A Rebuilding Project for Arena
Bruce Arena, the coach who guided Virginia to five NCAA soccer titles and Washington D.C. United to two Major League Soccer championships, was named coach of the United States national team Tuesday.
He replaces Steve Sampson, who stepped down in July after the U.S. had been ignominiously knocked out of the France ’98 World Cup.
Arena, 47, signed a four-year contract as coach and technical director that will last through the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea. Although Bob Contiguglia, the recently elected president of U.S. Soccer, declined to reveal financial terms, it is believed to be a $3.5-million deal.
Arena said Chicago Fire Coach Bob Bradley will be his assistant for his first game in charge of the American team, against Australia on Nov. 6 in San Jose.
“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” Arena joked in reference to the Fire’s 2-0 victory over D.C. United in MLS Cup ’98 at the Rose Bowl on Sunday.
He said he would like Portland Coach Clive Charles, the U.S. under-23 and Olympic team coach, to remain in that position and he also wants UCLA Coach Sigi Schmid to stay on as the under-20 national team coach. Schmid is being mentioned as a possible MLS coach, perhaps with the Galaxy.
Arena will provide the first clue as to the direction in which he will take the sport in this country when he reveals his roster today for the Australia game.
“You’ll see some new blood, some new faces,” he said, “and hopefully many will be excited.”
Arena’s international coaching experience is limited to the 1996 Olympic Games, but he said he is well aware of the potential pitfalls.
“I know the road ahead will have both peaks and valleys, but I do look forward to the challenge,” he said. “I have a lot of confidence in the abilities of the American players. I feel very, very confident that we can be successful.
“I do realize that there will be a bit of a struggle ahead. The objective of the program is to advance to 2002, to be in Japan [and South Korea] for the World Cup and be among the final 32.
“That is certainly our goal, but to get there I think we need to start with a new base of players. We will not rule out any players, but we need to start building with young players.
“Our plans are to use 1998 and ’99 to develop a pool of players, to mix the young with the more experienced veteran players that we have. And then, hopefully by the year 2000, we will be in a position to qualify [for the World Cup].”
Arena said he preferred not to become involved in an autopsy of the France ’98 failure.
“What went wrong is, they didn’t win any games,” he said of the U.S. team’s losses to Germany, Iran and Yugoslavia. “I don’t want to get inside that team. Obviously, they didn’t do as well as expected.”
However, Arena will meet with the players from the ’98 World Cup team.
“I intend to talk to every player who was part of the national team in France to let them know where they stand,” he said.
Two of the qualms about Arena’s taking over the national team concerned his inability to speak Spanish and his lack of international experience.
“When I acquired the job at D.C. United, that was one of my objectives, to learn Spanish” he said. “Unfortunately, no one told me I was going to work every day for the next three years, so I haven’t had the opportunity, really.
“I can speak a little bit of Spanish and communicate with the [Spanish-speaking] players on D.C. United. I think it’s important and hopefully I’m going to have the opportunity to take a few classes and become much more fluent than I am today. I will attempt to do that.
“But the nice thing about this job is that I am the coach of the U.S. national team and right now the language is English, so I have that going for me.”
He also said he had been keeping close watch on the international game.
“I think that’s part of your development as a coach,” he said. “At D.C. United, we have three satellite dishes hooked up and are constantly watching games from around the world. Certainly over the past year, the opportunity [to watch] qualification games and the World Cup was outstanding.
“So I’ve kept abreast of international soccer and certainly have a good understanding of the U.S. team. I feel as I step into this opportunity that I have a lot of background to move this program forward.”
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(National Edition) Bruce Arena at a Glance
* Sept. 2 1951--Born in Brooklyn, N.Y.
* 1971--Graduated from Nassau Community College, where he won All-American honors in soccer and
lacrosse.
1972--Named most valuable defensive player as a goalkeeper in the NCAA Division I tournament.
1973--Graduated from Cornell, where he won All-American honors in lacrosse.
Nov. 15 1973--Makes his only U.S. national team appearance, playing for 45 minutes against Israel in Beersheba, a 2-0 loss.
1973--Assistant coach at Cornell.
1976--Coach at the University of Puget Sound.
1978-’95--Coach at Virginia, winning NCAA titles in 1989 (joint), 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994.
1996--Coach of U.S. Olympic team in the Atlanta Games. Team goes 1-1-1 against Argentina, Tunisia and Portugal .
1996--Wins Major League Soccer championship and U.S. Open Cup as coach of Washington D.C. United.
1997--Repeats MLS championship with D.C. United.
1998--Wins CONCACAF Champions Cup with D.C. United, the first American team to win the regional title.
Oct. 27, 1998--Named U.S. national team coach.
