Winning the election for the presidency of U.S. Soccer may prove the easy part for Carlos Cordeiro, the former Goldman Sachs executive who beat a field of seven candidates Saturday to take the reins of a sport riven by divisions.
Now comes the hard part: governing that sport and healing those fractures, which have grown following last year's World Cup qualifying failure and a bruising three-month campaign in which Cordeiro, U.S. Soccer vice president, was repeatedly criticized as an establishment candidate wedded to the status quo.
"For those who didn't vote for me, I'm going to have to work even harder to convince them I am going to be a good president," Cordeiro said.