Arena was given much of the credit for the U.S.' success at the '02 World Cup, then was blamed for much of the team's failure in '06. Simon Bruty/SI

SI.com: What makes soccer in the New York area different from other MLS markets?

Arena: I'm not sure it's necessarily different except for these expectations that still exist of being compared to the Cosmos. That's what everybody says. So what I've tried to do is be honest: We're not going to be the Cosmos. We're not a superclub. This is what we are. We'll do our best to bring a good team to this marketplace. If everyone is waiting for the Cosmos to arrive, it's not going to happen. But a year or two down the road, this organization will have the finest soccer stadium in America. It will be a much better presentation of the product. And we hope to get the team better as we move toward that.

SI.com: When your hiring was announced, you talked about the commitment Red Bull is showing to the future. What sort of things are we talking about?

Arena: As a starting point, they've invested at a minimum $75 million in their soccer stadium. At a minimum they'll invest dollars in a training center. They've invested money in me and in this organization. Some of the teams in the league have a good commitment, but I'm not sure they have the kind of commitments we have. Having said that, the commitments Phil Anschutz has made in this league were fantastic.

I would not have come back in the league to any other team but this one. But this organization wants to make the sport better in this country. They want to give you the things necessary to be successful, and I've never heard that in this league.

SI.com: There have been questions about how serious, how long-term, Red Bull will be. Is there any chance they could pull the plug on this if they don't get what they want in the short term?

Arena: If they pull the plug, they're pulling out on a lot of money and commitments. That's not the impression I've gotten.

SI.com: I assume the MLS organization you know the most about is D.C. United. What are the differences between the organization they've developed in D.C. and what has developed -- or only partially developed -- here?

Arena: We're going to develop our technical side quite well. The business side I'm not worried about. That's [managing director] Marc de Grandpre's job. But we'll have at some point in time a technical director. We'll have another person in administration next to the technical director as well as myself. And then more staff. We'll have more support on the coaching end as well. Then when we build our training center, which we think is going to happen, we'll have a whole youth system to support our reserve team and our first team. It's going to be the real animal.

SI.com: How many youth-team players are we talking about?

Arena: It's a number of teams. Giovanni Savarese is already employed on a full-time level there. Already they have the best youth system in the league, but we want to make it better. We want kids out of that system playing for our senior team. Today we had three of them in training. We're going to try and do it for real.

SI.com: Is there a specific dollar figure Red Bull has earmarked for youth development?

Arena: I haven't been in that as much. All I need to do is tell them what we need. I don't need to say, "I need X amount of dollars." I'll tell them what we'll need, and we'll get it done.