If you had told the 25-year-old Bruce Arena that he was going to guide the USMNT to a quarterfinal finish in a World Cup one day, and coach five different teams in an American professional soccer league, he would’ve laughed at your face.

At 25, back in 1976, Arena had just taken his first job as a soccer coach with the University of Puget Sound.

Fast forward to 48 years, and the 73-year-old Arena is still going strong in the coaching world, recently being appointed as head coach and sporting director of San Jose Earthquakes.

His career has been full of wild rides and unexpected events, this is his story.

Arena was born in 1953 to Italian immigrants in Brooklyn, New York City.

He grew up in Long Island, where he took part in several sports, eventually ending up with soccer.

While in high school, he not only played for his school’s team but he also played a season with local club Hota SC of New York City's Cosmopolitan Soccer League— getting the first taste of club soccer.

Arena then went to Nassau Community College for two years, where he played both soccer and lacrosse, another sport that he loves.

From there, he went to Cornell University to get his bachelor’s. He went there to focus on his studies, not to play sports, but when the school’s both goalkeepers got injured, he was recruited to play for the team as their keeper.

Because of his performances, he was given the NCAA Most Valuable Defensive Player Award in 1972. Upon graduation, he was drafted to New York Cosmos in NASL and also got called up by the USMNT.

The Cosmos, however, released him even before the season started and he played just one game for the USMNT, never getting called back again.

He then went back to Cornell University to become an assistant coach and since his attempt at becoming a professional soccer player wasn’t successful, he took his chances at a different sport.

In 1975, he moved to Canada to sign for the Montreal Quebecois in the Nation Lacrosse League. However, his adventure lasted just a year as the league folded at the end of the 1975 season, forcing Arena to move back to the U.S. to coach. A career as a professional athlete wasn’t meant to be.

In 1976, he got his first head coaching job of a soccer team, taking over the University of Puget Sound’s men soccer team. 

He spent just a season there in Tacoma, Washington, before moving back to the East Coast for a Cornell University return as an assistant lacrosse coach.

By now, Arena knew he is more than good enough to be a head coach. So he only spent a season there and when the head coach jobs opened up at the University of Virginia, he took both soccer and lacrosse positions.

Now 27, Arena would go on to be the coach of UVA’s soccer and lacrosse teams for seven years, and then quit lacrosse to just focus on soccer by 1985.

His time at UVA saw immense success for the program, winning five national championships. He would also coach players who went on to play professionally and become key players for the USMNT— such as Claudio Reyna, Jeff Agoos, Ben Olsen, John Harkes, and Tony Meola.

Arena finally left the program in 1996 for the next big step of his career, coaching in a professional league.

He never got to play professional soccer, but when MLS kicked off in 1996, he wasn’t going to miss out on a chance to coach in the league. What made his first season even more challenging was that he also decided to coach the U.S. U-23s in the home Olympics.

Unfortunately, despite beating Tunisia and drawing with Portugal, Arena couldn’t get the U.S. out of the group stage. However, he won D.C. United the MLS Cup and the U.S. Open Cup in the first season. 

To top it off, he helped the team win the MLS Cup next season as well. Arena’s reputation as an American soccer coach was rapidly rising.

After a disastrous showing in the 1998 World Cup, the USMNT reached out to Arena for the head coaching job. For any American soccer coach, especially at that time, it had to be the biggest honor. 

20 years before, Arena was starting out coaching both college soccer and lacrosse, and now, he was being given the key to lead the USMNT for the 2002 World Cup. He had come a long way.

Arena would be wildly successful with the USMNT in his first stint, taking them to a quarterfinal finish in the 2002 World Cup, where they controversially got knocked out because of a German defender blocking the ball going into the net with his hand.

The USMNT won two Gold Cups under him and were ranked fourth right before the 2006 World Cup, their highest ever FIFA ranking still to this day. However, the 2006 World Cup ended badly, with the USMNT losing twice and earning a surprise draw against eventual champions Italy.

Arena left the USMNT afterwards, joining New York Red Bulls but his stint only lasted about a year. He would go on to join LA Galaxy, where he got to build a dynasty together with David Beckham, Landon Donovan, and Robbie Keane.

In eight years with the Galaxy, Arena won them three MLS Cups and two Supporters’ Shields.

He was enjoying his time in LA, until the USMNT came calling for the second time in November of 2016, following the sacking of Jurgen Klinsmann. Arena left his job behind to try to resurrect the USMNT and push to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.

Unfortunately, that would be the biggest dark mark on his CV. The USMNT just needed a point in the last game against Trinidad & Tobago to qualify, the team that were already eliminated and were using second string players. Shockingly enough, the USMNT lost and failed to qualify for the World Cup.

Area resigned a couple days later and took almost two years off from coaching. He then took the New England Revolution job in the summer of 2019.

He completely turned that team around. In 2020, they went deep in the MLS playoffs and reached the Eastern Conference final. In 2021, he set the MLS record for most points in the regular season with 73 points.

However, here comes another twist in his career. In August 2023, he was put in an administrative leave for “insensitive and inappropriate" remarks. He resigned a month later and was then suspended by the league. He was only reinstated by MLS commissioner Don Garber in December.

After a year of not working, it seemed like Arena was going to call it a day and retire. Not only is he 73, but he’s accomplished so much more than he could ever imagine— becoming the winningest coach in MLS with five MLS Cups and taking the USMNT to a World Cup quarterfinal which nobody else has done in the modern era.

But as long as he is healthy, Arena wants to keep working. So he is going to become the oldest coach in MLS and one of the oldest (if not the oldest) soccer coaches in the world. This is going to be a big challenge, taking over San Jose Earthquakes who finished rock bottom in the league, but he seems up for it.

Not only will he be the head coach, but he will also be the sporting director. So he is going to keep himself very busy for the next couple of years.

Arena will always be one of the biggest legends in American soccer, despite never playing the game professionally. Let’s hope he finishes his career on a good note.