USMNT legend Clint Dempsey, coach Bruce Arena hash out differences, discuss rivalry with Landon Donovan

Years after their previous collaborations on the United States men’s national team, former coach Bruce Arena and retired star Clint Dempsey reunited and reminisced about the differences that caused tension during their years on the international stage.

The pair met on the latest episode of Kickin’ It, the CBS Sports Golazo Network talk show co-hosted by Dempsey. Arena was the final guest on the program, reflecting on his decades-long career in American football, including the suspension he received from MLS last year for “insensitive and inappropriate comments.”

Arena was the USMNT coach for the first two years of Dempsey’s international career, as well as the final months of his historic tenure as top scorer. He dealt with different versions of the ambitious player, which caused several challenges because Arena never had the chance to work with Dempsey in his prime. Dempsey has discussed the conflicts he felt with Arena in previous episodes of Kickin’ It, but had a chance to address the coach himself, inspiring flashbacks to incidents nearly two decades ago as well as moments that occurred much more recently.

Here’s a timeline of critical points in Arena’s relationship with Dempsey, including input from both parties.

Initial stresses

Dempsey made his senior national team debut in 2004, during his debut year with MLS side New England Revolution and after experience with the youth team. The cold war of sorts was almost immediate – Arena described Dempsey as a “tough character” who always “looked at me like he wanted to kick my ass.” Arena also said that Dempsey “may have said three words to me during the years we were together. He was quite reserved.” The fact that it took time for Dempsey to become a pillar of the team meant that there was always some uncertainty between the two.

“You bring me to camp and then I wouldn’t make the lineup and I’d be like, ‘Fuck you, man. Every damn time,’” Dempsey said. “I just felt like I was never — I wasn’t in his plans and then I would hear, ‘He’s a player who just likes to try shit.’”

Although Dempsey saw it as a derogatory comment, Arena said calling him “a player who just likes to try shit” was actually a compliment.

“I thought it was a great quality.” Arena said. “That means, ‘This guy has the courage to go out on the field and play and do this.’”

“I respect that, but I felt that – and Thomas Rongen is the same way – you felt that I had the quality and courage to go out there and play,” Dempsey responded. “But I didn’t play. I was on the bench.”

Arena attributed this to Dempsey’s inability to understand and issued a brief apology.

“I’ll be honest with you,” concluded Arena. “I don’t have a full understanding of your career with me and how things have evolved. I apologize.”

Road to the 2006 World Cup

By the time the 2006 World Cup in Germany rolled around, Dempsey had an important role in the USMNT and Arena rewarded him with their first roster spot for the tournament. The former player thanked the Arena for its role in a transformative moment in his career.

“I have to thank Bruce for choosing me in the 2006 World Cup squad, which allowed me to fulfill my dream of playing for my country in a World Cup and scoring in a World Cup, which allowed me to go for the Europe.” Dempsey said.

Dempsey spent five years at Fulham, scoring 50 Premier League goals in the process, before a season-long spell at Tottenham Hotspur that preceded his return to MLS with the Seattle Sounders. Things may have worked out in the long run, but the journey to the 2006 World Cup was complicated thanks to the dynamic between the national team and the Revolution, where Dempsey was still playing.

“I know early in your career I was going to bring you to camp and you had a falling out in New England,” Arena said. “And they asked me not to bring you to camp because I would be showing them off.”

Dempsey said Arena’s exclusion increased tension between the two.

“This was already after that January camp, when things were going well and this was in a World Cup year, this was in 2006,” said Dempsey. “Then something happened to me and a Revolution player and then I didn’t get called up. It was an away friendly in Germany that I didn’t go to. It almost ruined it, I think, that I didn’t make the team, you know what I mean? This happened in a World Cup year.”

Arena felt that Dempsey should take some responsibility for the lack of communication between the two during that period.

“I would say this, that you should be to blame for this,” Arena said. “You should have said something. What am I going to do, cut off your head? If you have a problem, you should say something, because I always thought I tried to keep an open dialogue with the players. I would say, ‘If there’s a problem , You need to talk to me.’

Back to square one in 2017

Arena left his role at the USMNT after the team failed to make it out of the group stage of the 2006 World Cup, but returned in 2017 amid a troubled campaign to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. Mexico and Costa Rica in the opening matches of the final round of Concacaf World Cup qualifying, leading the US Soccer Federation to fire Jurgen Klinsmann and rehire Arena.

At first, Arena and Dempsey felt they had made progress. The two sat next to each other on the plane after the USMNT’s 1-1 draw in Panama in March, the first time Arena feels like they properly met.

“I thought that was excellent,” Arena said. “This is the first time I’ve really met you. It’s been great and there’s always been a little bit of distance between you and me and probably the coaches. That’s probably how you are and what we’re seeing here is the challenge that the coaches have, especially with elite players.”

At 34, however, Dempsey felt his role in the national team was diminishing. He said his relationship with Arena changed only in the coach’s third qualifying game, when the USA beat Trinidad and Tobago in June.

“I think the feeling of a little pain started when I was substituted in the game against Trinidad in Denver,” Dempsey said. “That was, for me, when our relationship changed a little bit. I thought, from that moment on, I was seen as a super subtype player and that didn’t sit well with me, but like you said, I was a bastard and that was my mentality.”

Dempsey also questioned Arena’s tactical decisions during the USMNT match in Trinidad and Tobago on the final day of World Cup qualifying, when the team lost 2-1 and missed out on the 2018 World Cup – the first time he would lose the competition. since 1986.

“Then we went to Trinidad and some of the decisions that were made – I’m not saying it should have started, but having Bobby Wood with Jozy [Altidore]I think Christian [Pulisic] being in that attacking role, there wasn’t much defense in a game where you needed to get a result, at least a draw, to get out of that group,” said Dempsey. “Then the conversation after the game. You brought me in at halftime, I hit the post, did what I could, and then you came up to me and said, ‘I appreciate you giving it your all,’ and I said, ‘Well, yeah. That’s what I always do. That doesn’t change. I don’t come back from two heart procedures to play. I want to be here. I want to win. I want us to be successful.”

The Dempsey-Donovan rivalry

There was a long debate about the talents of Dempsey and Landon Donovan during their playing days, as they both vied for the unofficial title of best USMNT player. Dempsey said he always felt that Arena was “a Landon guy”, as the person who actually gave Donovan his first real chance in the USMNT, playing a major role in Arena’s 2002 World Cup team that went to the quarterfinals. Arena and Donovan also successfully partnered at LA Galaxy later on, becoming one of the most successful teams in MLS.

“I think I felt that way and that could have been insecurity,” Dempsey admitted. “That could have been what I needed to motivate me and say, ‘I’m going to show everyone.’”

Arena quickly nixed the idea.

“I had the utmost respect for Landon,” Arena said. “I brought him at 17, 18 years old to the national team. His first game was in Los Angeles against Mexico in a friendly at the LA Coliseum in front of 90,000 people and he scored a goal. coaching DC United and we went to Bradenton for a preseason camp and Landon was a complete idiot, talking shit and everything on the field. [Marco] Etcheverry was going to kill him, but he was fantastic and [DaMarcus] Beasley was playing and I saw those guys and thought, ‘Wow. These guys have a future,’ and I brought him in and got to meet him.”

At this point in the rivalry, however, Arena suggested that he could choose Dempsey or Donovan.

“Landon is a great guy,” Arena said. “If he had the advantage that [Dempsey] if he had, Landon would have been unbelievable – not that he wasn’t. He was a great player but didn’t have the enthusiasm that Clint brought, but am I a Landon guy? I’m everyone’s guy.”