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Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Arena football’s time is up
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Off the Ball was in a very snarky mood, and was going to blog to that effect, when more blistering criticism of Bruce Arena hit the fan today. And hard.
It jolted all the snark in Off the Ball’s being, in fact, which was saying something for this day. MLS commissioner Don Garber, who’s normally a pretty mild-mannered guy, at least in his public pronouncements, didn’t hesitate to pull any punches, did he?
Memo to U.S. Soccer Federation head Sunil Gulati: If this episode doesn’t signal the end of the Arena era, I don’t what else would. Off the Ball can see no way that he can continue to coach the national team, even if he wants to. Not with these latest remarks, and the response to them.
“If I were him I’d take a deep breath and think about what I say before I criticize anyone in American soccer,” Garber said, sounding almost as blunt as Eric Wynalda, who in his ABC/ESPN studio stint has torn into Arena more than he ever did while playing under the ill-fated Sampson regime. Waldo is the Snark Boy on this subject, and he does it so well.
This is getting ugly, folks, but it was bound to happen if the U.S. flopped at the World Cup. Arena nearly lost his job a couple years back for pointed remarks about the MLS and American soccer development that alienated far too many important people in the sport in this country.
The Bruce won a reprieve, but in that time those folks have been busy sharpening their knives. Now they are out, and they are ready to use them. Arena is not wrong in saying that top American players will get the best competition in Europe — hello, Landon Donovan? — but it’s all in the delivery.
And in this World Cup, it didn’t seem to matter where the U.S. players were playing club soccer. Donovan was a no-show, but Claudio Reyna, who’s never played in MLS, made a crucial defensive mistake against Ghana. DaMarcus Beasley’s European experience has done him no good, while MLS up-and-comer Clint Dempsey was the most inspirational player Arena had.
In pointing out the obvious — that MLS is a good foundation for players who ought to get their butts overseas if they’re good enough — Arena once again got under the skin of the top American domestic league that spends an enormous amount of energy defending its limitations.
No doubt MLS has more than a little angst about losing Freddy Adu to Europe after the season, since he’s a year away from being eligible to play professionally there. Get a few months’ work in with the junior and reserve team, make a good impression, and get thrown out there when you’re 18. Will it face the prospect of a humbled Donovan trying to latch on in Europe a third time? It’s gotta be heavily on their minds.
These topics continue to be very hot ones on XM Radio’s generally solid World Cup coverage, especially the nightly call-in show with Dave Ungrady and Garth Lagerway. These guys are sharp, without Wynalda’s snark, but they hit away on many of the same points.
If there is a coaching change, Off the Ball nominates Wynalda. In some ways he’s even more direct and piercing than Arena, and still is the all-time U.S. goals leader. If Jürgen Klinsmann can shake up Germany the way he has, with little or no coaching experience, why not Waldo and the Yanks?
As for today’s final second round games, how fabulous is it to see Zinedine Zidane enjoy some farewell glory in a terrific comeback win over Spain?
And Ronaldo may finally have silenced his critics, and not just in becoming the all-time World Cup goals leader. Not bad for an out-of-shape fatso. When you’ve got that skill, no slim, trim Yank lad can ever measure up. Maybe we can learn from that before the century is out.
Thanks to Ghana for sparing the U.S. an almost certain humiliation.
