The new and improved Fire Bruce Now thread [R]

FIRE BRUCE!

 

What, so everytime a team has a good game it automaticly validates everything that happened before that? Hell your boy Bruce himself said that there should be more pressure on the team, having dissapointing results for 2 years should have people grumbling about you.

If the US plays more like they did tonight, and less like they did in say.. the Confed cup, then there is nothing to worry about. But if we start playing like we did to start the year, then somethings got to give.

 

Come on people!!! Where are the cries for Bruce's beheading for playing both Armas and Zavagnin? I thought you Arena bashers didn't need people like me to point out such horrible decisions.

 

I can't believe he still has a job with this team. This stuff is unacceptable. He should've been fired last year but for some reason he's still here. Nobody else would even think about hiring him as a coach, why did we? I'm sick of it. Honestly, why can't we make subs before the 80th minute. And all the excuses about "the soccer gods" and "injuries" and "national team call-ups"...it's crap. He needs to take responsibility.








Ooooooooh.......this isn't the Fire Andrulis thread...........oops

 

Gee, a wannabe from Saint Pete Florida who calls himself "geordination" feels some entitlement to tease anyone about anything? This is sad on so many levels. The fact is, we dominated a crap, crap, crap team tonight, and almost didn't pull out the win. Fire Arena? MAybe not. Crown Arena King of all Soccer gods (your position)? Definitely not. If you want to have a big celebration for that, go ahead, I'm sure there's nothing else for you to do anyway. As for me, I'm reserving judgment. And Zavagnin is crap, and it showed.

Hi, I went to England once and got this Alan Shearer t-shirt and my user name. Adorable.

 

Yeah, Mexico just destroyed us in midfield . Or are you still stuck in 1998?

 

Yes... yes... I've been very public in my criticism of Bruce and as recently as this morning was calling his strategy uninspired, "pack it in the back" one-dimensional football that the rest of the footballing world had sussed out by now.

After todays spirited performance, Bruce can stay. Not just because of the result - frankly, we could have lost 1 nil and I'd feel the same way. The team attacked with speed, finesse and passion. Bruce took chances with his roster, clearly instructed the team to take it to Mexico, and we were all rewarded with a display that has been lacking since we lost to Germany in the WC.

I was also saying... "where's Landon". Well... he was all over the place today imposing his will. Lavolpe's Mexican team is true quality and Arena showed that the US has got what it takes.

Well done! I'm big enough to dish it out but I'm also big enough to admit that I may have been wrong and to give kudos to Bruce Arena. He and the USMNT knocked my socks off today.

Nick

 

Just check his record. Arena's won every place he's ever been. He's won at the collegiate level, MLS and Internationally. Forget the style, under him, we've gone from a country that just hoped to stay in the game against the top countries in the world to a team that expects to win against whomever we play.

On the national team level, American soccer has never been at this point in modern history. And Arena's the guy who's presided over this whole transition. We're going into the next World Cup thinking we actually have an outside chance of winning the thing, which was unthinkable as recently as May 2002.

Obviously our talent has improved a lot over the past decade, but no national team coach at any level (men's that is) has had the success he's had and he's got an awful lot to do with our overall improvement. The guy is a winner, pure and simple.

Chew on this. He is the best coach in the world right now for a team made up of American players.

 

Sorry, I meant "US National team coach".

 

This was the best match as whole without the winning score line because our boys attacked and defended very well against a quality Mexican side. Bruce always tinkers tries to adjust either before the match or during the match.

This was a 4-2-2-2 set up he did as the Fox Sports World Announcers were saying. This is a Brazilian lineup. The defenders able to stay back while the midfield helps move up the ball and made Hejduk more into a scoring or at least more of an attacking mid than a defender and man how about that nutmeg he did in the near corner in the 2nd half tried to cross it for a scoring chance but Sanchez did make a save.

In Bruce we trust. And all the Mexican-Texans can go home crying.

BOO HOO HOO! LOST TO THE GRINGOS AGAIN!

 

geordie really has a hard on for this topic doesnt he?

Bruce is still subpar, and I'd can him in a minute if I was in charge. Which I'm not...nice result yesterday though.

 

Tree,ya need to get a tape of this game.
Your position is at complete variance with how we played last night.

