Cary, N.C. – There will be 32 coaches in next month’s World Cup, and the elder statesman is not a wizened Italian whose name is on every lip from Sicily to Milan. He’s not a former national hero trying to lead his country back atop the world or a Serbian hired gun on his fourth national team.
No, the longest-tenured national coach in the World Cup is a former fat kid from Brooklyn, N.Y., who didn’t grow up with a soccer ball on his foot but a lacrosse stick in his hand. He’s the son of a butcher and a school bus driver and was an all-around athlete who didn’t play soccer until his senior year in high school.
Bruce Arena is as American as a Coney Island hot dog, as patriotic as a flag on the Fourth of July. It has been 30 years since the soccer craze engulfed American youth. It took about 25 of those years to find the one coach American enough to capitalize on it.
The World Cup begins June 9 in Germany, and the United States enters with its most respect in history. The winningest coach in American soccer shocked the 2002 World Cup by lifting the U.S. to the quarterfinals for the first time.
He has done it using the inspiration of such masters as basketball coaching legend Dean Smith, by replacing Eastern Bloc-style discipline with honesty and freedom. He pats on the back instead of kicks in the rear.
Finally, the U.S. is making noise on the world stage.
“Bruce is one of the best coaches, period, in any sport in this country,” said Kevin Payne, president of D.C. United, which Arena led to two MLS Cups, “and I think absolutely one of the best soccer coaches in the world.”
Though the United States’ No. 5 FIFA world ranking is exaggerated, other numbers show the U.S. isn’t the same team that limped out of France in 1998 with one goal in three World Cup losses. In the past two CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers, the U.S. has gone 16-6-10, and in the 2002 World Cup quarterfinals the U.S. took eventual runner-up Germany to the final minute before losing, 1-0.
Savoring American values
Watch Arena at work and you’ll get a glimpse into whom Gene Corrigan, the former athletic director who hired him at Virginia in 1978, calls “a gifted human being.” During World Cup training camp here this month, Arena could be seen bouncing compliments off players like balls off foreheads.
His portly frame, pudgy cheeks and, above all, his encouragement, gave off the air of a fatherly figure more than the father of U.S. soccer.
“They’d beat the crap out of me if I spoke in another manner,” the 54-year-old Arena said with a smile. “They do a lot of good things. These guys are working hard. They deserve positive reinforcement.”
During camp Arena has one rule: be on time. There is no curfew and no ban on families. There are no restrictions. The more rules you have, Arena has said, the more you have to enforce.
On one off day, some players could be seen in the hotel lobby, golf clubs in hand, being passed by players walking back from Starbucks. Yet if one player shows selfishness on the field, he is no longer on the field.
“He pushes us to go out and enjoy going golfing, going to movies, having time on your own,” forward Josh Wolff said. “He wants you to be in your own element, your own little comfort zone and do the thing that makes you happy.”
More than anything, Arena understands the American player. American players are surfers, entrepreneurs and recording artists. On many European and South American teams, soccer players are, well, soccer players. That, and gods.
“A foreign coach would come in and say, ‘You can’t do that,”‘ said Tony Meola, a World Cup goalie for the U.S. in 1990, 1994 and 2002. “Well, that’s not part of American life. The happier you are, the better chance you have to do the job. You bring in a foreign coach, it takes him four years to learn that. By that time, you’re through a World Cup.”
Meola knows. He went to the 1990 World Cup under Bob Gansler, the former under-20 coach whose boring, conservative style ruined any goodwill the U.S. gained from its first World Cup in 40 years.
Next came Bora Milutinovic, a Serbian who lifted the U.S. out of group play for the first time but worked the team twice a day for 2 1/2 years and, Meola said, “You had to be brainwashed 24 hours a day.”
Then in 1995 came Steve Sampson, Milutinovic’s assistant who alienated players to the point where their pitiful last-place performance in France has since been whispered as a thinly veiled mutiny.
U.S. Soccer fired Sampson and brought in Arena, a rising coach who led Virginia to five NCAA titles and D.C. United to the top of the MLS. But he’d done nothing outside American soil except scout some European games and scoff, “Other coaches I know, they worship other countries and their players too much. … I came back saying, ‘You know, I think we can beat Germany.”‘
The key is he says it to his players. And they believe it. No one gave the U.S. much hope four years ago, opening against a seasoned Portugal team featuring Luis Figo, a former FIFA world player of the year.
But unlike Sampson’s play-not-to-lose tactics, Arena attacked the Portugal defense as the U.S. scored three goals in the first 36 minutes to win 3-2. The Americans upset Mexico 2-0 in the round of 16, and if not for a spectacular game by German goalie Oliver Kahn, the U.S. may have reached the semifinals.
“He always makes you feel like you couldn’t lose,” said defender Eddie Pope, who played under Arena in D.C. “And part of that is, yeah, making you feel comfortable and making you feel confident. He’s not necessarily the guy who gets up and makes the motivational speech, but he says the right things at the right time.”
And he says one thing very often. Ten minutes before each game and at halftime, he gives his players one thought to ponder: “Be proud to play for the best country in the world.”
Planting seeds at Virginia
Arena played once for his country. He played goalie against Israel in 1973. The U.S. lost 2-0 and the only stars and stripes he ever donned again came with a whistle.
Soccer was never going to be his sport anyway. Born in Brooklyn, he moved to Franklin Square, Long Island, a mile from a mini-soccer stadium that was packed every weekend with ethnic teams. Until Arena reached Carey High School, he didn’t even know where it was.
Then again, soccer in 1960s suburban America was less popular than croquet. Arena was better at lacrosse. He became an All-American at Nassau Community College and Cornell but had a good enough soccer debut in high school to stick with it. He helped Cornell to the 1972 NCAA finals.
When Arena was hired at Virginia, he had to double dip as the assistant lacrosse coach. Virginia’s soccer program didn’t even have scholarships.
“He built that program pretty much from scratch,” said Dick Schultz, a Colorado Springs resident who replaced Corrigan at Virginia. “Bruce presents himself well and was able to recruit well. He built up the program into a dominant force.”
Arena didn’t insulate himself in the world of soccer, either. With his office next to the visiting locker room in Virginia’s basketball arena, he couldn’t. He’d often sit in his office before basketball games and eavesdrop on Dean Smith, North Carolina’s legendary coach, mentally preparing his team to take the floor.
Arena took notes the whole time and he has carried that to this day. Add the 1988 death of his twin sister Barbara to breast cancer at 37, and you have a dedicated, inspired coach who values family and living each day as if it’s his last.
“We’d be missing eight or nine players (to national team commitments) and still go out and win games,” Payne said. “I remember one game against Colorado. I believe we were missing eight starters and wound up beating Colorado, 6-2. They weren’t expecting to lose just because a few guys were missing.”
U.S. ready to pounce
Arena will need all the right words he can get in Germany. The United States’ Group E is arguably one of the toughest three groups with the Czech Republic, which finished third in the 2004 Euro Championships; Italy, one of the few teams considered a threat to favored Brazil; and Ghana, a dangerous but inconsistent newcomer.
At training camp, Arena remained unfazed. The true-blue American didn’t only talk about a good showing even though the U.S. could play better than four years ago and still not get out of the group.
He talked about moving the U.S. to unmatched heights.
“We’re a sleeping giant in this game,” he said, “and one day we’re going to be the best.”
Staff writer John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
