My favorite part is when he discusses the speed of play at various levels of competition: The transition from amateur sports to the professional level is clearly the speed of play. The technical skills are still the same it’s just that everything happens a lot faster. If you play baseball and try to hit a ball thrown at 85 mph, there’s a difference when trying to hit a ball thrown at 95 – 100 mph. It’s the same thing and that fraction of a second makes all the difference in the world and that fraction of a second in every sport makes a difference. I’d say that MLS is played at 40 mph, CONCACAF games are played at 60 mph, while international games are played at 100 mph. Whether it’s mental speed, physical speed or what have you, it’s just simply making that transition.
Bruce Arena does get and should get full credit for answering the question and not sugar coating it or giving some politicians answer. Coach for Life - in my opinion. The guy knows what he is doing.
Thanks, CP, great article. Notice he said something to the effect of "we won't win in 2006". I wonder if he didn't comment on 2010 out on purpose?
That is a great article. Lots of juicy tidbits. I like the reactions from Landon, Pablo and Beasley when they were told that they were going to start against Portugal. Who do you think Bruce was referring to when he said that he felt the older players were giving too much respect to our opponents at the World Cup and therefore decided to start some of the younger players against Portugal? Frankie started in place of Regis. So, Regis may have been one of them. Pablo started in place of Reyna but Reyna was hurt. Friedel over Keller. Could Keller have been another one? I don't think JMM would have ever been slated to start so it probably wasn't him. Any other ideas? Murf
Nice article. I do wonder just how many times the President gets asked about our national team! I can just imagine his bafflement at having to conjure up an answer! hee hee hee
Yes, very surprising comment. Well on the other hand, maybe it shouldn't be surprising, as the older guys couldn't have hanged with portugal. Imagine a starting lineup which included Joe Max and Cobi, we would have been slaughtered.
That article was high on the warm-fuzzy quotient. It almost made Bruce look like this big old teddy bear. Not that there's anything wrong with that, per se. I particularly enjoyed Bruce's response to the question regarding changing the qualifying procedures for CONCACAF.
Wasn't it Reyna or Sanneh who was quoted as saying the US will not get out of their group? "In October 2001, he himself realized his team was not good enough to do well at World Cup 2002 and he could possibly see a repeat of 1998. He began his final preparations in January 2002 and placed a great deal of emphasis on teamwork." that's a great turnaround then...
Good article. I liked when it was said he knew that the team he had in October of 2001 wouldn't probably do much better than the 98 team. At least he recognized it and made strides to change it. Now we get to start all over again and see where we end up in the fall of 2005.
Re: last question in the article Great synopsis by the csn reporter(s). I went to the luncheon and was very impressed (especially with the video montage they used to introduce Bruce--a minute of fast paced highlights from the WC spliced together). The last question (regarding the Nats playing in Dallas) has an obvious answer: http://www.smumustangs.com/soccerm/collegecup/venue.asp Play it at Ford Stadium...where they're playing the College Cup in four weeks.
Re: Re: last question in the article Sounds, and looks like a perfect venue for a match. Looks to have the right dimensions, and a good seating capacity. As long as we aren't playing Mexico...
Because it's in University Park, a separate city surrounded by Dallas. And they don't want or need the Burn to play there. As for Suarez...Great...another tweener. First Kreis, now Suarez. Told ya. last up...The American Player's lack of respect to the great soccer powers of the world is our advantage over so many other countries. And that's why only Americans should coach the US National team.
Ford Stadium "Why don't the Burn play there?" Because it's on a college campus, which prevents the sale of alcoholic beverages. That's unfortunate, since I think it would be perfect for Burn games. Ford Stadium is SO much better than the antiquated Cotton Bowl, where you get hip cramps and sore knees from the small seats. And needless to say, 10,000 empty seats is much better than 40,000 empty seats. "They should've followed up the Adu question." You mean, why hasn't Freddy aged? (He's been 13 for three years!)
Excellent stadium. Right size too. If SMU's gridiron team plays there I think it would conflict with MLS. Otherwise it'd be perfect for Dallas.
My understanding is that the community of University Park that surrounds SMU won't let it happen because of the increased traffic and other less savory reasons.
"We don't scout youth teams, only professionals" I was suprised by this answer. Any thoughts on why this is the case?