Reyna blasts U.S. 'arrogance' after World Cup exit

[October 18, 2017]    (Reuters) - Former Captain Claudio Reyna blasted the U.S. Soccer program on Tuesday, a week after the United States failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia.

The United States finished just outside of qualifying in their CONCACAF final group and will miss the Cup for the first time since 1986.

"Our approach and our behavior to the sport here — to coaching, to everything, is just wrong," Reyna told Goal.com.

USA's Christian Pulisic and Michael Bradley hug during their World Cup qualifying match against Trinidad & Tobago. REUTERS/Andrea de Silva

"We're far too arrogant. We're far too obnoxious. We are egotistical having never won anything or done anything, and that's not the case around the world.

"When you have a disappointment like last week, and we’ve had past disappointments as well, and we’ll have disappointments in the future, but what we need to understand that it’s for me behavioral."

Many U.S. pundits have sounded off on the disappointment but none pinpointed behavior quite like Reyna.

Coach Bruce Arena was brought on a year ago to rebuild the program but now his future and that of U.S. Soccer is up in the air.

Reyna, who has represented teams in England, Germany and Scotland, sees characteristics in international teams that the U.S. had yet to adopt.

"We have coaches who think they’re better than they are. Across the board, we just think we do things better than we really do," he said.

"Until we realize that — that we’re not as good as we think we are at all levels — then I think we’re going to continue being what we are, which is mediocre."

(Writing by Jahmal Corner in Los Angeles; Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)

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