Bruce Arena
speaker
67 appearances
3 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard 12 Jun
Bruce Arena’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.
Appearances
And I, and, and when that opportunity came about for me to become the national team coach, I said, I want to bring pride back national team. And, and we built that. And, uh, And, you know, I knew Landon from, I don't know, I think I've mentioned this to Landon. In 1997, I had DC United at Bradenton in preseason. Oh, no. And Landon was pretty damn good.
And Beasley was playing, and Landon was shooting his mouth off. Yeah. Marco Echeverry wanted to punch him out. This kid has some balls. But I knew he was confident. And I remember watching him and DeMarcus. And then I do remember two days before we played Portugal in 2002, I told you and DeMarcus you were going to start. And you guys didn't blink an eye. And I was amazed at that.
Our two 20-year-olds. You guys were great. Yeah. It was exciting for me as a coach to be part of that, to have young, promising players. And then, you know, to this day, I always think about the leadership that Ernie Stewart gave us and Kobe Jones and and how it all blended in to make that whole thing work.
You know, if you look at every national team in the world, the coach is usually a domestic coach. Yeah. And I think when you have coaches that don't know our culture, our environment, our players, it's hard. And, you know, and listen, I'm sure our coach is a very good coach. Coaching international football is different than club football. It's a completely different job.
People ask me all the time, hey, what did you like this or that? What'd you like better? I go, they're two different jobs.
They're two different jobs and people don't understand that. And I think when you're a national team coach, you need to know your environment. You need to know the animals you're coaching. And we're lacking that. And if you're an American coach in the U.S. team, you know the culture, you know the pride and how important a national team is.
I think when you bring in somebody from the outside, they don't understand it. And especially in our country.
because we're so different so you know you ask me uh you know do we lack that kind of i mean i'm watching i'm shocked i'm shocked that we can't beat panama and canada it was shocking to me and and i don't want to be disrespectful i want them to do great in the world cup there's no question about it but uh uh we only have a year left now yeah time is running out and they got to get going
I know. I know.
I'm pretty close to being the same, but it is different. I'll tell you, all the clubs I've worked for, the players have been great, great professionals. The part that's kind of interesting today is the young American player. They all think they should be playing right away. We have 18-year-olds here that think they should be starting. And I always tell them, your time will come.
You got to work at it, this and that. And they don't want to hear it. And their agents are telling them this and that, and they want to go to Europe and blah, blah, blah. So you've got that. The only thing I try to do, and it's hard, just be honest with the guys. You've got a chance of developing a good relationship with players and a good culture in your team.
I tell them I make mistakes just like them. That's all part of it every day. But I want to be honest with them. I want to be fair. And I want to be there for them whenever they need me. And that's all I can do as a coach.
Well, we finished 29 out of 29 teams last year, and we gave up most goals in the history of the league. And I think this year we can, we can do better than that. We will improve on that. We'll, we'll finish 28th and I'll be the coach of the year. I think, I think we were capable of making the playoffs. Uh, it's not going to be easy, but I think we're capable of that. And, uh,
We have some good players here. We're going to have to have some breaks along the way, obviously. But that's my goal for the team is to make the playoffs. Can we finish? And that means in today's era of MLS, it's going to be in the top nine teams in a playing game. That's that's something we've got to shoot for. I think we can do that. You know, we have a decent roster and it'll get better.
But obviously, organizationally, we have to grow. We have to develop our facilities better so we have a better everyday environment. But as a starting point, we're improved and the guys have a great attitude. I have a great coaching staff with Dave Sarikens here with me again for like the 40th year. Yeah.
Showery Joseph, who I think is an upcoming terrific coach, is going to be a head coach in this league one day. He's terrific. Steve Ralston, who I think, Landon, you played with Steve?
And Aiden Brown, our goalkeeper coach. It's a great staff. They're doing a great job. And the players have been very supportive. So we're enjoying ourselves. We really are. And I think we have a chance to be decent.
Oh, tough question. Either national team... That is a tough... Club team. And I must tell you, Landon, the ride back on the bus after the Germany game in the 2002 World Cup was special.
We had a collective group of guys that knew that they gave everything they could possibly give. Did the best they could. And... We fell short, but we were so proud of ourselves. And that is clearly one of the great moments in my coaching career. But I look back, you know, I had been fortunate to be part of so many great teams at the collegiate level, having four consecutive national championships.
It was brilliant. The D.C. United run was great. Even, you know, obviously the Galaxy was terrific. Even New England Revolution, we won the Supporter Shield. That's right. Those things are special. And I don't want to take anything away from any of those teams. They were all great, and they were great experiences. You know, I'm very fortunate.
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