Bob Bradley's future with U.S. soccer: I see a change ahead
by Steve Davis on Jul 7, 2010 11:47 AM EDT
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I’m putting out some calls today to see if this Bob Bradley-to-Fulham talk has any legs. So, stay tuned.
Along those lines, should Bradley be active in exploring other options? I’d say the answer is "Yes, absolutely."
I’ve always been neutral on Bradley. I think he did a good job of bringing a solid structure to the
Were his selections of personnel and tactics always spot-on? No, I don’t think so.
(One prominent member of the
In my mind, his ability to assemble a harmonious locker room and blend personalities balanced out any tactical choices that didn’t work out. Bradley deserves some credit for building a side that, in all honesty, was more than the sum of its parts.
All that said, what I think doesn’t matter.
It’s all up to Sunil Gulati – and I just don’t see any other outcome here. I think Gulati will make a change, and probably pretty quickly. Bradley’s contract runs through December, but Gulati knows that leaving his coach on the dangle isn’t the right way to do things.
You can read more about it here in the piece posted at SI.com. I talked to Alexi Lalas about it and, as you’ll see in the piece, he also sees a change coming.
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Klinsi
I think Bradley does get a bad rap from some of the more uninformed fans (I’ve heard people recently question Bob’s starting of his son in every game). That said, Jurgen is the man for the job going forward. Give him the authority he asked for in 06 and have him continue the progress of the national team while helping restructure MLS, reserve, and junior programs. Klinsmann is the man best qualified to move all levels of US soccer forward with vision. Check out this article he wrote about building a national program:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2010/8789682.stm
That's What's UP!
At least Klinsmann knows his strengths and weaknesses. i assume that is why he got a coach (Loew) with experience to assist him in getting his idea across to the players. it is my hope that the US Soccer Federation does pick a coach that will create a distinctly American style that does not include ‘Route 1’ as the pass of choice. if they can assist the MLS teams in adopting this same style as well (whatever it may be), we may not continue to get embarassed in the CONCACAF Champions League. you never know…
Klinsi has lately done a lot of self-promoting
But he probably would be a good candidate. As far as changing the style of play, I’m of the opinion that the style of play is dictated by the players’ skills, not the coach’s. Until the day that U.S. soccer has a player pool consisting primarily of technical players, we are going to continue playing a more direct style, although that need not be a bad thing, per se. But the national team coach really doesn’t have too much say in how the players develop their technical skills. That’s up to their club coaches.
I'll eliminate you like I eliminate gluten from my diet.
by tehGrindCrusher on Jul 7, 2010 3:07 PM EDT up reply actions
That's Understood, However
If we get a style of play and passing as our basis, we may not see erratic passing by players (Clark, i am looking in your direction) that get our team scored on at inopportune times. it would teach our players to check back fro the ball to give outlet passing routes. i know that at that level, it should be there already – and it is against WEAKER teams. once we adopt it and use it against ALL teams, then we may actually legitamitely challenge for WC quarterfinal spots and beyond, and not settle for making it to the second round as a goal.
and hey, if Klinsmann can get coaches in the Bundesliga to kind of adopt the style for the good of the national team, i think that he can do something similar in MLS. that is the hope…
We already do this against weaker teams
Remember that qualifier against Cuba when we strung together like 5 million passes before scoring?
And it would be nice to be able to do that against the likes of, say, Germany, we’ll probably need to be fielding players like Xavi, Iniesta and Villa to do it. That may take a while. :)
I'll eliminate you like I eliminate gluten from my diet.
by tehGrindCrusher on Jul 8, 2010 4:22 AM EDT up reply actions
It's just a blog...
but my go to source for an in-depth look at all things Fulham is at:
http://cravencottagenewsround.wordpress.com/
He lists Sven-Goren Erickson, Mark Hughes and Slaven Bilic as the three top candidates. I really think that the Bradley angle was all about making rumors along the lines of Fulhamerica but maybe there was more to it. From a Fulham perspective though, I just don’t see that as a realistic possibility.
I think I've been pretty neutral on Bradley
but I have to believe that there’s a better choice out there for Fulham. I suspect this is just rumor. Maybe he threw his name in the hat and that’s where this came from. But I doubt Fulham is really interested.
