Bruce Arena - "In ’98, U.S. Soccer had about a year of financial survival left"

He's always rubbed people the wrong way because he's cocky - when you're winning they call that endearing and funny, when you're losing they call that arrogance.

But IMO I think US Soccer would do well to reach out to him and give him a role as youth director. His love of the of the game is self-evident, he's worked with young players all his career and especially college, and it's obvious he's very passionate on the subject of youth development.

I think he also speaks very well on the subject and I've liked a lot of what he's said about it.

 

What do you envision him doing when as youth director? I think (and hope) that this is an oversight position that you are talking about. I only mention that because I can't imagine him coaching 15 year old kids. Sure, he did GREAT at the college level. However, even his pro players have said that his strength is not x's and o's. With that being said, our youth are in need of precisely that type of training.

 

Where has Connoly been? I used to look forward to his reports and articles, but lost track of him.

 

On oversite role, but one that has a lot of power/influence/control. I agree that he shouldn't be coaching kids.

I think he has a great vision of the road US Youth soccer needs to travel, he's very knowledgable of the US Youth system, the MLS Youth set up, and college. He also seems to have a lot of contacts around the world from his days as USA's manager and probably has done a lot of studying of various countries youth systems.

I'd like to see Bruce work with both MLS and the USSF actually on this. I think he's uniquely qualified for that kind of role.

Let Bruce and his team organize the USSF Youth academies, hire youth coaches, and work with MLS to set up competitions. He should also have a big say in how we develop kids (and perhaps be an advisor to MLS in the same regard), scout kids, and pick kids for national team academies.

I am not sure we have anyone in that position currently

 

Funny, Marc says he lost track of you, too. Perhaps a second 'l' in his last name would have kept you guys together.

Sorry, just practicing rubbing people the wrong way.

Re US Soccer finances, I assume BA is referring to some sort of chaos or over-spending/mis-spending of funds, not an actual shortfall. Wasn't the 1994 WC that we hosted an enormous money-maker, and aren't we still sitting on the tens of millions of dollars it generated?

 

This article gives us a sense of the current set-up, with Hackworth and newly-appointed Sarachan as the prime movers:

http://www.socceramerica.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=25531

 

We should sticky this thread for the next time someone asks why we're playing Mexico in a friendly again.

 

On the other hand, Bruce chose smaller venues where home advantage was perceived to be greater than the larger stadiums that would have generated more cash for USSF.

He wants to have it both ways.

 

my recollection is that he only did that for qualifiers. He learned a lesson from playing Hondourus in DC in 2001.

But he played Poland in Chicago and England in Chicago as well. Also played Mexico in Houston IIRC.

 

Well, it only mattered for qualifiers.

And, yes, Honduras (and Jamaica at RFK, to some extent) was a turning game.

But he didn't need the points in 2005 and could have played Mexico in front of 90,000 in LA.

 

arena in the broadcast booth is where he's needed, as the collective wisdom of the rest do not reach what he, singly, brings ....

arena resume makes him superior to any other american whose ever managed the national team...

add in uva and dc united, he has plenty reason to be cocky....

perhaps the cocky side is what usa needed after sampson..

 

Makes you wonder what the USSF did with all the money from WC94.

 

I've always said that Arena was a good administrator ... but as a coach with deep knowledge of technique and tactics, he was poor.

His player evaluation and selection was deficient -- I actually don't think he knows how to spot a quality player. Athlete, maybe ... player, no. An in-form Mathis, the catalyst of qualifying, a major spark for the team, and the deadliest player we've had in a long time ... left to languish on the bench for most of the games in 2002?

He held on to players past their "sell-by" date (Reyna, Pope, Olsen in 2006) and tried to *discover* the next great young player before they had really done much on the field at their clubs. Quaranta, Convey, Albright ... I shudder at the opportunities that these players got in place of more deserving players.

So ... as far as administering a club, have at it. But I don't want Arena anywhere near a field or having a hand in selecting National Team (at ANY level) coaches or players ... ever again.

 

The answer is always so obvious . . . just tedious.

 

I'll just say whats always been on my mind about Arena. The revisionist distaste for the guy is absurd and ridiculous in my view. When he took over the program, the program was in ruins. Not only was the team horrific in '98, but the team had also completely imploded under Sampson w/numerous players claiming they were done with ever even considering playing for the national team again. He completely changed everything. Bought in a boxers punchers chance mentality, and a great spirit to the organization, his first tournaments were a major success, he brought in loads of new blood, took huge risks and small risks and all risks, built a genuine community atmosphere and brought guys together in a unified team for the first time in years, with huge successes in 1999, w/a dramatic turnaround inspite of horrific reffing in '00 qualifying, and horrific injuries that nearly destroyed the team in '01, and helped lead the team through its greatest World Cup performance ever both in terms of game performances (the win against Portugal, the draw against S. Korea at S. Korea considering what they accomplished, the win over Mexico, and what should have been a golden goal overtime mystery result with Germany in the QF's).