 

Fixed it.

 

I'd go for at least Sainthood. King might be a little much right now. Let's make him mayor of DC and see how that works out first.

 

I'm probably on that list as I was calling for his head after tying Haiti and playing Hejdk on the right alone against Robben in Holland, but........

I think he played a fantastic tactic last night, and really got his players ready to play. I do wish he would have made some additional subs to get some others into the game. I'm not sure what he was doing with his bench players.

 

Is that the same crap, crap, crap team everybody was worried about before the game since it was supposed to be Mexico's "A" team versus a bunch of MLS scrubs?


And FYI, geordienation fell out of bed this morning, knocked his head slightly against the bedside table and forgot more about soccer in that instant than you will ever know.

 

I didn't read any of the pre game discussion, since this game wasn't very meaningful. So, if people were worried in the way you say they were, well then thank god "geordienation".... sorry, I start to laugh when I think about that user name..... as I was saying, thank god geordienation is here to "call them out", as he says.

But I know what I saw, a not very cohesive team outplay a crap mexico side. Yay team! Bruce is a genius! And maybe St. ptersburg geordienation knows more about soccer than I do, but I've seen enough games at every level to know when I see a crap team play a not very good team, and that's what I saw last night.

And I would suggest that if he knows so much about soccer, maybe he should start more thoughtful threads than this one.

 

46-23-18 - Arena's record as national team coach.
133-66 - Goals scored and allowed under Arena.

For the mathematically challenged, we've won twice as many as we've lost and scored twice as many as we've allowed.

Qualified for the World Cup with a game to spare, won a Confederation championship, reached the quarterfinals of the World Cup and is 6-1-1 with seven shutouts in the past eight games against our biggest rival.

Everyone talks about "since the World Cup we've played badly." True, at times we've played poorly. So what? It's all experimentation between the end of the World Cup and the beginning of qualifying. He's found what works and what doesn't. If he hadn't experimented, he might not have found out that Kerry Zavagnin and Corey Gibbs can play at this level.

And, for all of our bad play, the US is 13-5-4 since the World Cup with the losses coming to Brazil (twice including one in OT), Argentina, Holland and Turkey.

OK, so we don't matchup against the real heavyweights yet. Name me a coach that can get the US to be better than Brazil, Argentina, Holland and Turkey. (OK, maybe Turkey but they are less than two years removed from finishing third in the WC.)

I admite most of those 13 wins aren't against the toughest opponents, but beating Poland and Mexico shouldn't be easily dismissed, nor Paraguay and Costa Rica, but the fact is that in the 22 games the US has played since the WC, we've only lost five.

Sure, the tie against Haiti is a low point and we didn't play well in the Denmark tie. But the ties against Mexico and Cameroon, especially when we had the better of play, were good results.

On top of that, Arena has been able to use the games to blood new players. Arena has used 58 players in the second World Cup cycle and given 15 their first caps. (This brings his total to 89 players used and 53 players getting their first caps.) And that's exactly what a World Cup coach is supposed to do during this part of the cycle.

So, you guys can bitch and moan and call for Arena's head. And, you can dismiss my comments as some loyal UVa/DCU supporter. But, the numbers are pretty telling and make a very convincing case for Arena.

 

This clearly shows he should be fired.

 

Why is someone with the name metrogo criticizing someone else's user name? "Metrogo" sounds like something you'd see on a Japanese shopping cart:

"Metrogo! We love N. York. Win! Fight! Win!"

and please have a run at Nimbus 2000 - my wife thinks it puerile, too.

 

well said Nick!!

i think sandon sums it up best. bruce has a great record and everything since WC '02 is more or less experimentation until qualifying begins. hopefully we go some 'mo heading into it...

 

As a recent FBB guy, I'll say that I'm pleased with the past two games. My biggest criticism has been that we're relying on older players at the expense of bleeding new talent and letting them learn to play together at this level. Last night, a lot of newbies put their best foot forward. BUT ..... we were still less than a minute away from completely dominating Mexico and still coming away with a nil-nil draw. We have still only scored a single run-of-play goal this year. I don't know if the problem stems from something coaching-related, but it's definitely something that a coach needs to help solve. Will Arena? That remains to be seen.