Bradley in Europe
I’ll be surprised if Bradley isn’t working for a good European club next year, though. Someone in the Bundesliga, Championship (or possibly low-EPL), Scottish league or Eredivisie will step up.
I’d take him over Sven, but Mark Hughes would be preferable to Bob.
I could see him in a Championship position
but other top leagues would be a stretch. His resume is not impressive enough (some colleges, a couple MLS clubs, and a lukewarm US team) to really draw much attention IMO. He needs to build the Bradley brand more. I think getting himself onto a Championship team would be his best bet. Give them a couple solid seasons and maybe a promotion, and the sky would almost be the limit beyond that.
by chrisperry1983 on Jul 7, 2010 3:53 PM EDT up reply actions
Bradley
My impression is that he gets a lot more respect across the pond than he does here. I think a move to a club like Fulham might be slightly out of his reach, particularly if Fulham could snag Hughes. But it’s not far off.
Not mediocre. Right about average
I suspect you're right
I guess from a fan perspective we only really know him for what he didn’t do, whereas people on his level see what he has done, where he is now, and where he could be. I do suppose being the coach of a national team gives you some sort of street cred.
by chrisperry1983 on Jul 8, 2010 1:42 AM EDT up reply actions
i would rather...
they gave bradley a shot than keep running through the failed retreads that always seem to come up.
At USC we're not snobs, we're just better than you.
jurgen comes to save the day
Mike Green in regular season- Norris Canadiate. Mike Green in Playoffs- Nowhere to be found
Would prefer to see Bradley continue.
While it’s true that Bradley made some errors (that lineup on the last game was crock), Bradley did well. This was a unified team that captured the imaginations of the fans. Despite not having any forwards worthy of the name (what we could do with someone half as good as Forlan or Villa!), the US advanced out of the group stage, and was one extra-time away from the quarters. This is a good accomplishment, given the talent we have at our disposal. Those who are disappointed we didn’t make the quarters or semis have an inflated sense of where we are so far. I just don’t see someone like Klinsman doing any better.
Thing is
we barely won our group. We could have just as easily gotten last place in our group. Our shaky qualification wasn’t very inspiring either. And our run in the Confederations Cup run was an absolute fluke. I think Bradley did some things well, other things he didn’t. I think it is time for Gulati to man up and loosen the reigns a bit if that means we’re going to potentially get a world-class person in there.
by chrisperry1983 on Jul 8, 2010 11:42 AM EDT up reply actions
After eight years, the team played exactly at the level of its personnel
The U.S. won the Concacaf Gold Cup with its A team and finished second with a B/C team. We finished second in the Confed Cup (I don’t think this is a fluke at all – the wins against Spain and Egypt were legit). We won our WC qualifying group. We made it to the last sixteen of the World Cup. If any one of these things happened, you could call it a fluke. But that’s a pretty good record of achievement considering that our defense was patchwork and often featured someone who is now out of contract at a Coca-Cola Premiership team; our left back was often Jonathon Bornstein; our strikeforce often consisted of a twenty-year old who scored one goal for the worst team in the Premiership, etc.
Let’s say we had a world-class coach, someone like Guus Hiddink. How much further would we have gone? Quarters? Maybe. But not much further. The reality is that we just didn’t have the talent to go much further than we did, and a sexy foreign coach wouldn’t have done much better with the talent we had.
I'll eliminate you like I eliminate gluten from my diet.
by tehGrindCrusher on Jul 8, 2010 4:11 PM EDT up reply actions
I agree with you that making the quarters or semis is wildly optimistic
And I’ve generally been ok with Bradley. However, eight years is a long time. I think it’s unavoidable for complacency to set in, which was the major problem Arena had, in my opinion. That’s why I think it would be a good idea to move on from Bradley.
I'll eliminate you like I eliminate gluten from my diet.
by tehGrindCrusher on Jul 8, 2010 4:06 PM EDT up reply actions
BB was great, but the USMNT needs a different type of coach
In team sports, you need a coach who’s right for the job at hand. Coaching a team with moderate talent (e.g., the USMNT) is very different from coaching a team that’s loaded with it.
