Il Bruce In The New York Times

The above photo is a nice little insight into Bruce’s day to day life, trying to work off the belly while watching tapes of his players in domestic action.

It’s from an article in the New York Times last weekend. You may have to register, but it’s worth giving the NYT your email address to read a pretty decent interview.

The article argues that Bruce’s success with the US stems from an understanding of what American soccer is, before getting some great quotes from him.

Read on for the highlights:

Andrei Markovits (professor and author): “I get the sense that Arena truly appreciates the predicament of the American soccer player. These are great athletes, but they are disrespected by their peers around the world and unknown by their own countrymen. Arena understands this, and I think it gives him tremendous legitimacy.”

Landon Donovan: “What we’re good at and why we’ve been successful is that we know what we are. A lot of countries pretend to be something they’re not. A lot of teams like to pretend they’re like the Brazilians. Well, you don’t have the athletes the Brazilians do. You don’t have the soccer knowledge and skill they do. We understand that. We’re not the most talented team in the world, by far. But we are one of the most competitive, with the best spirit, the fittest, and with some of the best athletes. And we use that to our advantage.”

Arena on the fluidity of formations: “Our rule of thumb is, we’re gonna play with a goalkeeper and try to play with a back four — and the next six, who knows?”

Arena on pressing the opposition: “If you’re better than the other team, it’s going to put them under a lot of pressure,” Arena says. “If you’re not better, at least you’re making it hard on them. So why not press? Psychologically, it can be good for your team. You get everyone involved. But pressing only works if all 10 players are moving together in the right way. Some countries don’t have the ability to have all 10 players on the same page at the same time. For whatever reason, that happens to be a strength of ours. We have a fairly intelligent team. I’ve said this many times: if they awarded the World Cup trophy on who could do crossword puzzles, we’d win it easily.”

Arena: “I have more confidence in our players than they do in themselves. A lot of them have an inferiority complex at the world stage. We gotta overcome that. I’m going there to win. I’ve got to make sure I’ve got 23 players that believe that.”

Arena: If the Czechs and the Italians play their best possible games “chances are they’ll beat us. But I’m here to tell you they are not going to play their best possible game against us. So we have a chance.”