He went a cycle too far and you could feel it. While the team continued to hum on all cylinders, but take the confed cup not quite seriously enough in '03, they were still playing quite well up until the summer of '05 and then things started to go wrong, I suppose in year 7 players started tuning him out, and a growing level of conservativism he didnt feature in the first cycle began to infect his decision making and choices, and then the ultimate disaster, not a single forward prospect groomed since '96/'97 came through to support McBride. With Donovan shifted to midfield, experiments with Casey, Kirovski, Mathis, Twellman, Johnson and plenty of others went awry due to injuries, work habits, lack of elite talent etc and so he was forced to use a formation he almost assuredly didn't want to in order to compensate for the lack of a second forward to pair with McBride and then there was disaster. Early mistakes killed us against the Czech's, not to mention a Post and Reyna, and Donovan going turtle. Against Italy refs desperate to keep Italy in the game after tossing a player for bloodying McBride hosed us, though the result was still amazing and courageous, and then we got hosed (and outplayed) against Ghana, and quit in the 2nd half after another post, this time from McBride killed hopes.

The debacle in '06, combined with Arena's ego, have really ruined peoples objective view of his performance imho. He was praised by all in '02, for the most part, praised in '03 and '04 and a chunk of '05. There is a reason. The debacle in '06 was far more about forward problems, and a horrific draw the previous december, than it was about any failings or frailities of Arena. Indeed the only shame in my view, is that after 7 years of watching Arena's teams fight and fight and fight no matter who they were playing, the team ended up quitting on him in his very last game. That left a bad taste, but in my view, didnt in any way change his accomplishments for the national team which were and are sterling and for at least the '98-'04 era, damn near beyond reproach.

And no, I'm not Bruce Arena

 

Mathis was a player who couldn't go a full 90 minutes in the blazing hot heatr of South Korea, coming off an ACL injury. The only time he languished was the opening match against Portugal...a match where Reyna was benched as well. Mathis started against South Korea and Poland, came in as a substitute against Mexico, and played almost a full half against Germany.

As for spotting players....Arena himself brought Mathis into the National team scene. He also brought in Steve Cherundolo as a BLII player, Landon Donovan as an 18 year old, DaMarcus Beasley didn't play a second of the qualifiers but he started the World Cup. John O'Brien was another player that Arena introduced to the senior team, and he was pretty good IIRC. Gooch Onyewu had a big role in 2006 qualifying and he was an Arena discovery, he brought in Benny Feilhaber to a camp before Bradley was in charge, Cory Gibbs was an Arena discovery as well. There are more players than this as well.

You shudder at the thought of Steve Ralston, Eddie Gaven, Justin Mapp, Brad Davis, Jose Burciaga, and uh...well I can't even think of anyone else, losing opportunities? Btw - Convey was one of our better players in the World Cup. Reyna also played well, as did Olsen in his brief 45 minutes. Jimmy Conrad was a Bruce Arena special btw. How'd he do in the World Cup?

the amount of criticism levelled at Arena is similar to the amount of criticism levelled at Joe Paterno by Penn State fans. The expectations are wildly disproportionate with reality.

What do you think would have happened if we had a manager other than Bruce Arena? Would he have created a bionic striker by taking aprt Brian Ching, Eddie Johnson, and Taylor Twellman and creating one player out of them? Would he have given us Mexico's group? What would have happened?

 

I just love all of the Arena apologist who say he didn't have the players or had a poor draw in 2006, but push all of the blame on Sampson in 1998 (like he had the players and had an easy draw with Germany, Yugoslavia, and an underrated Iran). Talk about revisionist...

Arena is very good at telling about how bad things were before he arrived and how wonderful they were when he left. Sure, it wasn't peaches and cream after 1998, but it sure wasn't the end of the world.

Ironically, Arena and Sampson made the opposite decisions (1998 - going with unknown players and 2002 - sticking with veteran players), but both have been criticized for those decisions (and probably rightfully so).

If you thought 1998 or 2006 was bad, try going back to pre-1990...

 

I like the way you conveniently forget that venues are set far in advance.

