Bruce Arena is one of the most outspoken personalities in American soccer. He has railed against “forces in the league” that prevented potential transfers, potential tweaks to the MLS schedule, and now he has set his sights on MLS’s latest upcoming expansion.
The former US National Team coach says the league needs to pump the brakes on future expansion in order to focus on developing young talent. “I think we need to slow down a little bit,” Arena told ESPN FC. “What we’re not prepared for yet is the size of the league. As the league continues to grow and get bigger, there are issues with travel, there are issues with suitable facilities, things that don’t make it easier.” His claim is not that the player pool is diluted, but there is too much of a focus on foreign players in the league instead of the domestic ones.
“I happen to be of the belief that — and listen, [the Galaxy] don’t have any excuses here either, we have international players — this league should be focused on our domestic players, and we’re losing that. We’re not the EPL, where you have these fabulous players from all around the world. I think we need to have the right balance there as well, domestic players to international.”
Arena is preparing to sign Ashley Cole and Jelle Van Damme, both foreign players to augment his squad with three foreign DP’s in it, but he has every right to bemoan expansion of league size before expansion of league quality, although this is the man who famously left Baltimore before the recent MLS SuperDraft, stocked with potential domestic talent, even started. He also passed on one of his third round SuperDraft picks today.
Arena did preside over the most successful World Cup run for the US since 1930, and one that hasn’t been matched since, and he has also won five MLS Cups as a head coach, two with DC United and three with the Galaxy. No one is arguing his place among American coaches in the sport, but with Arena’s famously outspoken nature about pretty much everything relating to the sport in this country, even this should give the average soccer fan pause.
He then went on to talk about MLS academies, which are improving steadily and producing more talent (as he will no doubt find out when Jordan Morris plays for the Sounders against his Galaxy three times this upcoming season), but there is still a gap with many players and their development.
“A couple of them make it. A couple of them get promoted or graduated; however you want to say it. And then others are done. It’s going to take time. We don’t have the resources and the time invested in the academy programs yet to really pay dividends.”
MLS is growing and improving, albeit incrementally. Progress is hard to judge, and even for the most successful coach of the most successful team in American Soccer history, finding a concrete way to judge that growth is difficult. But as Arena has, and always will, he will make his two cents known to anyone who will listen.
[MLSSoccer.com/ESPNFC/Inside So Cal]
