Brucey’s back, baby

July 18th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanE

Just about five days after our buddy Bruce was politely fired from the U.S. National Team, he appears to be heading to the New York/New Jersey Red Bulls of the mighty MLS.Boy, isn’t that exciting? It’s certainly not the European job Arena was likely hoping for, but it is in the biggest market in the MLS and on a team that, um, has nowhere to go but up. (At 3-6-8, the Red Bulls are last in the league.) So, when the team inevitably improves as its young players begin to come into their prime, and a solid nucleus is formed at the club, Bruce will be there to reap the benefits.

Hmm…sounds a bit familiar.

Also, I just had a Red Bull. I might start calling them Bruce Arenas. Delicious.

(Also, U.S. Soccer, for some inexplicable reason, is celebrating The Hoff’s birthday today. Check the above link. What the?)

Bruce Almighty peaces out

July 14th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanE

Well, that’s that. Just got a little press release in the old inbox from U.S. Soccer. The title? “Bruce Arena’s Eight-Year Tenure as Head Coach of U.S. National Team Ends.”

Somewhat expected - the obvious next step is whether U.S. Soccer president Suni Gulati will get after Klinsmann the way everyone expects.

Not much else to say about Bruce here that hasn’t been said a thousand times already - thanks for the work man, good memories from 2002, not so good in 2006, etc etc.

Oh, ESPN has the story now too. That makes it especially extra official.

Your latest Juergen Klinsmann update

July 12th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

Last week, I went into all the reasons Klinsmann seemed to be a good fit for the United States Men’s National Team and noted that the decision on whether or not he would take over for Bruce Arena could go down by the end of the summer.

Well, last night, news broke that Klinsmann has decided not to renew his contract with the German squad (or ‘Mannschaft’ if you’re scoring at home) effectively allowing him the opportunity to coach the American team if an offer was put out on the table. (And he wanted to accept it.)

So yeah, that’s about it.

So in honor of us having nothing more to say on this matter at the moment, we’ll leave you in our best Officer Barbrady voice, “Nothing (more) to see here, move along.”

It appears as if this Klinsmann decision might actually happen pretty soon

July 5th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

As we all know, Bruce Arena decided to employ a ‘play not to lose’ style of soccer during the World Cup leaving many American fans (especially angry, angry, Eric Wynalda) a bit confused and downright pissed off with the Stars and Stripes’ performance in Germany.

It’s true that big Brucey has done a lot to advance the sport of soccer/the U.S. National Team, (blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda) but you would think that maybe, just maybe in a must win game against Ghana he’d take some sort of risk and employ something other than a 4-5-1 formation to try and come from behind and win the game.

Now, I’m of sound mind and am not blaming the entire U.S. debacle on the coach. I feel the players should take equal part blame. But hey, that’s just me. And as I’ve proven many times on this Web site, I don’t really know all that much.

But the futbol loving folk of this country want Brucey gone. And who do they want as his replacement? None other than the current leader of the recently ousted German squad, Mr. Jürgen Klinsmann.

Now, this has already been touched on shortly after the U.S. was bounced from the WC. Klinsmann lives in California, is married to an American and I’m pretty sure he utilized American trainers and sports psychologists for this WC. Apparently he’s got some really creative ideas (a revolutionary some might say) on how to run a soccer squad. Dude seems like he would be a good fit.

Well, you know, to make this post timely and all, an article coming out of Deutsche Welle today says that DFB president Theo Zwanziger is giving Klinsmann till Aug. 16 to make a decision on his future with the German Squad – the date of their first National squad game post World Cup. The article also references an article from yesterday’s Daily Telegraph that claims the U.S. has already offered Klinsmann a preliminary contract that will most likely exceed the 2.8 million a year he’s making with the German squad.

So yeah, looks like we might know within the next couple weeks if ‘Brooklyn Brucey’ will get the boot and ‘California Klinsmann’ will get the nod.

I hope that’s how it all goes down.

Bruce Arena: Firing the lads up

June 5th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

(To get you excited for the World Cup (if that is even possible, we’re hoping it is) we’ll be rolling out one World Cup related video a day until the whole thing kicks off Friday in Germany.)

So, the American footballers reached the quarterfinals in the 2002 World Cup, ousting our neighbors to the south, Mexico, 2-0 to get there. It was our best finish since – wait for it - 1930.

Here is head coach Bruce Arena’s pre-game speech before this said match. It’s full of ‘f’-bombs (too bad they are bleeped out) and Arena’s thick Brooklyn accent makes it all the more enjoyable.

USA! USA!