Bruce Should Go, and Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

There are going to be a lot of articles, blog posts, and BigSoccer rants on whether Bruce Arena should stay with the US National Team. There are going to be some that are reasoned, some that are passionate, some that are nasty, and a few that are all three. Most, I feel, will just resort to a sense of despair over the World Cup and move straight into hyperbole. You can do worse for a post-mortem than over at US Soccer Player's and Yanks Abroad though, so they are the links I'll give you. Some of the nastier ones probably won't help your mood.

First, while I touched on this last night during the World Cup Roundtable podcast, I want to refine my thoughts here a bit. The fundamental thought is that the US Men's National Team needs a new coach, and Bruce needs a job other than the US Men's National Team. While the performance in Germany was disappointing, that alone is not why Bruce should go. This is not the same as the catastrophe of 1998. Then we were utterly humiliated, the players were hung out to dry, and no one had any reason for confidence in the program. This time the situation is different: We simply failed to perform. It's not like this some how demonstrated that the US is utterly incapable of performing on the world stage, just that we didn't. The possibility still exists, though the reality failed.

There are several people that will try to quantify what the 2006 World Cup did to US Soccer. They'll say things like "This has set the program back four years." Well, yes, but let's be precise in our angst. The program has been set back to June 22, 2002. That's the day we were ousted by Germany in the quarterfinals. We are not back to wondering if we can even hang with the big dogs, the way it was on June 4, 2002. Simply put, we have not progressed since that performance, but I don't feel that we've slid back below it.

Now, Bruce (and Landon, and DMB, but mainly Bruce) going through to make another run at the World Cup to redeem himself makes a nice story. Which is the problem. Four years is an awful long time for the story to be about the Coach. A game or a tournament? Okay, I can accept that. But a full qualification and World Cup finals period? Too long. That's just simply unfair to the players, the program, and even the coach himself. Four years of "Can Bruce succeed? Has he learned from his mistakes? Why isn't he X?" is just too much. We may not be England in the hyperanalysis of managing the National Team, but we're picky enough that it would be an issue. Even if Bruce Arena is unaffected, it would be an issue for everyone he had to work with, coaches, players, training staff, US Soccer Presidents, MLS teams... End all of it now. Bruce should move on. The story then can go back to the team, and not be about the coach. Sure, there will be analysis of whether Landon Donovan or DMB can come back, should Taylor Twellman have a permanent chip on his shoulder, and all of that. But those are individual player stories that don't have the same scope that Arena's story has now.

I am not going to be someone who wants to slander Bruce. There's a lot of that going on right now, but his accomplishments with the US National Team are overall positive. He brought the team to its best modern performance in 2002. He navigated qualifying with increasing panache. He got our hopes up, even when we knew better, for Germany 2006. His tenure as coach is overall a positive step. He deserves several coaching positions after this, probably in MLS. Anyone who says "I knew all along Bruce was a fraud" should not be listened to. (Note: See comments. I borrowed this phrase inexactly from someone whose views I am not trying to typify. Which can create confusion I did not intend) Bruce has more than enough success to make such accusations laughable. But we can't spend the next four years talking about Bruce Arena.