Quotes of the Day

One national team coach is intense, a brilliant tactician and master motivator known for getting the most out of his players. He considers losing to be simply unthinkable, and his record shows it. The other is much more laid back, a Californian who loves to hang out by the ocean near his home at Huntington Beach. How mellow? He even asked his players how they wanted to play. Maybe the U.S.'s Bruce Arena and Germany's Jürgen Klinsmann got on the wrong team buses one day and just haven't realized it.

Arena, 54, a gruff Brooklynite with a tart sense of humor, has been in charge of the U.S. National Soccer Team for almost eight years. That's the longest tenure of any coach in the World Cup. He arrived in Germany with a polished squad that has plenty of experience, and is out to prove that its quarterfinal appearance in the last quadrennial was no fluke. But in the Czech Republic, Italy and Ghana, the U.S. faces one of the toughest draws in the tourney.

Arena is a former lacrosse player and footballer with one U.S. cap to his credit. He just happens to be an extraordinary team builder: "I understand what's required of the World Cup. How to prepare a team for it. I understand the planning necessary, and I understand the quality that players need to have to be successful at that level. And the only coaches who understand that are those who have been in a World Cup." Try to beat him.

Klinsmann, 41, the baker's son from Göppingen in Baden-Württemberg whose glittering career made him world famous, is now a Left Coast dude. He resides in California with his American wife Debbie and their two kids. He was quietly running a sports-marketing firm when the Deutscher Fussball-Bund (dfb) signed him. Instead of leaving California, though, Klinsmann shocked the German faithful by becoming a telecommuter. He made twice-monthly trips to Germany and used teleconferencing and e-mailing to manage remotely. "There's definitely an advantage to it, to go back and forth," he said from Geneva, where Germany was staging its final pre-Cup camp. "You get a distance, and can look at things from outside the box, which helps me extremely in this work."

To Germans, Klinsie wasn't outside the box, he was out of his mind. He brought in American sports trainers and techniques to Germany's tradition-bound system. When Italy thrashed Germany 4-1 in a friendly in March, the press howled for his head. But it was too late to change. That's a decision that's beginning to look smarter after Germany dismantled Costa Rica 4-2 in the Cup opener. Although, with Poland and Ecuador ahead of Germany, this group is not the strongest test of the Klinsmann method.

There must be jobs that have a shorter half-life than being the head coach of a national football team. It's just hard to think of them. Parachute test jumper perhaps? Only three of the 32 national-team coaches at the helm in 2002 are still there. Before Klinsmann, Germany first dumped Berti Vogts in 1998 (who made his way to Kuwait then Scotland where he was canned), then Erich Ribbeck, then Rudi Völler, who exited after a disastrous performance at Euro 2004.

After a playing career spent in Germany (Stuttgart), France (AS Monaco), Italy (Sampdoria) and England (Tottenham), Klinsmann, unlike most German players, had already been exposed to a variety of styles, cultures and systems. But being your Average Jürgen in LaLa Land — who was he next to Tom Cruise or Kobe Bryant, or Simon Cowell? — allowed him to cut all the strings. "Living in the U.S. and commuting to Germany changed everything," he said. " I learned things from Bruce Arena, for example; from different coaches in other sports in the United States ... It widens your picture, very definitely."

Not since the Wall fell has Germany had such a revolution. "First, we brought in an entire new generation of players, so it's an entirely new German team," Klinsmann explained. "Secondly, we introduced a philosophy of play that the team also defined. We sat down many times with the players and asked, 'What kind of football is it we want to play? What will be our identity? What do we stand for?" More of that ponderous, probing football? No way, dude. "We identified that [identity] as an attacking style, a very aggressive style," says Klinsmann. That's one reason, for instance, he chose the frighteningly fast but untested David Odonkor for the Cup squad and dropped the cantankerous veteran Christian Wörns.

This "go for it" mentality has an unmistakably American smell to it. And indeed, Arena has had a strong impact on Klinsmann's thinking. When he became U.S. coach in 1998, Arena's first step was to raise the team's expectations of success. "Bruce expects to win, always," says U.S. midfielder Landon Donovan. "That's the attitude he brought here, and that's the attitude we need to play with if we are going to be successful." It's an attitude born of experience. Arena has won at every level. He claimed the U.S. collegiate championship five times at the University of Virginia, where he coached for 18 years. He moved on to D.C. United in Major League Soccer (MLS), a league that was designed for parity — every team has the same salary cap. Arena shredded parity, even mocked it, as D.C. United dominated the early years of the league, winning back-to-back MLS Cup titles. Since the Americans' doormat finish at the 1998 Cup in France, when Steve Sampson was in charge, he has won 71 times.

The man will tell you flat out how he's learned to cheat teams such as Mexico like they do the U.S. (Talk about dirty tricks — Panama turned off the showers.) When the Americans play World Cup qualifying games in Mexico, the matches take place in Mexico City, at 2,300 m of smoggy, suffocating elevation. "You can't be prepared for that. It's such a lopsided advantage," Arena says. So during qualifying for the 2002 World Cup, he had the U.S. home game played in Columbus, Ohio. In February. Game-time temperature: close to freezing. The Mexicans were coldcocked, 2-0. "He believes that the smallest of things could increase our chances on the field. And he wants to get those perfect," says Sunil Gulati, president of the U.S. Soccer Federation.

The same can be said for his selection process. Half of his team plays in Europe from August to May, the other half in the U.S. from April to October. Juggling those opposing seasons, finding in-form players and picking new ones is far more complex for Arena than for European coaches. Blending them together is his particular speciality. "A lot of coaches can motivate individual players," says Donovan. But Arena extends his reach, molding individuals to fit in his team; convincing them they not only have to play well, but in a certain way. "He understands that better than anyone I've ever seen," says Donovan.

However flawless in preparation, the U.S. will have a hard time surviving Group E. "We could play better than the last time and still not advance," admits Arena, whose contract is up this year. Klinsmann, should he be retained as coach, has no intention of moving back to Germany, and no regrets about dismantling Germany's 20th century soccer machine. "We'd still believe it was the right thing to do," he said. "But in order to have more credibility and convince people, you need the result in the bag." Every retired striker from California knows that.

• BILL SAPORITO
• U.S. coach Bruce Arena focuses on team building, while Germany's Jürgen Klinsmann takes on tradition