Interesting BB Stats

[mattmanp]

Per USSoccer.com (http://www.ussoccer.com/articles/viewArticle.jsp_12550153.html)

BOB ON THE JOB: Since January of 2007 it has been the charge of U.S. head coach Bob Bradley to achieve the most important goal of any soccer playing nation: qualification for the FIFA World Cup. With 31 games under his belt, seeing more than 70 different players at least once and the process of reaching South Africa in 2010 in full swing, a review of the body of work during the past 20 months points to the U.S. clearly heading in the right direction. Since the start of the four-year cycle, the U.S. has:


Won six straight FIFA World Cup qualifiers in a row, a new team record
Defended the CONCACAF Gold Cup title and qualified for the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup
Won by the largest margin of victory in U.S. World Cup qualifying history (8-0 vs. Barbados on June 15, 2008)
Won back-to-back games in Europe for the first time in team history (Oct. 17, 2007, at Switzerland and March 26, 2008, at Poland)
Won three straight matches on the road for the first time in team history (Oct. 17, 2007, at Switzerland, Nov. 17 at South Africa and March 26, 2008, at Poland)
Played five matches against four teams ranked in the Top 10 in the world at the time they stepped on the field against them (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Spain)
Played matches on four continents and in two major international tournaments


THE BRADLEY BREAKDOWN

Record
All-Time: 22-8-3
Qualifying: 7-1-0
Goals For: 64
Goals Against: 30
Shutouts: 14

Record vs. ...
CONCACAF: 13-1-2, 34 GF, 8 GA
CONMEBOL: 1-4-1, 7 GF, 13 GA
UEFA: 5-3-0, 12 GF, 7 GA
AFC: 1-0-0, 4 GF, 1 GA
CAF: 1-0-0, 1 GF, 0 GA

Record when ...
Leading at half: 14-0-1
Losing at half: 1-2-0
Tied at half: 7-6-2

Take out the Copa America C-team and it's a pretty impressive record. I was a little surprised by the record when leading at half and that it was the first time we ever won three straight road games.

[deuteronomy]

Per USSoccer.com (http://www.ussoccer.com/articles/viewArticle.jsp_12550153.html)



Take out the Copa America C-team and it's a pretty impressive record. I was a little surprised by the record when leading at half and that it was the first time we ever won three straight road games.
I hope we are leading at the half tomorrow night.

[appoo]

Per USSoccer.com (http://www.ussoccer.com/articles/viewArticle.jsp_12550153.html)



Take out the Copa America C-team and it's a pretty impressive record. I was a little surprised by the record when leading at half and that it was the first time we ever won three straight road games.

I will give him this, he is good at grinding out results. It maybe ugly, but perhaps ugly is what we need to advance in the world cup

[Prime Time]

The numbers have been impressive and lets hope BB adds another W after tomorrow night.

[Barcasox]

Bob is a good coach, we know that. We just have to see how he does during the Confed Cup

[KALM]

To his credit, we haven't lost a game in which we were better on paper than the opposition or evenly matched, and we got a result against at least one team (Argentina) where we were clearly the inferior team on paper.

I think BB's done nearly everything that's been asked of him.

With that said, I think Bradley's performance in the hex will tell us a lot more about his coaching ability than most of the games we've played so far have. That's because these are competitive matches (which don't allow for "experimenting" excuses), with all healthy and non-suspended players at our disposal, against decent opposition.

When I say decent opposition, I mean that unlike our earlier rounds of qualifying and even our Gold Cup schedule, the hex compares quite favorably to most UEFA qualifying groups (the average, weakest*, and median teams are all ranked higher in the hex than in any UEFA group, while Mexico is better than the 2nd highest ranked team in most groups), and most people here would probably feel comfortable evaluating the performance of the coach of a top European team based on the results in their group.

*Okay, Georgia is slightly higher than El Salvador, but that's the one exception.

[deuteronomy]

To his credit, we haven't lost a game in which we were better on paper than the opposition or evenly matched, and we got a result against at least one team (Argentina) where we were clearly the inferior team on paper.

I think BB's done nearly everything that's been asked of him.

With that said, I think Bradley's performance in the hex will tell us a lot more about his coaching ability than most of the games we've played so far have. That's because these are competitive matches (which don't allow for "experimenting" excuses), with all healthy and non-suspended players at our disposal, against decent opposition.

When I say decent opposition, I mean that unlike our earlier rounds of qualifying and even our Gold Cup schedule, the hex compares quite favorably to most UEFA qualifying groups (the average, weakest*, and median teams are all ranked higher in the hex than in any UEFA group, while Mexico is better than the 2nd highest ranked team in most groups), and most people here would probably feel comfortable evaluating the performance of the coach of a top European team based on the results in their group.

*Okay, Georgia is slightly higher than El Salvador, but that's the one exception.
Some good points.
Despite having played 70 players, one of the major criticisms here on BS was his lack of experimentation. Remember in the late summer and early fall the cries for Cooper and Davies?
It is an interesting concept to compare the hex with a Euro group.
I agree we will know more about Bob's coaching ability after the hex. The next chapter begins tomorrow night.

[Bruce S]

Some good points.
Despite having played 70 players, one of the major criticisms here on BS was his lack of experimentation. Remember in the late summer and early fall the cries for Cooper and Davies?
It is an interesting concept to compare the hex with a Euro team.
I agree we will know more about Bob's coaching ability after the hex. The next chapter begins tomorrow night.

and then it will be about the WC. In reality, the Nats coach is always under fire and pressure

[voros]

and then it will be about the WC. In reality, the Nats coach is always under fire and pressure
Of course he's under a lot less fire and pressure than every other Head Coach in the top 30 in the world, which was one of the things I hated about Arena's attitude.

According to my team rating system Bradley from 2007-2009 has done slightly better than Arena from 2001-2006, taking into account the difficulty of the games and weighting important games more heavily (Arena's schedule was slightly more difficult).

However the gap is so small that a loss tomorrow would erase and put Bradley behind. They've more or less done about the same.

[mattmanp]

Or he could finally get a win in Azteca. :eek: I'm pretty sure work on building his bronze statue would start the next day.

[Lloyd Heilbrunn]

"Won six straight FIFA World Cup qualifiers in a row"

Paging the Department of Redundancy Dept.