Bob Bradley?

I realize I’m a little bit late on this, but I thought I should weigh in on Bob Bradley’s tenure as the coach of the US men’s national team. In the wake of the US’s 4-2 loss to Mexico in the Gold Cup final (the second straight loss to Mexico in the US after an 11-game winning streak), in addition to the loss to Panama in the group stage (the Americans’ first ever loss in Gold Cup group play), Bradley’s job came into question, prompting Sunil Gulati, the head of US Soccer, to—tacitly and ambiguously—issue a statement (http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/u-s-soccer-releases-open-letter-to-fans/) of support.

Recent articles (http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/in-bob-we-trust/) about Bradley mainly focused on the fact that any coach would still have the same (limited) player pool to work with. While this is absolutely true, it misses the most important fact about the US team’s play over the last few years: they have been incredibly inconsistent. They alternate great performances with mediocre ones. They follow lackluster halves with an inspired 45 minutes. Some days they can beat the best in the world, other days they look like chumps against some lowly CONCACAF team.

One of the biggest problems the US has is with giving up goals early in matches. Of the Americans’ 31 games (friendlies excepted) from 2009 to present, opponents scored against them in the first 20 minutes 14 times. That’s a lot, particularly for a team that boasts at its back end arguably one of the ten best keepers in the world (Tim Howard). But look at the specific opponents who are scoring so early in matches. Among them are Brazil, England, Ghana, Honduras, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama. Some teams that did not score early: Trinidad, Grenada, Jamaica, Mexico, Italy, Brazil (Confederations Cup final) and FUCKING SPAIN.

See what I mean about inconsistent? The fact that the US can give up a quick and easy goal to Honduras and not three weeks later shut out Spain goes to show that they might have trouble focusing at the beginning of matches. The thing is, getting a team mentally ready for games may be the coach’s number one job. If Bradley can’t get everyone focused and the defense organized, he’s probably not going to get the best performances out of his players.

Likewise, the US keeps blowing leads. Case in point, the 4-2 loss to Mexico in the Gold Cup. Up 2-0 after 22 minutes, they proceeded to give up four goals, the first in the 29th minute. At no point did Bradley make any tactical changes to help the team defend better. In fact, he made no real changes until he brought on an extra attacker in the 62nd minute. Now, admittedly the US was outplayed for much of the match and both of their goals came against the run of play. But that’s all the more reason to preserve the lead once you have it. The Mexicans were clearly the better team, but when the US got that second goal they were in the position to sneak out of there with a win. As a midlevel team, the US needs to be able to steal some wins from more talented sides. Instead, they pissed away a two-goal lead by not changing their strategy to focus on defense.

Losses like this to a point fall at Bradley’s feet. While any coach would have the same personnel to work with, Bradley’s inability to elicit consistent performances from his players and make productive in-game changes is a sign that he’s not the best coach for the job. If getting his players mentally prepared for games is a coach’s number one responsibility, managing the game is in the top five; if Bradley has problems with both of these, it becomes clear that a change needs to be made.

This is not to say that Bradley is bad coach. He’s done a very good job incorporating players into the national team pool and bringing along young players. Also, he’s made some very difficult lineup decisions and had them work out pretty well (namely Freddy Adu at the Gold Cup and Charlie Davies in the Confederations Cup). And his game plans tend to be very good; the defensive scheme that beat Spain in 2009 was copied by none other than Jose Mourinho to beat Barcelona in the 2010 Champions League semifinals.

But the results for the US team—limited though the sample size may be—are not where perhaps they should be. Speaking of the Mexico game, I don’t think they’re better than Mexico (as much as it pains me to say that), but they are good enough to hold a two-goal lead, or at least not give up four straight goals to their biggest rivals. In many ways, a 2-1 loss where the US never led would be much more palatable than how the game actually went down. The way it stands, the US appears good enough to take a lead against the run of play, but not good enough to hold that lead.* And maybe that’s the case. But it seems more likely that some better, more proactive in-game managing could have focused on defense and held that lead. The coach needs to recognize how the game is progressing and make the necessary adjustments before the game is out of hand. Bradley, while not horrible at in-game management, is not great, either.

But that’s more a comment on Bradley’s skill as a strategist, rather than as motivator, which is where his biggest shortcomings lie. He seems incapable—recently, in particular—of getting the team to perform consistently up to their abilities. Though this is perhaps the result of having such an unusually long tenure as head coach,** that’s all the more reason for Gulati to make a change. But why Bradley is having these problems matters little; if the US continues to underachieve and play so inconsistently, especially against CONCACAF opponents, a poor showing in Brazil in 2014 becomes all the more likely. (We’ll not even mention the unthinkable—not qualifying for the World Cup—which, it should be said, is not impossible.)


* The injury to Steve Cherundolo in the 11th minute certainly didn’t help matters. It’s arguable that having to bring on Jonathan Bornstein to replace him essentially led to Mexico’s victory, especially since Bornstein is a much less capable defender and was victimized repeatedly by the Mexican attack. The thing is, though, injuries happen, and the coach picks the roster; it was Bradley who selected a backup left back who’s a defensive liability. That Bornstein was on the roster at all, rather than a more capable defender, is entirely Bradley’s fault.

** International coaches very rarely serve for more than one whole World Cup cycle at a time, three-four years at most. Coaches who stay on longer, such as Raymond Domenech of France, tend to have been quite successful in their first tournament, such as Domenech, and tend to be much less successful the second time around, such as Domenech.