Revolution Notebook: Bruce Arena Not Thinking About Retirement Heading Into 2023
Revolution Notebook: Bruce Arena Not Thinking About Retirement Heading Into 2023
New England Revolution Notebook: Bruce Arena Not Thinking About Retirement Heading Into 2023 Major League Soccer Season
Wednesday marked the first media availability of preseason for the New England Revolution who opted to go back in time to in-person media sessions with no virtual option. The throwback presser included an interesting exchange that featured WPRO’s Tommy Quinlan and Revolution Head Coach Bruce Arena.
With New England failing to make the playoffs in 2022 the theoretical window of winning an MLS Cup with Arena as the head coach could be closing. While Arena in the past has hinted he doesn’t want to be doing this forever he claims he is thinking about it heading into this season at 71 years old.
“That’s not my thoughts coming into this year,” said Arena when asked by Quinlan how much longer he is going to coach. “My thoughts are to try to get this team better in 2023 than it was in 2022. I’m down the list of things at the moment.”
When the club announced the acquisition of Latif Blessing via a trade with LAFC late in the off-season it did raise a few eyebrows. After all, the Revs had a trade last year for Ismael Tajouri-Shradi with LAFC that resulted in the club filing a complaint against Los Angeles. That complaint was later dropped by New England when they acquired Blessing via a trade per a report from Seth Macomber of The Bent Musket. When asked about the complaint being dropped Arena wasn’t interested in discussing the matter.
A related note was the training staff in 2022 with injuries plaguing the roster in addition to new players coming in with injuries. That is something the team is looking to improve on for 2023.
“Yeah, we need to do a better job getting guys back on the field sooner than we did last year,” said Arena on the injuries. “We lost players too many days. Those issues are inside our team, those aren’t public issues.”
Training Camp Notes
Jozy Altidore was not at Revs training camp on Wednesday. Arena noted his absence as a “personal issue”. It is worth noting that Altidore has been a participant in training this week.
Latif Blessing said New England is trying to help get his family to the United States from Ghana. Notes he is working with the club and hopes they are able to come soon.
Dave Romney is looking forward to trying seafood. He hasn’t gotten the chance to explore the area yet.
Djordje Petrovic will be on international duty with the Serbian National Team for an international friendly that will take place in Los Angeles on January 25th.
New England will continue training in Foxborough until they depart for Florida on January 29th where they will play a total of five preseason matches.