San Jose general manager Peter Bridgwater has been at the center of the Clash’s turbulent season. His club has had to deal with strife among its players and problems with the media during its disappointing campaign. SOCCER AMERICA: Give us a summary of the problems you’ve faced over the last two years. PETER BRIDGWATER: The first problem is to put an organization together that works as a start-up company. Which I think we’ve done, particularly in the first year. The second is to put a team together that’s going to win. And we’ve struggled with that process. We’ve had some good players, who at times have not appeared to gel very well as a team in either season. There have been ups and downs, which you’ve seen from the results. From a business perspective, one of the biggest challenges has been to get the soccer community to come out and support us. We have a lot of participants that really don’t know what we’re about, what our purpose is and what their association with us is. That’s an ongoing challenge. A challenge we all face is getting the ethnic soccer fan to support you even when representatives of their particular country are not included in your team. Last year, we had Missael Espinoza, who was popular with the fans and did very well for us. This year, we couldn’t get him back, and we’ve lost at the gate. SA: Last season, three teams ù Colorado, New England and New York ù had GMs and coaches who didn’t do a good job, and there were changes this year. You and Laurie Calloway may have underestimated the caliber of the league with the players you picked, ones you were familiar with. PB: You could be right, but the same happened with Dave Dir in Dallas. Coaches often select players they’ve known before because they have the security of knowing what that player can do on the field, how he is in the locker room and how he is in the community. Same with Bruce Arena picking a lot of UVa boys. SA: But on balance they were younger … PB: True, but the team we had last year looked good on paper, just as the team we started with this year looked good on paper. We had depth, but there was always a slot for this big Mexican star we thought we were going to get and never did. Additionally, no one anticipated we would only get Eric Wynalda for 13 games this year, so that has been a significant blow to the makeup of the forward line. If anything, the biggest disappointment has been the way the team has defended ù and I’m not blaming the defense in isolation. We went from having one of the best defensive records last year to the worst this year. We’ve had a good-looking midfield, although we’ve had that area that you would describe as the No. 10, the playmaker, which we’ve never found the permanent answer for. We’ve tried various players, although a trade we did in the winter that we thought would be the solution didn’t quite work out. SA: You haven’t had a lot of luck with your foreigners. PB: We’ve had pretty good results with our foreign allocation. I have made a couple of mistakes, making decisions regarding certain foreign player allocations based upon getting this big Mexican star. We’ve made no bones about trying to get Carlos Hermosillo, and everyone’s tried really hard to make this happen. Our desire was always to have him as our striker, to have Eric [Wynalda] to feed him and play off him. Daniel Guzman was No. 5 on our list of [five] choices, and we got down to the point where he was the one we could make happen. But we quickly knew after he arrived that his heart wasn’t here. He went back to Mexico to make himself available for the draft, and we thought he’d just gone home for the weekend. SA: Ben Iroha has worked out very well at D.C. United … PB: That’s just the way a coach wants to play him. [He’s] a player with a lot of skill, a very nice guy, but Laurie wanted him to be more of a defender ù he came to us as a fullback ù and Ben’s style of play is that he likes to go forward and not necessarily come straight back in defense. SA: How difficult was for it you to fire Laurie Calloway? PB: When you know what effort a guy’s making, but when you know what problems he’s having to overcome from the inside, you give a person much more time to try and achieve their objectives. I relieved Laurie from his duties as head coach for two reasons. (1) The mental and physical effect it was having on him because the stress was enormous. And (2) When ticket sales start to drop and people are canceling tickets, a coaching change is necessary. Laurie went through a lot of difficult situations with the team and the results, and he became almost a scapegoat for the team. It was difficult, but it had to be done. SA: Whose decision was it finally ù yours or the League’s? PB: Mine. The League never at any time said to fire him. SA: How did Brian Quinn come about? PB: Brian was on a shortlist of candidates last year before I appointed Laurie. What had happened with Laurie was that there was some dissent this year in the locker room, little cliques were forming, and I needed someone to clear that up, bring the players together and create a team spirit. I still think we don’t have this team spirit every game. I wanted a player’s coach, someone who could get on the field and be as good as them and show by example and relate to them as another player, which Brian Quinn has been able to do. He’s good enough to play. SA: What about your press relations? Last year it was the Hispanic media over a Mexican player, this year it was the Anglo media. PB: Our Hispanic relations