New U.S. Coach Must Embrace Latin Influence

So America won't be getting Juergen Klinsmann as its national team coach. There will be no regrets here. Klinsmann was not the man America needs.

For starters, his coaching qualifications were absurdly overrated, consisting only of his short stint as coach of Germany for this summer's World Cup. That's all. Just two years. The delirium that greeted his "success" in piloting host country Germany to a third place finish defies logical explanation. When a top nation hosts the World Cup — and Germany has a World Cup record second only to Brazil's — it should expect to win it. Not even getting to the final should be a national disaster, as it was when Italy failed to do so in 1990. Yet Klinsmann was deluged with accolades and — because of his California residence — became the popular favorite for the American job.

But yet another coach from a northern Europe background is the last thing American soccer needs at this stage of its development. For most of its 100-year history here, the sport has been in the grip of the northern Europeans — Germans, Scots, and English — and their influence has reached the point where it is a negative factor. The new America, with its vastly changed immigration patterns, now features a huge and growing Hispanic community whose soccer roots are primarily Latin American. The European tradition has found it difficult to accommodate this threat to its hegemony, with the result that the Latin talent has been largely marginalized.

This internal disconnect — and not the welfare of the national team — is the sport's no. 1 concern. Until it is solved, the national team cannot fully represent the talent available in this country.

There was no reason at all to imagine that Klinsmann was the man to correct this bias. Bob Bradley, who will serve as interim coach until next spring, offers a more hopeful alternative. Bradley knows the American scene, at all levels, as well as anyone. Although he has never spelled out a coherent position on the rise of the Hispanic game within America, he has recruited Hispanic players — he brought both Joselito Vaca and Amado Guevara to the MetroStars — and his year with Chivas-USA will surely have broadened his view of the Latin game.

Bradley's interim title is an uncomfortable one. He is evidently on trial, but has been told, in effect, that there are two or three foreign coaches who are better bets than he is, but they won't be available until the spring. Logically, one of them will take over at that point — otherwise, why not give the job to Bradley right now?

Presumably, the advantages of the foreign coaches lie in their greater experience of the international game. Maybe that is of overriding importance, but the success of former coach Bruce Arena — who took the national job with little such experience — suggests it may not be all that important.

The mention of Arena raises what is probably the biggest question mark about Bradley. The two men have been professionally close for years, coaching together in college, in MLS, and with the 1996 Olympic team. Is Bradley merely an Arena clone? "I don't have a great answer,"says Bradley. "There's no getting around the fact, his insights and experiences are very, very important to me. I know I can always count on his advice, and I continue to look toward him."

That is not as worrying as it seems. Arena's influence on the national team was largely positive, and the team cannot change its personality greatly over the next four years. The type of players available to Bradley, or whomever, will be no different from those Arena dealt with — mostly straightforward, physically impressive college products.

There can really be no advance beyond Arena's achievements until the national team pool begins to incorporate the Latin influence, and that is a long-term — or hopefully mid-term — process.

Of much more concern is that Bradley and Arena keep their interaction strictly at the professional level. There have been instances in the past — Bradley's drafting of Arena's son Kenny, and Arena's recruitment of Bradley's son Michael on to the national team — that bear the flavor more of personal friendship than of professional behavior. Professionalism is an absolute essential for the running of the American national team, which is not simply a squad of players performing on the field, but a highly financed, heavily sponsored program in the bigbusiness world of international soccer.

During his introductory press conference, Bradley made it clear that he does not believe that he will be automatically shoved aside when spring comes around. He expects to get the national team job, full time. Assuming that Bradley tackles the Hispanic challenge head-on, and that he downplays his association with Arena, this strikes me as a reasonable expectation. I do not believe that the most likely of the European candidates — the Portuguese Carlos Queiroz, currently the assistant coach at Manchester United — would bring anything vital to the job that Bradley lacks.

The one foreign coach who strikes me as a better alternative to Bradley is Argentina's José Pekerman. Should he show renewed interest — he turned down the original overtures of the United States Soccer Federation president, Sunil Gulati — that would open the promise of a totally new approach. Of course, there would initially be a language problem, as Pekerman does not speak English. But more than balancing that failing — which, anyway, is a temporary problem — would be the presence of someone totally grounded in the history, traditions, and intricacies of Latin soccer. No one of that background has ever occupied a position of authority at the American federation in its history. But such an unorthodox appointment should ensure an emphatically whole-hearted push to jolt the American system of player development and selection, and of the training of coaches, out of its still largely pronorthern-European tilt.

The stakes could hardly be higher. For when the American national team thoroughly reflects the wonderfully rich mix of talent that this country possesses, talk of America winning the World Cup will change from an idle fantasy to a realistic vision.

pgardner@nysun.com