Bruce Arena Player Quotations

What this group has managed to do is not let anything get in the way of their goals in qualifying and winning games. We miss a player due to an injury or a suspension, they don't blink an eye, they just move forward. If they're in games where the officiating may be a little bit questionable, it doesn't bother them. They just keep their concentration and get after the task at hand.

We've seen great improvement out of Clint this year. He's a player who is competing for a spot on the World Cup roster and I think he demonstrated he's progressed a lot.

My suggestion is that a better way to manage the game is just tell the player to take the jewelry off. That's hard to do when you have a young referee. Maybe a little more experience, maybe he'll disregard what the rule book says there and use maybe a little more common sense.

He scores goals in big games and that's what a real goal scorer is about. Obviously, he's one player that we have to focus on.

We look forward to the challenge against Guatemala. Obviously, Carlos Ruiz is the one player we're certainly well aware of. We know from qualifying they have a very good team, so it should be a real good game in Dallas. We look forward to our first visit in this wonderful facility.

Landon is an experienced player. He's a player we will look to not only lead us but to be important in our attack.

Over the past week he's finally physically and psychologically recovered from his turf toe injury. That has been an obstacle for Eddie for a good six months or so, and that's completely past him. ... I think over the next couple of months Eddie should be back in full form and be a player who's challenging certainly for a spot on the World Cup roster.

I thought he's had a tough go at it. But I think you see today he's a player with a really great upside. We're going to move him around as best we can and put him in a position to make the World Cup roster.

I wasn't certain how he was going to do, but I can see differences in Steve between now and 2001 when he first came to us. He is a much more experienced player and he is a very good player, and if he remains healthy, there's no reason to believe that he won't be in our first 11.

We see in Eddie a player with great potential, and certainly the injury put him back. He acquired a reputation that people expected a lot out of him, and I'm not copping out of that. We do expect a lot of Eddie, but at the same time he's a young player and he's getting there. His best soccer is probably for the next World Cup in all honestly. He's got a bright future, and we're hopeful he's moving forward.

Some were hunches, others were potential, others, we have until June 12 and think we can turn this player around.

It's like going from college basketball to the NBA. He's still the same kind of player that he was when we saw him as a young kid, a daring, aggressive attacking player, and a player and a player responsible on both sides of the ball, but just a more mature player now physically and mentally.

He's an extremely graceful athlete. He's a player with an excellent first touch and great vision. He has very good attacking qualities. But we've seen him in what I would call an amateur level.

If he's healthy we have two months to see if he can get fit to play in a World Cup. It's not like we need to rush him back into everything. We know the kind of player he is. There's a lot of quality there and if, over the next couple of weeks, we see steady improvement he's obviously going to get pretty strong consideration for the final roster.