News: Bruce Arena says Carlos Cordeiro has 'no business being' USSF president

Semi-related, but Thierry Henry's comment on the article makes me think of Juan Agudelo.

 

I am not sure what to think here. Bruce is a blowhard. But it would not surprise me if what he says about Cordeiro is true.

 

I thought Bruce was more a lacrosse guy .

He'll always have 2002 (he is the most successful USMNT coach of the modern era, credit due) but he needs to bow out of US Soccer.

 

He never will. The guy has his opinions and has been around at the top end of US soccer for long enough that people will continue to ask his opinion for a long time.

 

What I find a bit funny about this is he is the same guy that called Gulati (I am pretty sure) a "super-fan." And he meant that in a very disparaging way, as if to say that he didn't have the business chops to do the job, but was just a giddy fan of the sport at the helm. Now here we are with Gulati's successor, and Bruce is flaming him for not being fan ENOUGH of the sport, but (reading between the lines) being only a soulless suit. Now I know that there is a LOT of middle ground between those 2 opinions, so I don't want to act ignorant of that. But Bruce acts so cock-sure of everyone else's over-the-top lack of qualification to the extreme that it just hurts his believability.

 

Arena is just that guy that thinks he's right about every single thing in every single area. He's a blowhard. That's who he is personality-wise, and like most blowhards, it gets worse as he gets older.

It doesn't mean he's entirely wrong about Cordeiro. Ideally, you'd want competency and passion in a leader. But if I can only have one, give me competency.

 

i disagree, especially considering the restructuring that has taken place.

i mean, ideally the president of the fed wouldnt be completely agnostic but since he brings up gulati we also dont need the president so hands on he tosses the keys to the fed to one guy (klinsmann) who is going to throw everything into chaos.

i think the problem is cordeiro seems to be a gulati who doesnt care, so status quo (in our case "nepotism"/ol boys club/etc) runs rampant. we need a president who wants solely to promote the game, both club and country, passionately. very rougly an anschutz type.

we need a ceo (or ceos if we are going to have two branches for mens/womens) for the economics/marketing/growth and a gm/technical director for the actual development/coaching side. so stewart makes sense in terms of profile, and i always see posts on some former nba marketing director which makes sense for the "business" side. every position doesnt have to be "soccer guys", and we dont need half a dozen cooks. add whatever sub-positions from there (though i really think the simpler/less the better).

 

I don't know why people think Cordeiro is business as usual or another Gulati.

He built the dual sided system you are asking for. That was a campaign promise of his and he's executed.

There's been a massive purge of Gulati folks. He was always against Jay Berhalter.

He may not be a fan boy, but he's (slowly) building what looks to be a very smart and sustainable structure. Let's see who the new CEO is.

 

I don't get this at all. #1, (and I seem to always find myself saying this) Gulati was absolutely ripped to shreds by the fervent fanbase for NOT hiring Klinsmann in 2007! Right here on bigsoccer, Gulati was eviscerated for NOT giving Klinsmann total control of the team. It was actually quite ugly. So when he ends up hiring the guy 4 years later and he turns to not be the immediate savior that the fanbase wanted, those SAME fans suddenly acted as if Gulati was the dumbest guy in the room for doing what they wanted him to do all along. It is mind-numbing for me.

#2, even Bruce does not believe that Gulati and Cordeiro are alike. On that, I agree with him. Maybe if you explained a bit more what you believe to be their similarities, I would understand.

#3, I'm not sure what Bruce is looking to accomplish here. He never seems to have an endgame. He just lobs a Molotov cocktail through the storefront window and then jogs off. I'm left wondering why. If I knew why, maybe I could engage in the topic of this thread more competently … which is to say I would be able to give an opinion of IF a civil war is really brewing at HQ. But we all know that Bruce does not play well with others and therefore we should be wary of believing that he speaks for others on this issue.

 

There's no civil war brewing. Everyone on Big Soccer needs everything to be something massive -- just look at the poster who thought a prospect going to Barca Academy is a huge problem for MLS. It's not. There's also no civil war brewing here. There was no massive divide between German-Americans and the rest of the USMNT that needed to be healed, and Don Garber isn't furious that Bob Bradley said he likes pro / rel. I could probably list 100 things that Big Soccer wants to take from an aside comment or a one off and make it into something massive or an impending harbinger of doom.

This is just Bruce being Bruce. He always knows what's right for everything, and if you disagree, you're an idiot.

