Instead of taking one of the two sides, I'll make the argument that the truth might lie somewhere in the middle. Wanderer might have a point because I too have wondered how long it would have taken to see Wolff get his chance had McBride not been hurt against Mexico, and the same goes for Mathis. Whether or not we were arguing for their inclusion beforehand seems irrelevant to me. The question is still valid, does Bruce ride horses that aren't running well too long? Agoos is a good example that might indeed be the case. Watching Mastroeni excel in the World Cup forces the question of whether or not he would have ever been given the chance if Armas hadn't been hurt.

Martin has a point that Arena on many instances has done an excellent job of integrating players at an appropriate pace. The play of Donovan and Beasley are good examples of players who blossomed given the timing of Arena's development. In these instances, Bruce realized that Landon and DaMarcus beat out the competition and won their spots on the field. Had they been forced into the spotlight and failed early, they might well have not had the confidence to succeed on the big stage.

In my mind, no coach is perfect. Arena himself will critique the job he did as a coach and look at areas where he can improve. He will also look at what he did well and try to continue to maintain those practices to lead the US to success, whatever that might be, in the next World Cup. In this topic, I believe there is certainly middle ground to be found. If Arena finds it, I think we'll have an even better coached team in 2006.

[Nutmeg]

Originally posted by ursula


Two excellent posts back-to-back, Nutmeg, and I've just taken the one sentence that to me most defines Arena's greatest talent. I have no idea how he does it but with the Nats and DCU he always gets his team to peak when it counts. Like clockwork.

One factor in that timing though is that the "regular season" may look messy. Of Arena's three teams at DCU, only one even tied for the Supporter's Shield, yet we speak of the early days of MLS as being DCU's dynasty. Following DCU back then with the games every week one could sense when the team was off (besides looking at the scoreboard) and one could sense, over the course of three games or so, when the team was jelling, getting on another roll for the MLS Cup, the award that counts in MLS.

Similarly with the Hex, he came in third with some really shaky performances thrown in. Arena's team did enough to get by the WCQ's, then peaked where it counted, the WC itself. Now there is a big difference in coaching DCU in the regular season and coaching the Nats in WCQ's: with the Nats, games mean more (fewer games) and the games are widely spaced and one doesn't have the team together in the intervening time. This was Arena's learning curve the last go-round and it will be most interesting to me what (if) he does anything different in his preparations. I think part of the excellent WC performance can be attributed to the team being together beforehand as it seems, based on his history, that Arena is a grade A-worldwide and in any sport- coach at preparing a team for a specific event. Might he have a month long camp say before the next Hex? Use Copa America in a similar way? We'll see.

Skip - thanks for pointing this out. You made me think of some things I hadn't thought of before. I look at the Chicago Bulls of the NBA and can draw many parallels to your point. During the "regular" season, aside from their best year, there seemed to always be the question looming of whether or not they would get things together in time to make a run for another championship. For a variety of reasons including injuries, team chemistry, and even apathy, the Bulls often lulled in the middle of the year. Phil Jackson, one of the best coaches of any sport in the world, did what good coaches do. More importantly, he did NOT do what bad coaches do. He never panicked. He rode out the storm and prepared his team for the only important part of the year - the playoffs. For whatever reason, and I am not sure what it is or how it is done, he had his teams ready for the playoffs, where they were simply dominating.

Arena has done the same thing for Virginia, DCU, and now the MNT. As a fellow coach, I have to wonder - how the hell do you do that? It can't be an easy formula, or a lot more coaches would be leading a lot more dynasties.

Another parallel to draw is Joe Torre of the NY Yankees. Even though he has the biggest payroll in sports, the Yankees limp into the playoffs almost every year. But, everyone knows that once they get there, they are going to win. Contrast that with the Atlanta Braves. Every year, Bobby Cox leads his team to great regular seasons, gets them to the playoffs, where they choke.

What is Joe Torre doing that Bobby Cox is not? What is Phil Jackson doing that every other NBA coach hasn't figured out? What is Bruce Arena doing that other coaches are not?

