World Cup ’94 : WORLD CUP USA ’94 / GROUP A PREVIEW : A Method to His Madness : U.S. Coach Bora Milutinovic Has Been Questioned, but Until the Real Games Begin, Who Can Say if He’s Wrong?

It will go down on U.S. World Cup Coach Bora Milutinovic’s ever-growing list of “Things I Wish I Hadn’t Said.”

He was speaking in an optimistic burst before the U.S. team’s first game of 1993 in Tempe, Ariz., when the slate was clean and the World Cup was a distant speck on the competitive horizon. The opponent was Denmark, tiny Denmark, which had shocked the soccer world and won the European Championships.

No doubt seeking to be generous to the Danish coach sitting next to him, Milutinovic declared his goal for the U.S. team: “We want to be the Denmark of the World Cup.”

Denmark--which won the European Championships with a stylistically unappealing defensive game--bombed out of World Cup qualifying.

Is this the metaphor Milutinovic wants for the U.S. team? Doubtful, but he might have been hoping to capture that aura of the lightly regarded underdog and capitalize on the camouflage of low expectations.

It has worked. The team is draped in a shroud of questions and doubts, which even its recent upset over Mexico has failed to lift. The crafty Milutinovic wouldn’t have welcomed the poor showings by the U.S. team as a way to sneak into the tournament unnoticed, would he? He wouldn’t have arranged to show the team’s Group A opponents only the weak aspect of the U.S. World Cup team’s abilities?

That’s a reach, even for Milutinovic’s constant scheming. The other explanation is the players have done their best and sometimes they play with surprising skill and other times they are painful to watch.

The U.S. national team compiled a 5-5-8 record this year and went 2-2-7 against World Cup qualified teams. Much has been made of the players who play abroad and their miraculous healing powers on the team. After a particularly galling loss, the coaching staff could be counted on to point out the missing players. For a time, Milutinovic even took to keeping separate records--with and without the Europeans.

The dozen or so players had obvious skill--by definition, if they were playing professionally outside the United States they were among the best the country has to offer. When the likes of John Harkes, Eric Wynalda, Tab Ramos and Roy Wegerle have been with the team, their fortunes have risen.

But how to judge? Since the 1990 World Cup in Italy, the U.S. team has had all its final players nine times. The team has gone an impressive 7-1-1 in those games.

U.S. Soccer Federation President Alan Rothenberg: “When we have our full squad together and they play in the United States against top-level competition, we are a competitive team.”

Too often, however, the specter of the foreign-based players has been a divisive factor on the team. Players in Mission Viejo either didn’t pursue offers from professional teams or elected not to try their luck in Europe and then had sit at home and hear about what a second-rate bunch they were.

At one point this spring, there was a change in Mission Viejo. Milutinovic began to speak less of the foreign-based players and attempted, in his confusing way, to boost the morale of his team at hand.

Too late or too little? It’s difficult to judge what months of put-downs had done to the team and how much the players believed of their own ineptitude.

DEFENSE, DEFENSE?

U.S. assistant coach Timo Liekoski has his “I Wish I Hadn’t Said That When I Said It” list, too.

At an informal gathering of reporters before the Joe Robbie Cup in Miami in February, Liekoski did what Milutinovic almost never does--he spoke candidly about the players, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses.

The session was hardly controversial . . . at the time. On the day before the first game, Liekoski spoke in glowing terms about the defense and its cohesiveness and how the players had benefited from playing together for so long. Unlike the U.S. midfielders and forwards, only one defender--Cle Kooiman, who plays professionally in Mexico--was missing from the training camp that opened in January, 1993.

How could Liekoski have known the defense would fall apart the next day against Bolivia?

The problem in the 1-1 tie was lack of communication. As Liekoski pointed out later, the team lacked a player in the back who would verbally organize the defense and motivate his teammates.

The goalkeeper and sweeper, by virtue of their positions on the field, usually fill the role. Tony Meola, when he is in goal, is not a quiet guy and has no problem calling out positioning tips to his teammates in front of him.

The sweeper is another issue and might have been the key to the hellish weekend, which concluded with a 3-1 loss to Sweden. With Marcelo Balboa at sweeper, the U.S. team had a take-charge player. When Balboa went out with a serious knee injury, the team got used to Desmond Armstrong, also a capable, steady player whose tendency is not to be vocal on the field.

“We lack the one guy who is going to grab the guys by the neck and say, ‘Let’s get going,’ ” Liekoski said. “If you listen carefully when we play, there’s not a lot of chatter.”

The one guy who has earned the right to run things is Thomas Dooley, a veteran of the German Bundesliga. Dooley’s most natural position is at sweeper, but it is not natural for him to bark orders. He’s the sort of leader whose barest whisper would send players off to follow him, but he’s only now getting comfortable asserting himself.

Without an adequate communications system, the U.S. players were running around the field with no apparent plan. Since soccer is a game of action and reaction, if one outside back made a run upfield, for example, his opposite number would usually remain behind to cover.

In Miami, Alexi Lalas was making pell-mell rushes, leaving the back open and men unmarked. He was not alone in being out of position, but even one player’s missed assignment can impact each of his teammates.

The U.S. defense wasn’t the only thing that unraveled in Miami. Milutinovic had spent months attempting to introduce and sell his build-from-the-back system to a reluctant team whose players each had their own ideas about style.

