Other Coaching Possibilities?

[Karl K]

A couple of other plusses about Bradley:

--His ability to meld high priced, high strung, and experienced veterans with young and inexperienced players is pretty much unmatched.

--Bradley (along with Sigi) is one of the most tactically shrewd coaches around. He has this uncanny knack of finding an opponent's weakness and attacking it ruthelessly.

--He is formationally flexible, and can get his players to adjust to different on field configurations based on player availability and opponent matchups.

--His training sessions -- and I've seen one -- are intense, efficient, and organized.

--He's a player's coach. They love playing for him but he gets their respect at the same time. It's strictly professional. But it's clear throughout what you need to do to improve, with no game playing.

I think it is highly likely he will coach the national team someday, but it looks like Bruce will have the job for one more cycle.

[profiled]

Originally posted by Elninho
Objectively speaking, Bob Bradley is the best realistic candidate for the job.

1) The most injury-depleted team in MLS this season is still doing fairly well. Bradley has relied heavily on A-League callups for most of the last 2 1/2 seasons, and his team has been more than respectable. The expensive foreign stars have spent most of this time injured.


Can't argue that he's done well, but "getting by with a minimal team" isn't exactly what you do when you're a national team coach.


2) Bradley can develop players. Jim Curtin, Evan Whitfield, Ante Razov. Consider that Razov was basically rejected by the Galaxy prior to joining the Fire. Whitfield has become a quality pro, which is more than I expected of him early on. Curtin came out of nowhere, started out looking lost and confused, and is now a player who would be a starter for any team in the league.


I guess.


3) Bradley can motivate players - Jamar Beasley and Eric Wynalda come to mind.


Motivated them both out of professional soccer.


4) The Fire has a history of stepping up in do-or-die games. Can anyone argue with their playoff record or their Open Cup record?

In the last two years yes, they've basically been beaten (and out coached) by Sigi Schmid. Before that no, an MLS cup and an MLS cup loss in 2 of the first 3 years can't be argued with, but since then everything's fallen to the wayside (blame injuries, or whatever).

[Karl K]

Originally posted by profiled
In the last two years yes, [the Fire and Bradley have] basically been beaten (and out coached) by Sigi Schmid. Before that no, an MLS cup and an MLS cup loss in 2 of the first 3 years can't be argued with, but since then everything's fallen to the wayside (blame injuries, or whatever).

Sigi's a great coach, and the Fire/Gal matchups are always interesting from a tactical point of view.

So from one perspective, you can make this argument, but sometimes there is a fine line.

Last year, the Fire were an "Eric-Wynalda-making-a-hash-of-a-sitter" away from dispatching the Gals in game 3 of the playoffs (fed by a great pass from Armas on a near post carry). The Fire dominated this game, and still had a shot even in overtime, despite not having Peter Nowak available due to injury.

And of course, the Fire completely dominated the Wizards in MLS Cup 2000, and a combination of unluckiness and a Meola out-of-his-mind performance led to the loss.

So, with just a VERY slight change in fate, the Fire could have been in THREE MLS Cups in their first four years of existence, and could have won TWO of those three.

As it is, they have won one out of the two they WERE in, and have put themselves in a position to get there three out of four years.

To me, the measure of a successful coach is, "do you put your players in a position to win big games, and do you win your share?"

By that definition, Bradley is a successful coach. By that definintion, is Sigi a successful one? I'll let others answer that.

[Room 237]

What about Thomas Rongen?

He'll have the team smoking!

He is definitly the big cheese, and from what I hear, he does not like to run drills with orange traffic cones.

[profiled]

Looks like Mr. Bradley's player management skills are losing a little bit of thier luster, aye Mr. Wolf?

[Kaiser]

How about giving Bob Gansler another go?

[Khan]

Originally posted by profiled
Can't argue that he's done well, but "getting by with a minimal team" isn't exactly what you do when you're a national team coach.

Of course, when The US was faltering in qualifying a year ago, all the Areanphiles used "Injuries" as a main excuse for the team's underperformance at that time. I see Bradley's ability to effectively deal with injury as a plus. So, yes, profiled, at times the national team coach will have to do more with less.


Cheers!

[Elninho]

Originally posted by Kaiser
How about giving Bob Gansler another go?

No more Kansas City Catenaccio, please...

[flanoverseas]

Originally posted by Red Card
John Harkes would make a great coach-for-life. I'm sure you beat a lot of people to it, but that sh?t is funny

[bmurphyfl]

Eddie Firmani

[Jacen McCullough]

Originally posted by profiled
Looks like Mr. Bradley's player management skills are losing a little bit of thier luster, aye Mr. Wolf?


That's actually been reported as being not true. As usual, the story running that rumor made big news, and the retraction was a minor ripple. As for players developed by Bradley, the list given earlier left off quite a few gems. Bradley also helped in the development of Beasley, Wolff, Bocanegra, Thornton, Armas etc etc etc. Bradley was also the top assistant under Arena at DC's early years. He won the first two MLS Cups helping Arena, and when he left in 1998 to coach the expansion Fire, he won the championship. He went back to the cup in 1999, which leaves Bob Bradley as a guy who coached an MLS Cup team as either head guy or assistant in all of the first four MLS Cups, winning 3 of 4. All in all, when you take that, factor in injuries, world cup call ups and his Open Cup and college record, it adds up to a pretty impressive coaching resume.

JMac