Coaching, American-style, is key to US team's progress

By Tony Czuczka May 25, 2006, 21:35 GMT

Bruce Arena, coach of US national team, passes his squad during team practice in Bochum, Germany, Monday 20 March 2006. EPA/FRANZ-PETER TSCHAUNER

Cary, North Carolina - For a man with Italian roots, United States football coach Bruce Arena hardly fits the image of the emotional Mediterranean.

But with his low-key style and a strong dose of positive thinking, the 54-year-old New York native is leading the US squad for a second World Cup in a row and will be the longest-serving coach at the championship.

Arena remembers being captivated by a poster of the Italian national team in his grandfather's Brooklyn food store when he was about six. Looking ahead to his team's clash with Italy on June 17 in Group E, he briefly gets personal.

'It's wonderful. My grandparents were born and raised in Italy,' he said during the team's recent training camp at a tree-lined park in North Carolina. 'That's fun. That's an exciting part of this competition.'

But he quickly adds that the other first-round games - against the Czech Republic on June 12 and Ghana on June 22 - are just as critical if the U.S. is to survive the group and reach the last 16.

Arena took the team into the quarter-finals in 2002, and he faces pressure from the American media and fans to do even better this year. 'We can beat anybody,' is his standard reply.

Yet even making the semi-finals may not be enough to satisfy American sport fans' love of quick success, and a first-round exit could set back the growth of 'soccer' in the land of American football, basketball and baseball.

'That's the only thing we understand, is winning,' said Arena, whose admirers include Germany's California-based national coach, Juergen Klinsmann.

Having no superstars may actually help. Arena has assembled a team he hopes will have the right balance of solid World Cup experience and freshness, team spirit and individual creativity.

'Everybody gets along, everybody plays their role,' said forward David Ching.

Players value Arena's light touch - he's a team builder, not a top-down micromanager. During breaks in the daily training, he and some players hit a nearby golf course to relax.

'The German and the Dutch way of doing things is, 'We eat at this time and everybody is there and they all have the same outfit on.' You know, that's not the American way,' said US goalkeeper Kasey Keller, who plays for Germany's Borussia Moenchengladbach.

Arena became national coach in October 1998 after managing college teams and winning two U.S. soccer league titles with Washington side DC United in the 1990s.

His international success has won over those U.S. football officials who looked back at Bora Milutinovic - the U.S. coach in 1994 when the country hosted the World Cup - and yearned for a foreign manager. 'He's not a coach that jumps and screams the whole game,' said U.S. striker Eddie Johnson.

Arena has also hinted at his on-field approach. Expect his side to try to close the spaces on their opponents and look for the fast break.

'When we get to the World Cup, we're going to win games because we're very good defensively,' he told Sports Illustrated magazine. 'That's the hallmark of our team, so pressuring the ball is critical.' Another good World Cup showing could be a springboard for Arena.

'I'm waiting for all those offers from Italy to come in,' he tells an Italian reporter, not entirely in jest. The way Arena says it suggests he thinks it's about time.