Real Salt Lake’s match at LA on Saturday will pit two of the top head coaches in Major League Soccer against each other in RSL’s Jason Kreis and the Galaxy’s Bruce Arena.
Kreis and Arena have crossed paths numerous times over the last 20 years, beginning in the early 1990’s, when Kreis – and RSL GM Garth Lagerwey – and the Duke Blue Devils would regularly butt heads with Arena’s Virginia Cavaliers in fiercely-fought ACC contests.
The battles continued in MLS, with Kreis bagging five goals and compiling a 4-6-0 record with Dallas and RSL in 10 matches against Arena’s D.C. United and New York Red Bulls squads.
It was against Arena and those same Red Bulls against which Kreis made his coaching debut, with RSL coming back for a miracle 3-3 draw on May 5, 2007 at Rice-Eccles Stadium marking the first – but far from only – time the coaches two squads would play to a memorable finish.
Historically, Kreis and Arena are two of the most successful coaches in MLS. Arena is a U.S. soccer legend, winning four MLS Cups, three Supporters’ Shields, six conference titles and three Coach of the Year awards. He’s second in league history to Seattle’s Sigi Schmid with 154 wins and 488 points and his winning percentage of .599 is the best all-time mark in MLS.
Kreis, who, at age 40, is 21 years younger than the 61-year-old Arena, stacks up rather nicely against his older counterpart, currently sitting in fourth-place amongst active coaches with 85 wins, 309 points and a .541 winning percentage. The two are the only coaches in MLS to lead their teams to 50 point, 15 win seasons in each of the last three years.
As a young coach, Kreis still has a good deal of growing to do, something he readily admitted on the Ford Postgame Show following last Saturday’s 1-0 home win over the Houston Dynamo and their successful head man Dominic Kinnear.
You can check out Kreis’s comments at the 2:45 mark of the above video or read them below:
“I’m still learning, I’m still learning for sure,” Kreis told RSL color commentator Brian Dunseth. “I think that I feel a lot more confident during the match about what I’m seeing and the ability to change things during the match. That’s probably been the latest thing that I’ve felt really, really confident [about], seeing where the spaces are to exploit, what our opponent’s doing against us and causing us trouble with and how to tinker with that a little bit during the match. That’s probably the latest thing that’s come and I think that there’s still a lot more for me to learn and I’m excited about it.”
We’ll see if Kreis can get one over on Arena on Saturday night at StubHub Center. The two are even against each other this year, with Arena and the Galaxy beating RSL 2-0 at Rio Tinto Stadium on April 27 before Kreis and the Claret-and-Cobalt down LA 3-1 at home on June 8. Saturday’s match kicks at 8:30 p.m. MT and will be broadcast live on ABC 4.
