Why Bruce Arena got hired (and Jurgen Klinsmann got fired) as USMNT head coach

In the end, it came down not to the things said or unsaid, or the things done, undone or not done at all. It came down to results. Because sports are delightfully simple that way. Even when a coach’s aspirational appointment represents a yearning for something bigger and better, a national team program transformed, the job is still to win games of soccer.

Jurgen Klinsmann did not win enough games of soccer.

[ Arena takes over | Klinsmann thanks fans | Lessons learned | The Klinsmann legacy ]

So admitted his former boss, U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati, on Tuesday in a conference call with media, debriefing the five-year Klinsmann Era and announcing the Second Bruce Arena Epoch, which begins on Dec. 1, about a decade on from when his first spell in charge was capped at eight years – by Gulati.

“The easiest metric, the one that’s most important for all of us in this business, is wins and losses,” Gulati said. “0-2 put us in a very difficult position. We would have liked to see a better start to the hex; to see the team in Rio and playing in the Confederations Cup next summer.”

That is to say, what did Klinsmann in was the winless start to the final round of World Cup qualifying – the hexagonal round, in which the first two games were lost to Mexico at home and to Costa Rica on the road in the last 10 days – the failure for the under-23 Olympic team to qualify for the Summer Olympics, for a second time in two cycles, and the senior team missing out on the Confederations Cup, also for a second straight time.

“None of us expected the results we got,” Gulati said. “It’s never based on a single game. But we felt those two games, combined with everything else we had, we had to go in a different direction to maximize our chances.”

“It’s an overall record and you get new data points,” the longtime president continued. “Really starting at the [2015] Gold Cup, we’ve had some very up-and-down results. The Gold Cup was a big disappointment for everyone.”

A semifinal upset by Jamaica at that Gold Cup was followed by a loss to Mexico at the Rose Bowl in a Confederations Cup playoff, which was followed by a Copa America Centenario wherein the U.S. reached the final four but also suffered some one-sided losses to Colombia and Argentina.

“All of those things are part of the evaluation,” Gulati said.

The coaching change re-installing Arena unfolded in the span of 48 hours. Klinsmann was fired in person in Los Angeles on Monday. That day, Gulati and U.S. Soccer CEO Dan Flynn also met with Arena, head coach of the L.A. Galaxy for eight years. A deal was hashed out Tuesday morning and approved by the board 15 minutes later. The agreement with Arena, who was also the national team head coach from 1998 through 2006, runs through the 2018 World Cup, with no options to extend it further.

Gulati acknowledged the disappointment in the outcome of the ballyhooed Klinsmann Era, especially considering all the hope, hype and investments made.

But the half decade spent striving for something that the German ultimately couldn’t deliver was hardly a waste, Gulati argued. The former World Cup winner had imbued the national team with a fresh ambition and stocked the talent pool. And he’d been good for business.

“Jurgen, by who he was as much as by what he did, elevated the program in terms of its publicity both in the United States and around the world,” Gulati said. “That’s a positive thing for the national team.”

In a sense, Klinsmann was a victim of the evolution he helped spur along. As the national team has grown in social stature and cultural relevance, the expectations have risen commensurately.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that pressure has increased on everybody involved in the game,” Gulati said. “Our fans are far more intelligent about the game. Our fans know the game in a way that may not have been the case in such numbers 20 years ago or 15 years ago.”

There was a louder clamor for Klinsmann’s firing than with any U.S. manager before, which is a credit to how far the game has come – and so, indirectly, also to Klinsmann himself.

And so it’s a tad ironic that in the midst of all this progress, the national team will again be entrusted to its longest-serving (and winningest) coach ever, who at 65 is already the only man to take the U.S. to two World Cups and is expected to take it to a third.

“I don’t view it as Bruce 2 but Bruce 2.0,” Gulati said. “He’s got far more experience than he did when he had the national team the first go-’round and has proven and re-proven many times, at all levels of the game in the United States, that he’s an extraordinarily capable and successful coach.”

“I never expected to be back in this role,” Arena said on the call. “I don’t think the age matters, as a starting point. We just elected a 70-year-old man as president of the United States. We’re still going strong in this age group.”

Arena, above all, seems delighted to get to cap the most decorated coaching career in American soccer history, by far, with another go with the national team. “I hate to say this now to Sunil, but I would have done this for free,” he said. “It didn’t work out that way; we did agree to a contract.”

The sometimes affable and sometimes crotchety lifer from Long Island – who quickly walked back past comments that he preferred his national teamers American-born at a time when plenty hold dual passports – argues that the national team have made long strides in his absence.

“U.S. Soccer has made great progress. With the growth of [Major League Soccer], with our players that are playing abroad, we have a very good pool of players,” he said. “I believe since I’ve left in 2006 the pool of players has certainly expanded.”

Arena has made good use of his time away, winning three MLS titles with the Galaxy to add to the two he’d won with D.C. United in the league’s early years. “I’ve learned a lot,” Arena said. “I’ve had 10 years on the field at the club level and I’ve had the opportunity to work with some of the most talented players in the world. I’ve continued to grow on the tactical side, continued to grow in how to deal with players, learning how to plan, playing away and playing in big matches.”

“I think 10 years later I’m better prepared for this job than I was in 1998 and 2002 and also late 2006,” Arena added. “I’m hopeful the experiences I’ve had are going to benefit the program.”

Certainly, there doesn’t appear to be anybody better qualified to rescue a troubled World Cup qualifying campaign, in which eight games remain, beginning in March, for the last-placed U.S. to salvage one of the top three places in a six-team group.

“From experience you see things a lot clearer and a lot quicker,” Arena said. “The game has slowed down a bit. I’m better at identifying the strengths and weaknesses of players. What I really know is how to build a team.

“The only thing I can tell you is we’re going to make it better.”

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.