have suffered this year because it has become a bigger issue, certainly for one or two people who have constantly had a go at us. That’s sad because everyone’s working as hard as they can to please everyone. You have a fine balance ù do you go totally the Hispanic route or the Anglo route? ù and we’re trying to do both. But in doing that, you’re not going to satisfy either group completely. SA: You had a rocky patch around the time you fired Laurie. PB: That was one person who had almost a vendetta against Laurie Calloway and decided to create a situation of: Should we have Eric Wynalda or Laurie Calloway? A vote ensued in the paper [The San Jose Mercury News] that weekend. That person was wrong in my opinion. I think it was unnecessary. The wheels were in motion to make whatever changes were necessary and frankly it slowed down things. I am too difficult a character to do something because a member of the media says I should do it. Certainly if a member of the media draws my attention to it, I’ll certainly look into it, but I’m not going to react to it. It was under discussion at the time. SA: What about allegations in the Hispanic media about the “Ku Klux Clash”? PB: That came from a similar source in the Hispanic press as I mentioned earlier. I had a frank and honest chat with the players and spoke to each of the ethnic players, who laughed at it. It had never been heard of in the locker room. But players do take the Mickey out of each other. I made it very plain that we wouldn’t allow anything like that and to be careful with jokes and how they’re expressed. There was no problem in that area. Sometimes you can get the wrong end of the stick, but there is resistance among the U.S. player around the league ù not here. They accept the fact that [a player’s] coming in but he has to make a contribution. Otherwise, they say, “What the hell is he doing here?” Sometimes those kind of comments are made and they’re misconstrued. But I’ve never witnessed it with the Clash. Sometimes, if you have a couple of players that only speak Spanish and obviously they’re going to communicate with other players that speak Spanish. Is that a clique? Let’s put it this way: We went on a trip to China with some European players last year. And what did they do? They talked to each other about things back home and things they connect with. Is that a clique? I don’t think so. SA: What are your thoughts on Eric Wynalda this season? PB: Eric is a very special player, who has struggled with his fitness and the desire to keep himself fit and be ready for national team games. There was a time when I wanted to assure myself that he really wanted to play here and not just save himself for national team games. I believe he does want to play for the Clash and that he wants to get himself fully fit before he commits himself to anything. You saw that when he didn’t start against Costa Rica. He was doing the right thing for U.S. Soccer and for us. I applaud him for that. SA: What changes do you plan to make for next year? PB: That’s a loaded question. SA: Yeah, I know … PB: Well, first of all there’s the expansion draft. We’ll lose some players that way. Team choices are always Brian’s, not mine. I’m sure we need to strengthen our team and next season has got to be a good season for us. One of the demands we’ll be facing is the World Cup: How many players are we going to be missing, whether it’s a Salvadoran player or a U.S. player? And for how long? And how do we get around that? SA: How about the stadium? PB: Our stadium [field] is going to be widened. I still hope we can widen it this winter, but it’s very difficult. Our negotiations and plans have gone on a little bit longer than they should have done. Three groups have agreed to contribute to the cost of widening the field ù the City, San Jose State University and MLS. We may not be able to start as early as we should have done to be ready for the start of our season. There are permissions ù the state fire marshall’s approval takes 60 days ù but we have to go this year, even though it is going to impact the start of our season. We need to do it, to show our fans our commitment to improving the way football should be played. We need to do it because it opens up other revenue opportunities for us ù the possibility that we might be able to host a U.S. warmup game on a 70-yard field, or the women’s all-star game in the autumn of 1998. If we can’t go and start in January and maybe finish in April, then the next best thing would be to start in November [’98] and be ready by the beginning of the season in 1999. SA: You’re regarded as a high-energy GM. How long do you think you can keep going? PB: I don’t know. I’ve had my health problems, I’m 62 and I’m working harder than anybody else. I’m enjoying it. Hopefully, I’m doing a good enough job to keep the position and I’d like to think I’ll see the Women’s World Cup in ’99 and then review the situation. SA: Bruce Arena made remarks that it’s always the coaches that are fired and not the GMs. Do you ever feel in danger of losing your job. PB: He’s not right, is he? Look at [Colorado’s ’96 GM] Rich Levine. No one has ever told me that my job is in question and maybe I wouldn’t know about it. As far as I know people are satisfied and there are things that maybe I’d do differently associated with what’s happened this year. We went into this season on the euphoric basis, but some of the things that have happened, we didn’t anticipate. by Soccer America Senior Editor Duncan Irving