BB is an over-prepared plugger. Don’t get me wrong—I’m an over-prepared plugger and I love the guy! He seems to be great at getting solid players to compete beyond the sum of their parts. I thought BB’s workhorse approach was perfect for the 2010 team. Despite the effective losses of Davies and Gooch (and a puzzling starting lineup), he got the team to within an extra-time loss of a quarterfinal they’d have had a puncher’s chance of winning. He identified and developed young players reasonably well, even if he didn’t always give them much time on the field. He did a great job this cycle. I think he’d actually be a great fit for a team like Fullham that depends on hustle and discipline to compete with teams that can afford more talent.
But the USMNT will have a different character in 2014. You could already see this team wanting to break free of the dependence on workhouse soccer in a way that Bradley didn’t seem fully inclined to facilitate. Feilhaber isn’t a plugger, but it’s hard to argue that the team wasn’t better when he was on the field. Edu lost out to the plugging Clark, and we know how that turned out. I wonder how Torres might have contributed if he’d gotten more minutes during the qualifying campaign. In 2014, the team will have more talent and, as a result, more ego. BB seems unlikely embrace it sufficiently.
Here’s the thing: the choice for the next USMNT’s next coach isn’t just about getting further into the tournament. It’s also about advancing US Soccer’s efforts to produce world-class talent that can compete realistically for a WC trophy. BB would be the safe choice if the goal was solely for the USMNT to progress as deeply as possible into the tournament in 2014; that team won’t be dramatically different from the 2010 edition. But I think the 2010 team crossed a threshold this cycle; it moved from hope to expectation, from a focus on competing to a focus on winning. It’ll take star power to compete for trophies instead of moral victories.
Happily, USMNT has a pretty perfect replacement candidate in Jurgen Klinsmann. The current model of German soccer, developed in part by Klinsmann, is about as appropriate for the US as one country could provide. It’s a combination of athleticism, discipline, talent and intensity that probably comes closest to approximating what a contending US team would look like over the next few WC cycles.
I am immensely grateful to BB for playing a vital role in the advancement of US Soccer, and for giving us a really competitive, entertaining, likeable team in 2010. I’m rooting for him to land a middle-of-the-table job in the EPL, where I’d expect him to become a successful and beloved figure, not unlike what it seems Brian McBride became as a player. But I’m really hoping to see Klinsmann take over.
I agree with this except for one thing.
I think we would have lost to Uruguay no matter what. With out best defender out and having to face Suarez and Forlan, against a team that had given up like one goal or so, I don’t think we would have fared well at all.
I'll eliminate you like I eliminate gluten from my diet.
by tehGrindCrusher on Jul 8, 2010 4:14 PM EDT up reply actions
I always wondered why people thought Uruguay would have been such a great matchup for us, too
Were those folks watching the games? Suarez and Forlan vs. the US back line? It would’ve gotten very ugly, very fast. And Uruguay’s defense (as long as it was healthy and not sitting out for cards) was very strong. The US wasn’t in the side of the bracket with all the traditional, prestige teams, but that doesn’t mean the teams weren’t any good.
"And Julio Franco is batting right-handed!" -- Wayne Hagin, A's radio play-by-play, mid-80s
Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda
Of course, you’re right. It’d have been an incredibly uphill battle. BUT… it seems to me that Bradley and company may have done a decent job of containing Forlan, who’s more about distributing and long-range shots than about dazzling work around the goal. Suarez is good but not terrifyingly so. At least on paper, the English offense was scarier. At the end of the day, I think the US would have been hard-put to win…but it wouldn’t have been a shocking upset if they had.
One more thought: South Korea plays a lot like the US, right down to their hustle and their best player being a wing. Seeing what worked/didn’t work for them would have given BB a great cheat-sheet.
One of these days, someone’s going to write about the USMNT’s lost opportunity. (kidding)
Time for Change
I’d be in support of a change even if the US had won the World Cup. I think there’s too much stagnation when a national team coach is held onto for more than one cycle.
RollBamaRoll.com - Also check out my music blog: Hear the World, which is exploring the music of BULGARIA in July 2010.
