9. Arena's teams use the soccer equivalent of Bruce Pearl's pressure defenses with Tennessee basketball. "When we get to the World Cup, we're going to win games because we're very good defensively," Arena says. "That's the hallmark of our team, so pressuring the ball is critical. We can make adjustments from game to game, from half to half. A lot of teams drop off and concede half the field, or they'll passively pressure but not worry about it. That's got to be our foundation. In MLS it doesn't happen because the league isn't good enough yet, so in our national-team camps it has to be understood by every player that that's part of playing with this national team. Because we're not preparing to beat El Salvador, we're preparing to beat Brazil one day. That's the only way we're going to do that right now. We're not going to beat them 4-3."

10. Jürgen Klinsmann is a big Arena fan. In January 2004, Klinsmann read that the U.S. team would be training in Southern California, and so he called Arena and asked for a coaching "internship," as Klinsmann puts it.

"He said come over, so I joined in for those two weeks and he basically made me one of his assistants," Klinsmann says. "So I was there in my U.S. tracksuit next to him, and he gave me some jobs to do. Then a half-year later I get a call from the German FA to take over that job."

What did Klinsmann see in Arena's managerial abilities? "Everything is planned perfectly," he says. "Practice preparation, execution of the practice sessions, the long-term thoughts he always has in mind. I think it's a huge advantage for a U.S. coach having an academic background. Almost all the coaches come from the college system, and the knowledge they bring with them from the colleges compared to many coaches overseas is a plus."

11. Arena might already be the longest-serving national-team coach on the planet. I've spent way too many hours researching this, and I haven't been able to find a single national-team coach with a longer tenure than Arena has. FIFA, unfortunately, doesn't keep track of such things, and I've been left to compare the itemized World Player of the Year votes from 2001 and 2005 to see which voting national-team coaches are the same in both. (It's not complete, though, since not every national-team coach votes.)

But if you've read this far, you might be hard-core enough to help us out. Is there anyone out there who has served longer than Arena (who was appointed on Oct. 27, 1998)? The only coach I've found who might have a longer current tenure is San Marino's Giampaolo Mazza, who was hired at some point in 1998 (though I'm still trying to find out exactly when).

In other news

Keep an eye out for the U.S. theater debut of Goal!on May 12. The film, about a Hispanic soccer player from Los Angeles who makes it big in Europe, includes one of my favorite actors (Alessandro Nivola of Junebug fame) and a raft of appearances by the glitterati of international soccer, including David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane, Raúl and Sven-Göran Eriksson. (Renaissance man Allen Hopkins, a rising star in the soccer commentating ranks, is an associate producer.)

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