The next World Cup is 3 1/2 years away, but U.S. Soccer already finds itself on a tight deadline. With the sport at a crossroads in this country, the United States lost its chance for one of the world’s top coaches and may not have a replacement for six more months.
Juergen Klinsmann’s withdrawal from negotiations with U.S. Soccer last week left U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati in an embarrassing bind. First, he lost out on a world-renowned coach everyone in the soccer world felt was a perfect match. Second, Gulati had to appoint under-23 coach Bob Bradley on an interim basis, hoping to hire a permanent coach by June with camp starting next month.
“I said we had a deadline to have a coach by November, and I wouldn’t lose any sleep if it went into the first week of December,” Gulati said on a nationwide conference call Friday. “I lost a lot of sleep in the first week of December.”
The U.S.-Klinsmann merger seemed a foregone conclusion in July. Gulati had fired coach Bruce Arena after the the Americans’ disastrous 0-2-1 group-play exit in the World Cup in Germany. Klinsmann had just resigned after leading a young, inexperienced German side to third place, igniting dormant national pride all over the country.
Klinsmann, a German star in his playing days, cited burnout and went home, which happens to be Huntington Beach, Calif., where he lives with his American wife. After a few months of rest, Klinsmann and Gulati, who wrote a congratulatory e-mail to him when Germany reached the semifinals, started negotiations.
With inaccurate rumors swirling that a handshake agreement was made, Klinsmann abruptly cut off talks. Gulati ruled out money or control issues as sticking points.
“We agreed on many, many things,” Gulati said. “We agreed on just about everything. But in the end you have to agree on everything, and we ran out of time.”
The question is, if it’s not money or control, what ended the talks? Citing Klinsmann’s “privacy,” Gulati refuses to elaborate. Even in Germany, where the soccer-crazed populace was mortified to see Klinsmann quit its team, it’s a mystery.
“People don’t understand it,” said Ludger Schulze, sports editor of Munich’s Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. “The thing with Klinsmann is it’s not the money. You want to have a lot of rights to build a team in your own way. That was the same with the Germany team, and Germany succeeded with Klinsmann’s work.
“I don’t know why America refused.”
The general feeling around soccer is Gulati blew it. Many believe soccer in the United States is ready to ignite if only it had a national team to carry it. TV ratings during the World Cup were up to triple that of 2002, Major League Soccer has eight soccer-only stadiums open or under construction, and the majority of the MLS teams are expected to make money.
ESPN recently jumped into the sport by buying the rights to the 2008 European Championships with ABC showing two of the games.
However, the U.S. players scored only one goal in the World Cup and badly lacked star power. Claudio Reyna, arguably the best player in U.S. history, has retired. The U.S. desperately needs to advance up the world stage at the 2010 Cup in South Africa.
Saddled with the unenviable task of starting the rebuilding process, not knowing if he can finish it, is the 48-year-old Bradley, who quit as coach of Chivas USA to take on this challenge. He’s the winningest coach in MLS history and took the expansion Chicago Fire to the 1998 MLS Cup title. But he never has headed a national team and must balance the U.S. seniors with preparing the under-23s for the 1998 Olympics.
Bradley has little time to prove himself. The U.S. has friendlies against Denmark on Jan. 20 in Carson, Calif., and Mexico on Feb. 7 in Phoenix. Whoever gets the permanent job by June has little time to prepare before the 12-nation CONCACAF Gold Cup from June 6-24 in the U.S. and the Copa America from June 26-July 15 in Venezuela.
Finding a permanent replacement won’t be easy. While American players are littered across northern Europe, including two of the top goalkeepers in England’s Premiership, no American has coached on that continent. That’s why the list of 13 candidates Gulati started with and is returning to consists mostly of foreigners.
Gulati wouldn’t name names, but it’s believed highest on the list is Gerard Houllier, 59, a former Liverpool coach who led Lyon to last season’s French title and is now 15-1-1. Also mentioned are Jose Pekerman, 57, who resigned as Argentina’s coach after a disappointing quarterfinal exit; and Carlos Queiroz, 53, Manchester United’s assistant who worked with the U.S. youth development program in the 1990s.
However, they can’t leave until their club seasons end in May, leaving Bradley six months to show what he can do.
“I really can’t worry about the conditions,” he said. “I’ll let my work speak for itself.”
John Henderson can be reached at 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
