The Bruce is back…for a day

By BRIAN LEWIS

Former Red Bulls coach Bruce Arena made his first return to Giants Stadium today since parting ways with _ read: getting fired by _ the Red Bulls. He was doing color commentary for Metro Sports, and chatting for close to 20 minutes with the reports whom he once sparred with.

Here are some highlights. Was leaving their decision? Are you allowed to tell us?

I don’t even know if I am. You guys know. What do I need to tell you? You know that. We had a 30-second conversation. That’s it.

Surprised at Marc de Granpre leaving?

I was not surprised that there were going to be changes.

Any regrets?

In all honesty I should’ve taken off the last part of 2006. The only reason I didn’t was because of the insistence of Red Bull. My plan was to come in in January 2007. The whole idea was it was going to take three years to build a team. But at the same time, the couple of months I had in 2006 allowed me to observe and evaluate and make the moves we did in the offseason. You can debate pro or con on that.

Getting back into coaching something interesting to you?

Yeah it is. I talk to people. I had a potential opportunity in the offseason and I turned it down. I didn’t think it was time to jump right back into it. I’ll entertain anything that makes sense.

Was that opportunity domestic?

That wouldn’t be fair to comment on.

Does your settlement preclude coaching in MLS?

I could’ve coached the day after I left here.

Yeah, but could you have kept your settlement?

(Long pause before answering)

I don’t think I can comment on that. I think you probably should’ve been able to figure out from my answer …all our relationships have been theoretically terminated in a legal aspect. We don’t really have many obligations to each other at this point.

Thoughts on the Red Bulls.

It’s the exact same team as last year, same personnel, it’s almost the exact same start. It makes me feel good that what we were doing kind of made sense in weeding out some players and bringing in some others. They should be a little better this year and they need to bring in some players at some point to get a little bit better, but they’re moving forward. I think they’ll clearly be in the top half of the league this year.

Do anything differently?

I probably was surrounded by too many young and inexperienced people, it probably put even more responsibility on me. I would’ve brought in a more experienced person to help me on the stuff on the field or off the field. That could’ve been better. But you look back and say you could’ve made different player moves. A year later, it’s the same players out there so it couldn’t have been that bad. I think they’re making progress.

I’m happy to see (Mike) Magee playing again. One guy I’m really pulling for because I think as a person he was a reason solid pro last year and didn’t get the kind of recognition he deserved was (Dave) van den bergh. Van den bergh’s a real solid guy, he’s a very good player and he continues to be a real valuable player on this team. Jon Conway I enjoyed last year. This is his first shot to play full-time and I think he’s going to do fine. It’s good to see Dane (Richards) back; that was a tough injury. So there are a lot of good things. I watch them every game if I can.

Have you talked to Claudio (Reyna)?

I have not spoken to Claudio.(Long silence)

Thoughts on them going forward?

Listen, it’s an interesting challenge to manage a team from Europe. Essentially that’s what it is. It’ll take time to get that whole thing right. I think it’s a tough challenge. One of my views on success in this league is to have local influence both front your front office, ownership, where you’re really imbedded in the community. That’s an important part of having teams, and the teams in the league that are successful are because they’re in the community every day and they have tradition and a good base. That’s important. Red Bull was essentially an expansion team when I took over and it just takes time to find the right way.

How is Bob Bradley doing with the U.S.?

With the U.S. team now _ as with Mexico _ there’s not a challenge in terms of whether they’ll qualify for the World Cup; the way you judge how they’re doing is when they get in the World Cup, and you have to hope and keep your fingers crossed that the draw is one that gives them a chance to go forward. But I think CONCACAF is not as strong as it used to be. There’s not enough competition for Mexico and the United States, they’re going to be successful and not break into a real sweat during qualifying from what I’ve seen.

As a side note, Arena looked trimmer and younger; he said he hadn’t lost weight, just some fat, adding that he had time to take care of himself now. He’s living on a golf course and essentially enjoying life.

He added that he’s “Working on teaching a course at Virginia,’’ and that he has to finalize that by next week. When asked what it was on, he said “Graduate education course in leadership and athletics.’’