HANOVER, N.J. – Tab Ramos is interested in taking over the United States national team although one of the best Americans to ever play the world’s game won’t put the cart ahead of the horse.
Speaking at Red Bull Arena as he took in the New York Red Bulls against Atlanta United, Ramos spoke to Metro about his thoughts centering around the United States missing out on next summer’s World Cup. Days after the United States fell at Trinidad & Tobago 2-1, ending their World Cup qualification dreams, head coach Bruce Arena resigned from the post.
United States soccer is looking for an interim head coach and Ramos, currently the head coach of the very successful U-20 national team, is a likely successor. At the very least, he’s a strong candidate to be interim head coach.
Saying “That’s something that I can’t discuss at this point” when asked if he has heard about the interim job, Ramos was then asked if he’d be interested in the job.
“If you’d ask everyone here at the Red Bulls game if they’d be interested in the national team job they would say yes,” Ramos told Metro in his first media comments since the United States lost. “And I’m just another fan so I’d say yes as well.”
As for the current state of the national team, Ramos wasn’t at the team’s last match. But he noticed some things that worried him.
He was disappointed but thinks this team can bounce back.
“It’s hard to say because I was in India with the U-17 national team,” Ramos said. “In the game, I didn’t think we had the same energy we normally have in a game. I thought the opportunity was a good one, we were playing basically Trinidad’s second team in an empty stadium. I think maybe we got a little overconfident.”
“It’s a sickening feeling knowing that we don’t matter for the next three or four years. It was very hard back in the 80s to get people to recognize that we play soccer. Sometimes it feels like a slap in the face that we have to go dig ourselves out,” he said. “One thing I know about us is that we picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves us back in 1989. We’ll do it again.”
