Julian Edelman and Bruce Arena have carried their friendship from coast to coast.
The Athletic’s Sam Stejskal detailed the unlikely bond the New England Patriots wide receiver shares with the New England Revolution head coach in an article he published Tuesday. Edelman and Arena are 35 years in age and different worlds of football apart, but their appreciation for hard work, wisecracks and soccer tactics brought them together a few years ago in Los Angeles, and they remain as close as ever now that they share a professional home at Gillette Stadium.
It all started when Arena was coaching the Los Angeles Galaxy, and Edelman would work out at the MLS team’s facility during the NFL offseason.
“Bruce just used to come in and he was friends with one of the physical therapists that I used, and she introduced us,” Edelman told Stejskal last week. “We would just kind of talk. I would ask him what formations I should use on my FIFA team, he would ask me about Patriot culture and what it is and how we do things around here and it turned into a friendship.”
Arena, U.S. soccer’s winningest men’s coach, describes Edelman as his “kind of guy.”
“I admire athletes like him,” said Arena. “With all due respect, you could argue that Julian isn’t the most gifted player in the NFL, isn’t blessed with the speed and the size of some other players in his position or just in general. But I admire the way he works his tail off … . He’s just a great guy. He’s the kind of guy that I’d like my athletes to be like.”
Arena and Edelman would text each other from time to time during the years they worked on opposite coasts. However, when the Revolution hired Arena as head coach and sporting director in May, their communication increased. In fact, Arena credits Edelman for convincing him to live in Boston, instead of one of the city’s suburbs.
“He gave me some advice,” Arena said. “I said I was looking around for a place, and he told me, ‘You gotta live in the city.’ And I go, ‘Well, what about the traffic?’ And he goes, ‘You’re from LA, what do you mean traffic?’ And so he kind of convinced me, and I got a condo in Seaport.”
The Arena-Edelman friendship proves anything can happen when football meets futbol (soccer) in the U.S.