 

i disagree, especially considering the restructuring that has taken place.

i mean, ideally the president of the fed wouldnt be completely agnostic but since he brings up gulati we also dont need the president so hands on he tosses the keys to the fed to one guy (klinsmann) who is going to throw everything into chaos.

i think the problem is cordeiro seems to be a gulati who doesnt care, so status quo (in our case "nepotism"/ol boys club/etc) runs rampant. we need a president who wants solely to promote the game, both club and country, passionately. very rougly an anschutz type.

we need a ceo (or ceos if we are going to have two branches for mens/womens) for the economics/marketing/growth and a gm/technical director for the actual development/coaching side. so stewart makes sense in terms of profile, and i always see posts on some former nba marketing director which makes sense for the "business" side. every position doesnt have to be "soccer guys", and we dont need half a dozen cooks. add whatever sub-positions from there (though i really think the simpler/less the better).

the only difference i see between the two is gulati was hands on while cordiero has basically taken away any responsibility from the position.

the structural changes weve made have been entirely superficial. theres no change whatsoever in the end product of us soccer- other than, again, he doesnt have to show up to meetings.

are we still incredibly inbred, ol boys, american coach, mls heavy anti-meritocracy? id say yes.

klinsmann is a clear difference between the two, going against those characteristics...but was a fiasco. are we giving gulati effort points?

under gulati is where that entire "philosophy" took hold. vets over youth, dependability over potential, safety over risk. non-arena/bradley acolytes need not apply. gulati took a huge swing, whiffed, went right back to business as usual.

which is exactly where cordiero started and has stayed. hes added layers between himself and the product on the pitch. so sure, you can say he implemented the structure i want- while filling those positions with the same mindset/mentality that kept us on a plateau from 02-06. arena peaked and cratered, bradley holds steady, very mercurial results under klinsmann and a nosedive ever since. back to arena, nearly a year and a half sabbatical under grandpa dave. bruce begat bob, bruce redux begat sarachan begat berhalter.

whats different? exactly where has the ship been righted?

 

There's plenty different.

There's a technical director in charge of a larger strategy for national teams.

There's additional resources in the form of men's and women's GMs, and all these people are soccer people. People like to bag on Stewart, but his record is hardly MLS-heavy and is actually very impressive.

There's an attempt to align the youth teams and senior teams so there's a clear path from one to another and a clear expectation at a young age of what skills are needed further on. There's stronger integration and scouting from youth on upward.

Outside of the national teams, USSF secured a World Cup; it's beginning a restructuring of the US Open Cup; it's launched training programs in Spanish.

We've also seen a purge of underqualified people at USSF, including Cordeiro winning a battle not to promote Jay Berhalter.

I continue to be baffled by people's expectations of what change at USSF was wanted or the speed at which they expected a federation to implement them.

You criticize Gulati for handing everything over to a big name coach as a savior ... but criticize Cordeiro for building a stable, long term infrastructure and for not going for a big name coach to solve everything.

You make comments that the team is too MLS focused; aside from the fact that some sort of dictated bias is ridiculous ... what did you want the USSF President to do? Dictate less MLS players? Cordeiro is effectively a chairman of the board -- he shouldn't be making ANY player declarations.

Cordeiro literally ran on and was elected on a platform that soccer people would make soccer decisions. He didn't win because Gulati or MLS wanted him -- he wasn't their candidate.

He won because the players voted as a bloc for him, and the pro leagues were okay with him.

And the players voted for him because he promised to put soccer people in charge of soccer decisions.

Then he went and did it -- putting a Dutch American with experience successfully running multiple Dutch teams and a US team in charge.

I get that you and most of BS doesn't like Berhalter and that's all you really evaluate USSF on.

But that's a terrible way to evaluate Cordeiro. The reason why we got into the Klinsmann mess was because the entire USSF was set up so someone who worked unpaid, part time, with no real soccer experience was essentially making executive decisions all the time. Even if Gulati were a savant, that's a recipe for disaster.

The President role should never play like that, because it's not even a CEO. Build an organization with stated strategies, values, goals and hire experienced, expert, full time employees to execute against that. That's how you build something that lasts, grows, succeeds.

That's how you build something that does more than talk -- that's how you build something that can start to build out a cohesive plan that encompasses not just the senior team but professional teams, academies, youth guidelines, etc.

