AP News, December 9th, 2006
U.S. Soccer officials can blame themselves next time they fret about why so few Americans are paying attention to their sport.
Given the chance to be bold, the Americans played it safe and boring. As usual.
Instead of hiring a national team coach so impressive it told the world they were ready to be players in the only game that matters everywhere else, they dithered like minor leaguers Friday. First explaining how a seemingly perfect match with German superstar Juergen Klinsmann went so wrong. Then clarifying this arrangement with an interim coach whose reputation is so dazzling, they stuck him with the JV team, too.
"(Klinsmann) and I agreed about just about everything," U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati said. "In the end, you have to agree on everything, and we ran out of time."
That giggling the Americans are hearing? It's coming from Italy, Brazil, Germany, France and England. If you want to be a powerhouse, it starts with finding somebody _ not just anybody _ to run the show. Now.
Soccer is the most popular sport everywhere else on the planet. In the United States, though, it's been a fringe interest or something for kids to do before they get hooked on basketball, football and baseball.
Last summer's World Cup showed the game has a rare window of opportunity here. Television ratings were bigger than anyone could have imagined, up double and sometimes triple percentages from 2002. From offices to bars to sidewalks, soccer was the game everyone was talking about.
Even with the Americans going home early.
ESPN just bought the rights for the 2008 European championship, and two of the games will be shown on ABC.
Major League Soccer is surviving, perhaps thriving. The league is expanding to 13 teams next year, beginning play in Toronto, and most teams should make money. There are eight soccer-specific stadiums open or under construction.
More and more Americans are playing in Europe's best leagues, and they're no longer novelties. Of the top five goalkeepers in the English Premier League this week, two are Americans.
To really move soccer forward, though, the U.S. national team must show it can play with the big boys on the grandest stages, year in and year out. That starts with U.S. Soccer finding the right person to replace Bruce Arena as coach.
Klinsmann would have been the perfect choice. Despite no previous coaching experience, he transformed a stodgy, defensive-minded German team into an energetic, entertaining offensive juggernaut that made it to the World Cup semifinals.
Though German, he lives in sunny Southern California and has made a point of learning the ins and outs of U.S. soccer. He and Arena are good friends, and he's spent time around the U.S. national team.
Most important, Klinsmann would have generated interest with Americans whose soccer knowledge begins and ends with David Beckham. He's good-looking, intelligent and articulate, and just look what he did for his home country. After decades of repressing even the slightest hint of nationalism, the Germans broke loose with a monthlong bender of jubilation and pride.
"He's an extraordinarily gifted coach," Gulati said. "I think it would have been a great situation if we could have made it happen."
Instead, the Americans proved again they're second-class citizens of the soccer world. Not only did U.S. Soccer not seal the deal with Klinsmann after five months, they couldn't decide on anybody.
For now, they've made longtime MLS coach Bob Bradley the interim chief and set a goal of finding a permanent coach by May. Never mind that that's only a few short weeks before the Americans set off for the CONCACAF Gold Cup and the Copa America, two tough competitions.
Bradley is a fine coach. He did an amazing job with the Chicago Fire, leading the expansion team to the 1998 MLS title in its first year. He's won more games in MLS (124) than any other coach and was an assistant on the 1996 U.S. Olympic team.
But his Q rating is practically nonexistent. If Gulati were that sold, he would have hired Bradley on the spot.
Giving Bradley the full-time job of shepherding the Under-23 team as it tries to qualify for the 2008 Olympics doesn't bode well for his prospects of shedding that interim tag.
Gulati wouldn't get into details about why a deal that was supposedly all but done with Klinsmann fell apart, except to say it didn't have anything to do with control or money. He's still certain, too, the United States can attract a top-level coach, maybe even a name from Europe that some Americans know.
But this was the time to make a big move. Six months is a long time to be out of the spotlight. Especially when soccer gets so little of it.
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Nancy Armour is a national sports columnist with The Associated Press. Write to her at narmour@ap.org
