Mourinho In The USA?

Before anyone condemns this article, I’m not trying to say that USA National Team Coach Bob Bradley is doing a bad job. That’s not what this is about. This is about an opportunity. If US Soccer really wants to become a world power, then it needs to finally do what every other major national team has done. Hire a major international coach to handle things for the team.

Simply put, the US has not won enough to be considered a national power. We tried to get a big name coach in Jürgen Klinsmann, but we would not cough up the money that it took to land him. How this could happen after we were embarrassed in Germany that same year, I’ll never understand. Now here is an opportunity for US Soccer to right that wrong, and fix things before 2010. Lets examine this situation.

Under Bob Bradley, the US has won the Gold Cup, but they have failed more than they have succeeded. Terrible losses in the Copa America,(although these weren’t really his fault, see the lesser players on this one.) and against the likes of Sweden and Brazil, one has to take a step back and question whether Bradley is the right man for this job. How much better would we be if say we had landed Klinsmann? Would we have taken such a terrible team to Copa? I don’t think that would have been the case.

So what would Mourinho bring to US Soccer? Well for one thing, a winning attitude. At FC Porto, he won the Champions League. At Chelsea he won numerous Premier League titles, and he put Chelsea back on the map as a club. The idea of him doing the same for the US has me incredibly excited. His swagger is something that this team needs as well. Outside of Clint Dempsey, can you name any US player that has the swagger that Mourinho has? I can’t think of a single one. Mourinho would have this team believing that it can beat anyone, anywhere, at any time. This something the US team lacks terribly.

And finally, could you just imagine him interacting with the US media? Most people are in the mindset that David Beckham is the best for soccer in the United States. I disagree. I think Mourinho would be loved by the media from the start. He speaks his mind, he doesn’t mince words, and he’s good for a quote at all times.

I hope this happens. It probably won’t, but if it did, US Soccer would take the biggest step it has taken in quite some time. And that has me more excited than anything else.

Brian Lomax writes at the US soccer blog, StateSideFooty.