The weekend degenerated into a mini-revolt--”We don’t like the flat back four defensive formation, so we’ll show the coaches how badly it works.” The reasoning had some merit to it, but it proved fatal to players who were being judged on their execution of the coach’s game plan, not their own.

There should be no mistaking the hierarchy of Milutinovic’s team--he’s the boss and, while everyone is welcome to offer suggestions, Bora is comfortable disregarding them.

The players’ attempt to usurp Milutinovic’s authority was met with an iron fist that carried an unmistakable message: Bora might not always be right, but he’s always the coach.

WHICH TEAM WILL PLAY?

The maddening aspect of monitoring the U.S. team has been its inconsistency. The team that lost to Iceland and Chile also beat England and Ireland.

The ups and downs are a natural outgrowth of Milutinovic’s constant experimentation: The U.S. coach spent much of the last year plugging in players to positions like so many puzzle pieces.

The sheer volume of players brought into camp--”for a look,” as the coaches called it--was a factor in the confusion. Forty-five players were used at one time or another, and at times the notion of the U.S. team ever creating a chemistry was remote.

The occasional recall of European players also added to the ebb and flow of the team’s fortunes. But mostly, it could be attributable to either the players’ own maturation or some tinkering by Milutinovic.

Joe-Max Moore scored four goals against El Salvador while playing at center-forward, a position he rarely played. Elsewhere, players with some versatility were moved around the field, barely lingering long enough to grow comfortable with one position.

The most recent new wrinkle was the addition of the five-man back formation for some games in May. Milutinovic was criticized for adding such a significant change so late. In fact, the U.S. team had played a five-man back before and will likely use such a configuration against Colombia in the World Cup. The team is expected to come out with four defenders against Switzerland. Romania remains a puzzle.

The two goalkeepers were trapped inside a revolving-door rotation. Starting every other game could hardly have helped Meola or Brad Friedel find an edge or any rhythm, even while it gave the coaching staff a chance to evaluate their play. Additionally, the keepers got a position coach only 11 months ago.

All of which has been part of Milutinovic’s plan. Presumably. Now coaching in his third World Cup, Milutinovic makes decisions that are at times baffling but often become clear later.

For example, there was his handling of midfielder Claudio Reyna.

Reyna came to camp as a highly decorated college player whom some called the future of American soccer. Milutinovic’s response to the young player was to ignore him and give him scant playing time. This was inexplicable to outside observers who, along with everyone who saw Reyna play, recognized his creative field vision and ball-control ability.

But in the first few months, any discussion of Reyna was likely to evoke a wave of hand from Milutinovic. Was it possible that he saw some major flaw in Reyna? Or was Milutinovic reacting as he usually does when told by others to do something?

Milutinovic’s reasoning, like so many other things, was revealed at the Joe Robbie tournament in Miami. During a wide-ranging discussion with reporters at the team’s hotel, Milutinovic grew visibly impatient with constant questions about Reyna and his lack of playing time.

Milutinovic abruptly left the room and returned with a bewildered Reyna in tow. The coach ceremoniously placed Reyna in the middle of a circle of reporters and introduced him to each. He then turned to Reyna and said, “How old are you?” Reyna replied, “I’m 20.” Milutinovic asked, “Do you think you are playing enough?” Reyna, having no idea where this was going but certain there was a right answer, said, “You’re the coach Bora.” With that, he was sent from the room.

Milutinovic thinks American players lack the proper respect and veneration for the World Cup. The competition to make a World Cup team in the United States is nothing like in Italy. Milutinovic well knew what he had in Reyna and had every intention of using him liberally. But he wanted to make sure the young player--for whom soccer had been nothing but rewards and accolades--did not get the impression that playing in the World Cup was his birthright.

What at first looked like clumsy handling of a promising player showed itself to be a deft move calculated to season Reyna and knock some of the attitude out of him. Bringing him along slowly surely helped Reyna and the team.

Milutinovic knew that Reyna, had he played, might have been able to set up more goals and the U.S. team might have won a few more games, but he has always been willing to sacrifice short-term gain for long-term benefit.

Translation: Bora knows what he’s doing.

The tendency of American sports fans is to judge based on statistical information. By this measure, Milutinovic would be a failure. Hank Steinbrecher, secretary general of the U.S. Soccer Federation, has admitted as much. But, he notes, the World Cup record is all that matters.

By that standard, an assessment of the U.S. team strictly on the basis of its record in international friendlies leading up to the World Cup has no meaning. Or, taken another way, each game has to be gauged in reference to what it means relative to the World Cup.

“Bora always has his eye on the big picture, the World Cup,” U.S. assistant coach Steve Sampson said.

Milutinovic’s Costa Rica team in 1990 lost seven consecutive games before the World Cup and shocked everyone by reaching the second round.

The U.S. team has at least apparently peaked at the right moment. Its 1-0 victory against Mexico sent all the right messages to the team regarding its preparation. The game was played before 91,123 pro-Mexico fans at the Rose Bowl and the team showed a single-mindedness that has flashed before but rarely shone. That game offered some indication of what’s possible. But those signs have been sighted before.

“When you can beat a team like Mexico under adverse conditions, I can only assume we will be even better in Detroit when we will have everybody’s support,” Milutinovic said. “If we put forth the kind of effort we did today, if someone beats us, they will have truly proved themselves.”

What does that mean? As Milutinovic would say, it means nothing. Only World Cup games matter, and if the United States can’t win in the World Cup and advance past the first round, no invocation of upsets over England or Mexico or the Gold Cup title will mean anything.