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LA Galaxy's Bruce Arena to succeed Jurgen Klinsmann for U.S. - sources

LA Galaxy coach Bruce Arena will succeed Jurgen Klinsmann as manager of the United States men's national team, sources have told ESPN's Taylor Twellman.

All that remains to be worked out is the length of the contract, which sources said will likely will be between 18 months and two years.

Sources told ESPN FC's Jeff Carlisle that after U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati and CEO Dan Flynn flew to Los Angeles to inform Klinsmann of his firing on Monday, Flynn stayed to work out the details of Arena's contract while Gulati returned to New York, where he is an economics professor at Columbia University.

Arena, 65, managed the U.S. for eight years from 1998-2006, reaching the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan in the team's best finish since the inaugural event in 1930.

However, Gulati fired him after the U.S. failed to advance to the knockout stage in 2006 in Germany.

Following his tenure with the national team, Arena managed the New York Red Bulls for a year and a half before moving on to the Galaxy. Arena won three MLS Cup titles in Los Angeles between 2011 and 2014 and was named the league's coach of the year in 2009 and 2011.

Arena's contract with the Galaxy was set to expire next month, but sources said he recently signed a two-year extension with the MLS club. However, the new deal would allow Arena to leave if he were offered the national team job, and his Galaxy staff has been informed of the move, sources said.

Arena's U.S. squads could have a very different look than they did under Klinsmann, who brought in a number of German-born dual nationals -- with John Brooks, Jermaine Jones, Timmy Chandler and Fabian Johnson all starting in the losses to Mexico and Costa Rica this month that sealed Klinsmann's fate.

But in 2013, Arena told ESPN The Magazine that he felt the players on the national team should "be American," a sentiment that was admonished by U.S. players when it was used by former women's team star Abby Wambach in December.

"I don't even know some of the players, which is odd as the former coach. Players on the national team should be -- and this is my own feeling -- they should be Americans," Arena said three years ago. "If they're all born in other countries, I don't think we can say we are making progress."

In 2002, more than half of Arena's starters came from clubs in Major League Soccer, and Arena said in 2013: "It should still be the case, in my opinion."

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