I think I'm going to have to really think about this. It is fascinating to me, and once again, thanks Ursula for pointing this trend out. If I find anything, I'll post it here. If anyone else has any insight, I'd love to hear it...

[BallStateMiddie]

O.k., o.k., this is a little iffy here, but when I brought up the forum page and was perusing the subject titles, I read this one and thought it said "Bruce Arena's 'Three phases of penetration." Just thought that was worth sharing.

[BallStateMiddie]

Sorry about that last one. Here's what I really have to say:

As to whether or not Arena sticks with tepid players too long or not, remember that one thing that is very valuable to any player at any level is confidence. One way of instilling confidence in your players is letting them know that even if they have a bad streak, their coach is not going to give up on them. It would've been easy for Arena to bench Agoos after the first game in Korea, but if he had, maybe somebody like Reyna or even Sanneh would've been nervous, thinking gee, I better not screw up this game because look what happened to Jeff. That could easily have changed the whole Cup for the U.S. IMHO, Arena made the right move by keeping him in, not necessarily for Agoos' sake, but for the sake of team chemistry.

[Bluecat82]

Originally posted by Nutmeg


Skip - thanks for pointing this out. You made me think of some things I hadn't thought of before. I look at the Chicago Bulls of the NBA and can draw many parallels to your point. During the "regular" season, aside from their best year, there seemed to always be the question looming of whether or not they would get things together in time to make a run for another championship. For a variety of reasons including injuries, team chemistry, and even apathy, the Bulls often lulled in the middle of the year. Phil Jackson, one of the best coaches of any sport in the world, did what good coaches do. More importantly, he did NOT do what bad coaches do. He never panicked. He rode out the storm and prepared his team for the only important part of the year - the playoffs. For whatever reason, and I am not sure what it is or how it is done, he had his teams ready for the playoffs, where they were simply dominating.

Arena has done the same thing for Virginia, DCU, and now the MNT. As a fellow coach, I have to wonder - how the hell do you do that? It can't be an easy formula, or a lot more coaches would be leading a lot more dynasties.

Another parallel to draw is Joe Torre of the NY Yankees. Even though he has the biggest payroll in sports, the Yankees limp into the playoffs almost every year. But, everyone knows that once they get there, they are going to win. Contrast that with the Atlanta Braves. Every year, Bobby Cox leads his team to great regular seasons, gets them to the playoffs, where they choke.

What is Joe Torre doing that Bobby Cox is not? What is Phil Jackson doing that every other NBA coach hasn't figured out? What is Bruce Arena doing that other coaches are not?

I think I'm going to have to really think about this. It is fascinating to me, and once again, thanks Ursula for pointing this trend out. If I find anything, I'll post it here. If anyone else has any insight, I'd love to hear it...

Jumping in here...

I may be oversimplifing things a bit, but it may be a matter of focus and priorities...

Torre's goal seems to be to win the World Series every year...while Cox seems to be all about division titles...

If all you're doing is trying to get to the World Cup, then taking the stance "whatever happens after that is gravy", then that's probably all you'll ever do...which may explain things about a lot of other teams...

...and also puts Project 2010 in a new light, IMO...

[ursula]

Originally posted by Nutmeg


Skip - thanks for pointing this out. You made me think of some things I hadn't thought of before. I look at the Chicago Bulls of the NBA and can draw many parallels to your point. During the "regular" season, aside from their best year, there seemed to always be the question looming of whether or not they would get things together in time to make a run for another championship. For a variety of reasons including injuries, team chemistry, and even apathy, the Bulls often lulled in the middle of the year. Phil Jackson, one of the best coaches of any sport in the world, did what good coaches do. More importantly, he did NOT do what bad coaches do. He never panicked. He rode out the storm and prepared his team for the only important part of the year - the playoffs. For whatever reason, and I am not sure what it is or how it is done, he had his teams ready for the playoffs, where they were simply dominating.

Arena has done the same thing for Virginia, DCU, and now the MNT. As a fellow coach, I have to wonder - how the hell do you do that? It can't be an easy formula, or a lot more coaches would be leading a lot more dynasties.

