Arena’s Comments Draw Some Criticism
Some Americans are telling Bruce Arena to think before he speaks.
Four years ago, U.S. Coach Arena lauded Major League Soccer as a reason for the Americans’ run to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. Now, some think he’s trying to blame the 11-year-old league for a first-round exit from Germany 2006.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber said.
“If I were him, I’d take a deep breath and think about what I say before I criticize anyone in American soccer.”
After a 3-0 loss to the Czech Republic, a 1-1 draw with Italy and a 2-1 loss to Ghana, the Americans went home with 15 other first-round hopefuls, bringing comparisons to the three-losses-and-out performance of the United States in France in 1998.
Six months after the 1998 showing, fired coach Steve Sampson blamed MLS for the failure, saying veteran players who left their European and Mexican clubs to come home for the start of MLS had become “soft.”
While not identifying MLS, Arena’s comments in the last several days strike many in the American league the same way.
“And the way for us to get our players to get better is: We do need to get more of our younger talented players in Europe,” said Arena, who won two of the first three titles in MLS with D.C. United.
“We need them in a year-round soccer environment. We need them playing in more intense games to help develop them mentally, as well as soccer wise.”
In a subsequent interview with ESPN on Monday, Arena, a member of MLS’ strategic technical committee, said specifically he was not blaming the league.
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Soccer great Johan Cruyff has found a new scapegoat for the Dutch team’s early World Cup exit: Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk.
“I don’t want to say the minister is to blame for the Dutch team getting knocked out, but she is definitely partly to blame,” Cruyff wrote in his column in the Netherlands’ national newspaper De Telegraaf.
Verdonk was not part of Dutch Coach Marco van Basten’s staff in Germany, but Cruyff said her decision not to grant talented Ivory Coast winger Salomon Kalou Dutch citizenship deprived the team of a strong attacking option.
Cruyff, star of the Dutch 1974 team considered one of the best sides not to win the World Cup, even went as far as accusing Verdonk -- known as Iron Rita for her strict interpretation of Dutch immigration laws -- of damaging the national interest when she refused to fast-track Kalou’s application for citizenship.
“Anybody who watched the World Cup and saw the effect it had on the country can’t convince me” that granting Kalou citizenship “would not have been in the national interest,” Cruyff said.
Netherlands was eliminated from the tournament Sunday night after losing to Portugal in the second round, 1-0.
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The referee controversy is not harming TV ratings or keeping the crowds away from the World Cup.
FIFA’s TV rights partner, Infront, estimates an accumulated TV audience exceeding 30 billion across the tournament.
Infront managing director Dominik Schmid highlighted an England-Paraguay first-round match that had a viewing audience in China of 62.9 million -- more than the combined populations of both participating countries.
With stadiums at capacity, more than 11 million people have turned to “Fan Zones” in downtown areas of the 12 German cities hosting matches to watch on giant TV screens.
“We’re living the biggest football party ever,” FIFA spokesman Markus Siegler said of the popularity of the Fan Zones. “Our expectations were surpassed.”
