Yeah, this is my take. For whatever reason, the legs just aren't there anymore and his style of play requires him to run his ass off. That Minnesota goal posted upthread where he's beat 1:1 is kind the perfect encapsulation of things. As someone in my 30s who'll try to play against people in their 20s, I know that feeling a little too well.
I'm not sure anyone saw Landon as anything but an off the bench option for 2014, certainly not a starter. Mixed feelings if it was a good idea or not. Not going to argue Boca though. However Klinsmann also never quite figured out that Kyle Beckerman's play dropped off a cliff between 2014 and 2015. That REALLY didn't help our awful Gold Cup.
He wasn't physically the same player after he wrecked his ankle in Costa Rica. He wasn't mentally the same player after he moved to MLS.
Bradley isn't a typical US midfielder. Most of those mature after getting some college and bloom in their early 20's. Because of that they last longer than midfielders from most other countries. Bradley is one of the first US midfielders who went pro at the same age players from the rest of the world do and he has played a ton of extra minutes for both club and country. He may be done. Tons of mileage on his body.
C'mon. MB was rarely a difference maker on the field and didn't deserve to be an auto starter but I can't remember a Hex game where he was in the bottom third of players for the USMNT. That's not a rousing statement for the captain and the first name penciled in the sheet of course.
$6M/yr will do that to you at his age. He ain't getting another contract anywhere close at his age regardless how hard he tries, so it may be that he has zero incentive to put out anymore. Ride out the contract, get a pundit gig or start the process of managing, live out the days.
I agree with your comment about Beckerman, but not about Donovan. I'm not trying to take this thread off-topic, but Donovan was rounding into form around the time of the World Cup and the 2014 MLS season was one of his better years of his club career. We were notoriously weak on the wings in 2014 (we started Alejandro Bedoya and Graham Zusi on the wing), so if Klinsmann hadn't mistakenly omitted Donovan, Landon surely could have helped the team and would have been a clear step above either of those two guys as a starter. It's not a coincidence that the best year of Klinsmann's tenure (2013) coincided with Landon's return to the national team as a starter.
Oh, I'm very much a pro-Landon on the team guy for 2014, but I think he may have been better used off the bench as a change of pace guy.
Oh stop. Most of our fanbase overrated him to begin with ... which is the real problem. And they did so because he was a Europe lifer (left at 18, obviously). I was constantly called out for not over-inflating my opinion on Bradley. But as long as he was in Europe, he was the greatest to everyone else. But when it appeared he was coming to MLS, people were sharpening the knives even before he played a game. The truth is that he was always a really nice player for the US, but not the world beater that our fanbase tried to convince ourselves of. But the cracks started to show in Roma, and then the injury ... and he was never the same. There is no reason for us to continually attack him for being the best he could be, which for OUR LEVEL was pretty darn good for quite a while. I agree it is time to move on, but are we ever going to let this go now?
Eh, again though I think people seeing his declining play as some lack of effort is just people looking to confirm their previous opinions of him. I think the change in his personality has played a part too. He's a pretty quiet guy nowadays, calmer and more in control of his emotions than he was at 22 where he'd already been red carded from two tournament semifinals due to his inability to keep himself in check. He was never going to be that same idiot teenager trying to throw down on the pitch with Cavani and Suarez in Toronto forever. /makes me kind of wonder if Bob was a hothead too in his younger days.
I've said many times the first to blame are the coaches, who kept selecting these guys when many saw the flaws. Not just limited to MB, but including Jozy, the GKs, Omar, Beasley, etc. I've said I don't really blame MB much, because he was just doing what he was asked to do (signed big contract he wouldn't have received in Europe, serving as captain and playing every game because coaches guaranteed that). The issue is when people still try to argue with me that he was/is a great player, missing out on qualifying is no reflection on him at all, and that he played no part in the disaster (captains don't mean anything, he has no responsibility in the team defensively or offensively). Yes, Bruce was the primary culprit. The US could have qualified over Panama with dozens, hell even hundreds, of different available players who were hungry and motivated. Bruce made sure the hunger wasn't there by calling in and guaranteeing the spots of so many players. But as this is an MB thread, and as people are still defending him and expecting him to be called in for the Gold Cup or not be finished with the NT (though that sentiment is slowly disappearing), discussion will continue certainly.
I've said it before. I think a lot of this criticism will cease once it is clear to the fanbase that he is not an automatic starter or part of the 23 man rosters for the next cycle. Most people, once that is a reality, will be able to put some perspective back into the discussion of where Bradley fits into the spectrum of our history. Once he becomes the past of our national team, we will realize with more objectivity how good he once was. Until then though, the spectre of having to watch him play for us hangs over this discussion like a shroud.
I agree with this (especially the coaching part for selections) but then I remember that Bradley took all free kicks when Zusi was out there and they were bad. Was he told to take all of them or did he wave off everyone else? He was a good player for us but the last few years he not only started losing some athleticism but he became entitled.
To lull them into complacency... then BOOM, a competent player comes running at them. Juergen only completed step 1 of a 2 step plan.
Meh. I'm an MB apologist, but I also think he's done unless he can turn himself into late career Chuatemoc Blanco. I'm just getting a lot of deja vu reading the comments about him and it reminds me of 2006 era Donovan, another player with "no heart or desire" in peoples' minds due to his coming back to MLS. People want a scapegoat. He's an easy one regardless of the truth of it.
Yes agreed but that comes part and parcel of being the Captain of the team. Something Dempsey avoided like the plague. So rightly (and I think its valid) or wrongly he's is in the crosshairs.
Exactly. But then we get the amazing "captains don't mean anything" apologies. I also don't think people want him out because he has "no heart and desire". That is maybe a more recent issue after the jogging in T&T. I've wanted him out (aka cycled based on form), because according to everyone, he has no responsibility on the field for anything offensively or defensively, and passes backwards routinely. Now that he apparently didn't have any responsibility as captain to lead the team to the WC, I'm not exactly sure what his purpose was.