Another parallel to draw is Joe Torre of the NY Yankees. Even though he has the biggest payroll in sports, the Yankees limp into the playoffs almost every year. But, everyone knows that once they get there, they are going to win. Contrast that with the Atlanta Braves. Every year, Bobby Cox leads his team to great regular seasons, gets them to the playoffs, where they choke.

What is Joe Torre doing that Bobby Cox is not? What is Phil Jackson doing that every other NBA coach hasn't figured out? What is Bruce Arena doing that other coaches are not?

I think I'm going to have to really think about this. It is fascinating to me, and once again, thanks Ursula for pointing this trend out. If I find anything, I'll post it here. If anyone else has any insight, I'd love to hear it...


Well I'll be interested in what you come up with as I'm scratching my head here too. Like you I've gone outside the soccer coaching ranks to see parallels to what Arena does/has done. Like you I think of Phil Jackson first. Compare him to the sorry mess that Bob Whitsitt stirs up with our home team every winter. (Folks: Nutmeg and I live in Portland.) I think that without a doubt the TrailBlazers have more talent 1-15 on their roster than the Lakers and they probably had more than the Bulls did usually too. The Blazers have all these wonderfully athletic guys- strong, fast, skilled, mean. But for all their versatility they all do variations on the same thing. The Lakers meanwhile have guys like Brian Shaw, who got waived by the Blazers several years ago and who every year provides important contributions to the Lakers title runs. Obviously Phil knows that just having the best athletetes alone doesn't get the job done.

Damn. have to go to work. I'll get back to this. But one thing else I have to say is:


Martin Fisher and Wanderer! What Nutmeg said is right.

[whip]

I have no idea why Bruce did not use the same line up he use against PORTUGAL, I heard something about BEASLEY BEEN HURT, but here in TEXAS there is a rule of thumb "IF AIN'T BROKE DO NOT FIX IT" if that line up WHOOP PORTUGAL THAT LINE UP BEAT ANYBODY.

[flanoverseas]

I don't know why Bruce ever changed his lineup either. He should have run the same 11 players for all five games. He beat Portugal with those guys, and then he went and changed the lineup!?! Reyna didn't really help us, and we could've scored without Mathis against SK.

[Martin Fischer]

Originally posted by Nutmeg
You know, it really is too bad that two posters whose opinion regarding soccer I respect, and two posters whose opinions have made this board worth visiting for well over three years, are tit for tatting like this.

Martin and Wanderer, if I understand the arguments correctly, they are laid out something like this:

...

Martin - Bruce Arena's track record of developing players into the MNT shows that he is doing things at the right pace and the right time.

...

Martin has a point that Arena on many instances has done an excellent job of integrating players at an appropriate pace. The play of Donovan and Beasley are good examples of players who blossomed given the timing of Arena's development. In these instances, Bruce realized that Landon and DaMarcus beat out the competition and won their spots on the field. Had they been forced into the spotlight and failed early, they might well have not had the confidence to succeed on the big stage.

In my mind, no coach is perfect. Arena himself will critique the job he did as a coach and look at areas where he can improve. He will also look at what he did well and try to continue to maintain those practices to lead the US to success, whatever that might be, in the next World Cup. In this topic, I believe there is certainly middle ground to be found. If Arena finds it, I think we'll have an even better coached team in 2006.

Nutmeg, I appreciate your attempt to bring rationality to my ... disagreement with Wanderer. But since it also got me a condescending lecture from Urusula, I need to point out that you are making my argument overly grandiose.

I don't think Arena is perfect, by any means. I, like apparently Wanderer, were calling for Mathis to play a bigger role for the Nats by the time of the first Mexico qualifier, for example. But argument was solely limited to Wanderer's criticism for not starting Wolff at forward in that same Mexico game. I recall very clearly that Wolff was not a hot striker there and, when McBride went out, Arena turning to Wolff instead of Donovan or Razov caught everyone by surprise. I don't mind legitimate criticism of Arena, but Wanderer's bs hindsight claim to omnipotence bothers me.

That's really all it is, though I agree with your more grandiose meanderings on the topic.