 

Bruce fell into the same rut of complacency that many managers have fallen into, including some coaches better than him. Clive Woodward took England to a Rugby World Cup triumph but never properly adjusted his tactics when coaching the British Lions on their tour of New Zealand and didn't win a single game against the All-Blacks.

Against all odds, Duncan Fletcher coached England's cricketers to a narrow Ashes win over Australia, then failed to push his team to improve and got completely thrashed in the return series 18 months later. You could possibly argue that Bill Belichik failed to adapt to the Giants' heavy pass rush, which cost the Patriots the game. The point is that what happened to Bruce has happened to many, many coaches, although it is of course premature to say that Belichik is done.

In my opinion, Bruce was able to have great succes when the U.S. was a relatively unknown side by capitalizing on our players' athletic ability and playing a high-tempo, counterattacking game. But by the time '06 rolled around, opposing teams were wise to his tactics and he could never make the adjustment. Instead he played Eddie Lewis at left back, and we know how that went. It didn't help that the few players who might have been able to assist the Nats in changing to a more possession-oriented game (and here I'm thinking of JOB and Mathis) were either injured or out of form. In any event, it didn't matter, because he never adjusted, even with their backs to the wall against Ghana.

But, as has been mentioned further up the page, people should think twice about throwing Bruce under the bus (and not just because of the damage it would do to the bus ). The difference between the U.S. in '98 and 2006 is light years. It's like the difference between a pub league side and a professional side. It's no exaggeration to say that without Bruce, our expectations of the national side would be significantly lower than they are today.

 

Arena has Mexico friendlies in San Diego ('99), New York ('00 in US Cup), Los Angeles ('00), Denver ('02), Houston ('03), and Dallas ('04). Lots of paydays during that era... and some excellent games, too.

As Sachin noted, it was scheduled before we knew whether we'd "need" the points. In any case, we clinched qualifying that day in Columbus (with three games to go, the next two on the road), not in advance, so it's hard to say we didn't need the points. If we lose that one in front of 90,000 in LA, our away game at Guatemala takes on a different level of importance.

Beasley did play in an '02 qualifier... after we qualified. He played the first half of the Trinidad game in Port-of-Spain. He was knocked out with a concussion and replaced by Jones. After the game, when we asked him how he was doing, I recall Donovan kidding that Beasley didn't know where he was as the team, press, and fans all walked back from the busses after the game.

 

Re: Bruce Arena - "In ’98, U.S. Soccer had about a year of financial survival left"

A large part of it, maybe most of it (after expenses), went to the USSoccer Federation Foundation, since renamed the US Soccer Foundation. It is a not-for-profit organization that makes funds available for a variety of soccer-related purposes. I wrote a grant application for our local soccer club that got the club $25,000 to fund irrigation of a 25 acre soccer park back in about 1996 or 7. Just one use. See here for more information.

 

Your view would make sense if Arena became a smarter coach in 2006 but simply made some bad decisions.

My counter to that would be that it's illogical for a good coach to become dumb.

Senile? Maybe. But not dumb.

Not that far.

I argued with someone who has access to all sorts of stuff and people that Jason Garrett made that mistake first and the reply I received was that the Giants covered the short routes well enough also.

The Packers tried going short the entire game and couldn't get anything done either.

As to Bruce, I think he hit on a few things semi-accidentally and was then helped by the very good team chemistry in 2002.

He still played an over-his-head Jeff Agoos as often as he could field him and only Jeff's injury and Gregg Berhalter's subsequent insertion into the side shored up that horrible (6 goals allowed in 3 group stage games, the same as in 2006) defense for the knock-out rounds.

But, hey ... Belichick went with Drew Bledsoe and kept Tom Brady on the bench in 2001 too. Sometimes, fate works on your behalf.

 

He deserves some credit for the team chemistry.

In terms of player selection -

1) McBride - obvious
2) Landon - quasi-obvious, but give BA credit for relying on young Landon that much
3) JOB - obvious
4) Reyna/Mathis - used probably as expected, given their fitness issues
5) Beasley - not obvious, huge credit to BA
6) Steward/Cobi - used about as much as expected
7) Mastro - semi-accidental, no credit there
8) Agoos - oops, take away credit from BA
9) Pope - obvious
10) Frankie - great move by Bruce to fire Regis before WC finals and insert Frankie
11) Sanneh - obvious, Bruce got lucky in that he played the tournament of his life

So a moderate credit to Bruce overall -- kudos for his use of Landon, Beasley, and Frankie, ding him for Agoos.

The score wouldn't be as good if I did the same exercise with the '06 WC.

 

Sampson capped JOB in 98 IIRC.