I'm not saying USSF gets there with Cordeiro. I don't know enough about the dude. But USSF was never going to get there in the structure that Gulati had. It simply didn't have the right resources or nearly enough resources.

So what's the change you were looking for? A President to hire a European Coach who says players should test themselves in Europe?

Dude, that was Klinsmann.

 

Yawn. Typical Bruce. Not sure why anyone pays attention to him.

In the article, he was asked how NE was going to be this year. His answer "We should be better than last year...I hope." Setting the bar low as usual...

 

We are talking about a guy who coached the USMNT to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. For the joy he brought me for a stretch, he can say whatever the hell he wants!!

Just so we're all on the same page, Bruce Arena isn't the problem in NE. He came in and righted the ship last year after Friedel's disastrous tenure.

How many coaches in the US have won the career quadrouple: MLS Cup, SS, USOC, CCL/CCC.

Bruce and Sigi. That's it. And by the way, both of them also won multiple NCAA titles.

If guys like Bruce want to be blowhards, go for it. You've earned it.
I like that guys such as Bruce are passionate and give us their honest opinions.
I don't have to agree.

 

I don't disagree at all.

Doesn't mean he's not a blowhard.

 

what Bruce said about dual Americans is so f***ing offensive, it negates all of the goodwill he earned in the aughts.

it is the most offensive thing a recent coach has done - it makes cutting one of the best players in usmnt history look meaningless.

 

Bruce Arena did make unquestionably xenophobic comments. He also walked them back in later press conferences and interviews.

I allow people to say they made a mistake.

 

he said that his terrible comments made before he was named coach wouldn’t impact how he coached. His actions as coach showed that to be a bald-faced lie as he did exactly what his prior statements indicated he would.

Shamefully, I believed him and thought he would be a reasonable replacement coach based upon 2002 and his public statements. My bad.

 

I just don't get Arena's take. As someone who was decidedly against Cordeiro as USSF President, I can easily admit that he's overseen some good things. You can debate the merits of Earnie Stewart and Jay Berhalter, but Cordeiro has given a soccer person significant decision-making authority on technical/sporting decisions. He has helped rid USSF of Jay Berhalter, who by so many accounts has caused a great deal of damage to the federation. He's started to create a much more professional organizational structure, and he's turned his position into more of a board chair position - which is exactly what that position should be when on a governance board.

Make the right hire for the CEO position (who should have the commercial and the sporting/technical arms of the federation report to the position to maintain alignment in the entire organization), and I'll be feeling pretty optimistic about the long-term structure and vision of the federation.

 

All of what you said can be right, and what Arena said can be true at the same time.

Bruce appears to want a passionate "soccer person" as the head of the USSF.
Cordeiro has never struck me as that.
I mean, his previous jobs were at Goldman-Sachs and BHP.

Do folks know who the current President of the FA is in England?

 

Fair point. The biggest thing that I think generates confusion is that the USSF President should really be a non-executive board chair. Sunil was far too hands-on for his position. He wanted to be a manager, while his role (and that of the board) was really to govern.

It's a subtle, yet important, difference. I do think the CEO needs to be someone committed to, and passionate about, soccer. While it would be nice for the USSF Chairman (aka President) to be a huge soccer fan, I don't think it's a requirement. A board of directors must set direction, set internal controls, and ensure that policies and procedures are met. Not exciting or sexy stuff, but really important stuff.

This is why I've been so anxious to see who the CEO will be. That's the most critical hire, and that person needs to be passionate about the sport while having a strong sports executive background.

For me, a dream combination would be someone in a Kyle Martino or Julie Foudy mold to be USSF chair while Mark Tatum (current NBA deputy commissioner) is the CEO. The CEO is really the person ultimately responsible for day-to-day operations. The Chairman and the board are really there to make sure the organization doesn't careen outside of the guardrails.

 

its jsut funny because arena got hired by the same people for his ill fated second go round that lead to missing the wc....but hes still right.

even if you wanna give him slack for hiring JK...it was the 4 year extension prior to brazil that was soul-crushing. jk showed he wasnt the "promised land man"...but gulati treated him like he was...that extension was insane and gulati deserved to be axed for that, imo.

 

This is just Bruce being Bruce. He's always been critical of MLS, USSF, CONCACAF -- just about anything really.

When you get a certain age, you realize you can appreciate someone for being good at their job without having to think they're the best person ever who is always right about everything (and contrarily, something this board has learned -- just because someone says things you agree with doesn't mean they're good at their job!)