Bora, Bora, Bora...

Apparently, the answer is no. According to Ives Galarcep on ESPN.com, the MetroStars will be looking to sign a "high-profile foreign coach" if (when?) Bob Bradley is fired. Count us among those who have heard this before... and want none of it.

There have been three world-renown coaches in Metro history: Carlos Queiroz, Carlos Alberto Parreira, and Bora Milutinovic (one can also add Eddie Firmani to the list, but... come on. Eddie Firmani). Of the three, Queiroz is the one remembered most fondly by Metro fans; but all he could manage was a .500 record and a first-round exit, after which he ditched Metro for the greener pastures of Japan. Parreira did even worse; in his lone year with the team he was six games below .500, as a very talented Metro squad missed the playoffs. He then ditched Metro for the greener pastures of Saudi Arabia. Bora? It doesn't get worse than Bora. Hired with one game left in the 1998 season, he promptly crashed out of the playoffs, and then coached Metro to a total of FOUR regulation wins out of 32 games in 1999. Worst coach in MLS history. No one even comes close.

MLS tried to go the foreign coach route in 1996, with names like Bobby Houghton and Frank Stapleton proving to be colossal failures. Since then, the only successful foreign coaches are those with U.S. soccer experience; Steve Nicol paid his dues in the A-League for years, Thomas Rongen, Sigi Schmid, and Bob Gansler spent most of their adult life in the U.S., and Frank Yallop and Peter Nowak played in MLS prior to moving up. No coach without prior U.S. soccer experience has succeeded in MLS. Ever. Of course, if AEG decided to give Metro an unlimited budget... But look how it worked for Hans Westerhof.

Haven't we learned anything?