Inter Milan’s Mourinho talks a good game about coaching U.S.
It has been an interesting week for coaches, what with Diego Armando Maradona being, in his own words, “stabbed in the heart” by Argentina’s astonishing 6-1 loss to Bolivia and Sven-Goran Eriksson being, so to speak, stabbed in the back by Mexico after its predictable 3-1 loss to Honduras.
Then there is Inter Milan’s Jose Mourinho, the world’s highest-paid soccer coach -- unless you divide the number of words he speaks into the number of dollars he earns. In that case, he might be underpaid.
Mourinho visited the U.S. recently to check out facilities for Inter’s upcoming visit this summer. Having been here with Chelsea before, one would have thought Mourinho already had a pretty good idea of the lay of the land.
In any event, the Portuguese maestro sat down for an interview with the top soccer broadcaster in the U.S., ESPN’s Derek Rae, and revealed that it might be interesting to one day coach the U.S. national team.
Not that he has been asked, mind you.
The comment caused Bob Bradley, the incumbent, to sit up a bit straighter in his chair, not to mention bringing loud laughter from several quarters. Mourinho coaching the U.S.? Not a chance. Juergen Klinsmann turned down the opportunity for very valid reasons. The same would apply to Mourinho.
“The U.S. can be in my future, yes,” Mourinho told Rae. “Not just as a national team manager, you never know, but even a club manager because this is the kind of country where you could do something.
“You could do something because, uh, huge potential. You are a country of sports where everybody’s in love with sports, so if somebody with big knowledge of the game in high level in Europe could come and give a little push, a little contribution, I would be pleased.”
Sunil Gulati, the president of U.S. Soccer and the man who tried to land Klinsmann before settling on Bradley, met with a handful of reporters in Nashville on Wednesday and had plenty to say about Mourinho’s presumption.
“He’s an outstanding coach,” Gulati said. “I think we have an outstanding coach. He’s also said he would love to coach England at some point, he would love to coach Portugal at some point, and a number of other places. He’s mentioned Manchester United and Chelsea, again, at some point, so he’s going to be a very busy man or coaching until he’s very old.
“But he’s a great coach and a provocative interview, as well. So I’m not sure which of those two were speaking in that particular discussion.”
Since then, Mourinho has laid out a different future for himself. Having won two English Premier League titles with Chelsea and poised to win a Serie A title in Italy with Inter Milan, he wants to complete a triple crown of honors by winning the La Liga championship in Spain with whichever team could afford him.
“Once my experience with Inter comes to an end, I hope to go and coach in Spain because my aim is to win league titles in the top three competitive leagues in the world,” he told Italia 1 television. “All that’s missing is La Liga.”
Bradley’s goals are more modest. All he wants is to get the U.S. to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and then not have the team implode once it arrives.
Given the lackluster performance the Americans exhibited in a fortunate tie at El Salvador before rebounding to trounce Trinidad and Tobago with style, that might be a tall order.
One reason Klinsmann rejected the U.S. post was the lack of pressure on players in the U.S. They don’t get an earful from coaches, fans, the media or even from each other when they fail. There is no punishment for mailing it in, either in Major League Soccer or at the national team level.
Bradley is the one who should have been hauled on the carpet for his players’ halfhearted performance in San Salvador, but because they salvaged a tie with a late rally, he escaped.
Recalling Klinsmann’s comments on pressure, I asked Gulati whether he had “gotten in Bradley’s face” after the feeble showing in Central America.
“No. I don’t do that. It’s not the nature of our relationship,” Gulati said. “We play 18 games in this [qualifying] process. We’re going to play some not as well as others. We had a bad game. I don’t think we had many players playing up to their capacity.
“Were we disappointed that we played the way we did? The answer is, ‘Yes. Of course.’ Were we disappointed we didn’t get three points? Yes. Were we disappointed in the overall performance? Yes.
“Did anybody panic? The answer is, ‘No.’ I didn’t get in Bob’s face. We talked about it. But he’s a pretty stable guy and this is a long process.”
Fair enough. But sooner or later in American soccer, the gloves have to come off.
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