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June 22, 2006
RETIRING THOUGHTS
Arena, Reyna, McBride, Pope are considering calling it quits at the international level
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Brian Mcbride goes up for a header with Ghana's John Mensah.
Tony Quinn |
By Michael Lewis
BigAppleSoccer.com Editor
Nuremberg, Germany -- The U.S.'s 2-1 World Cup loss to Ghana could very well be the international swan song for coach Bruce Arena and three veterans who played vital roles on the team the past decade.
Team captain and midfielder Claudio Reyna, forward Brian McBride and Eddie Pope Thursday said they probably have played their last match for the U.S. National Team after the Group E defeat eliminated the team from the competition.
Arena has the most World Cup seniority of any of the 32 teams in the competition, having directed the U.S. since October, 1998 and in the 2002 World Cup. Arena, who is under contract to U.S. soccer until the end of the year, would not say if he would step down.
“I have some other opportunities that I need to examine as well,” he told reporters, “but that’s not important right now.”
Asked if he wanted to go through this again, Arena replied with a laugh, "If you ask me right now, probably not."
If Arena wants to return, it will be up to new U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati, who will have final say on the coaching position.
"As I said before tournament," Gulati said. "Bruce isn't going to be evaluated solely on three games. He didn't become a bad coach in these three games. He's had an extraordinary record for us and has done extraordinary things for American soccer. And that's not in anyway a sendoff or a kiss-off comment."
Gulati added that U.S. Soccer officials will "sit down and analyze the situation. We'll talk internally and we'll talk with Bruce. We don't make decisions or solve issues by changing the coaches and then figuring out what went wrong."
But the World Cup is the sport's grandest event "where the entire world is watching and this is where you measure yourself," Gulati said.
Arena is scheduled to address the media Thursday at the U.S. team hotel in Hamburg.
Reyna, a Springfield, N.J. native who turns 33 on July 20, is ready to call it quits.
"It's probably done," he said. "It's it. I knew pretty much before that it was the last World Cup for me and for me it was the right time now. The next World Cup is far away for me. I just wanted to play this as the last World Cup and that's it."
Reyna, who has said he would like to return to the states and play in Major League Soccer, preferably with the New York Red Bulls after his contract with Manchester City (England) expires next year, was replaced by Ben Olsen in the 40th minute after straining his MCL.
"It's tough to see a guy who meant so much to go out the way he did, especially getting hurt," midfielder Clint Dempsey said. "He's a guy who helped the game in America."
McBride, who turned 34 on June 19, said it indicated that the match could be his last.
Asked it was he would continue to play for the U.S., McBride replied, "Oh gosh, I'd be surprised. We'll see."
Pressed as to why he would retire, the Fulham striker said, "Many reasons."
Pope, 32, a former MetroStars defender, sat out the match with a red-card suspension for a pair of yellow cards in received in the 1-1 draw with Italy.
"This is probably it, yeah," he said.
Seeing your last game go by while being suspended wasn't the way Pope had hoped to go out.
"Anytime you can't get a chance to play a game, it's not fun, obviously," he said. "It's difficult. I wish we could have gotten some better calls near the end.".
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