Ok, well we know Bigfoot has accounted for the 11% F rating... Sure spending your time well and earning that Jaguar, eh?
I dont know how someone could possibly have given Bradley an F?!?! For a team picked by every american soccer analyst to finish last in the conference... i think Bradley did a wonderful job. Without the attitude adjustment and work ethic that he brought in this year... we could of easily not even gotten a sniff at the playoffs or gotten anywhere near the USOC final. IMO, those five games won in a row early in the season was Bradley's doing. He introduced the mentality to scrap and fight for every ball and to never giveup. Bradley got the ball rolling and the team just seemed to drop it and slow down towards the end of the season. I have full faith in Bradley that next year, given the cap space retained from Moreno, Mathis and a few others, that Bradley will fill in the holes and Metro will return stronger then ever. I also beleive that under Bradley's rule, the Metros will develope into a consistent contender for the Cups and maybe even become the league powerhouse for the years to come... i can dream, cant I? VIVA METROS!!!
Must have been that fan who started the whole riot at the swamp after the loss in the playoffs against the Revs. He is bold enough to give Bradley an F. I will give Bradley a B+
We didn't win the treble, or is it the triplet. Darn, we didn't win anything, but we went from chaos to mediocrity. I give B+.
Their site is a joke. Unless I missed it Baseball, pointy, basketball, hockey, Giants, jets, Yankees even wrestling has it own sections. Soccer is under miscellaneous with Curling. Screw them.
Re: Re: Grade Bradley first season with the Metrostars Jesus I was looking right at it. To the kids out there don't do like I did just say no to the drugs and booze, but it is ok to say hello to the women. Richie
B+ He did a great job with what he had for the first 16 games (8-4-4), but the team faltered towards the end of the season in league play. Last 14 games were way under .500 (3-6-5). Bonus points for the Open Cup run, for drafting and developing young talent, and for the gritty, hardworking team he put on the field; points deducted for the team's inability to score, especially in the first half, and for it's inability to win games at home (1-5-3 in last 9 incl. playoffs, getting 6 of a possible 27 points). Overall, he had four solid players to work with and patched together the rest of the lineup. I think he drafted well, and in our first season set us up to become a better team in the future. My nitpicks would be the Lisi situation, sticking with Mathis a bit too long in games and for playing Williams as often as he did. Overall, I think Sarachan will get coach of the year, but Bradley should be second. With the turmoil this team was in last year, getting them just this far was a huge step, bigger than I think we all realize. Next year, maybe we can take the next step.
Follow up data: 2002 record: 11-15-2 2003 record: 11-10-9 So, we lost less games, but we also had the same number of wins on 2 more games played. Next year: less ties, more wins.
Agreed Jamison, but look at it this way. It's still a positive, because Metro picked up points and half of those ties could have been losses. Remember that Metro were down three nil against the Revs and they came back to equalize. Also the match they were down one nil in Naperville and Jolley came out of nowhere to equalize. So half of those draws should have been losses but Metro found a way to steal a point. Because if this season would have been another OZ season. Those matches that Metro scrapped to get level would be in the loss column. Also that would mean no Rico Clark, No Magee, No Wolyniec, No Gaven. Those three would be in Chicago in Bradley's last year on his contract. So I will take those matches that ended in draws instead of putting them into the loss column.
Come on, Bradley deserves a C grade at best. He was completely outcoached against the Revs, and he did little to improve the team throughout the season. He played Richie Williams and various other mediocre guys way too much in lieu of talent like Lisi, McGee, and Gaven. He let Mathis and Guevara be primadonnas with low work rates (remember Serna?). And he brought in Juskowiak at the end of the season, which ensured that the team would NOT gel. All weak coaching moves.
i agree with a c...he did change things around which might have seen better but in the end....we 're basically the same as we ended the year last year only difference is we did make the playoffs but failed to score even a goal in running play...we have to give bob some time...but we new yorkers are really impatient....
It is very hard for me to rate him because I did not see any of his practice sessions. That is where the real coaching is done. I would have liked to see how he worked with Mathis for example functionally to improve the weaknesses he had this year. Also liked to see how he worked with Clark and Gavan on how to play the flank mid position. That is what I had to see in order to rate him. Since I did not see these things I could not rate him. If I was forced to rate him on just these things just from watching them play in games I would rate him low. Richie
C The plus side of the ledger: The team played for hard for him. They didn't come apart as they did during OZ's last year. He seems to have a nice touch with the young players. His system was such, that although lacking in flair or style, I think deep down, most fans who followed the team probably thought, "you know, we just might have enough to eek out a result-no matter how ugly." As we know, it could be much worse. The negative side of the ledger: Jusko and the two Argentines-busts, and he takes a hit for that. The stretch run. I think there is something to be said for having momentum/ducks in order, going into MLS Cup playoffs. We lacked both in our play, and in the Mathis brushfire that surfaced late. Buck stops with the gaffer, so he takes a hit for that. And considering that 8/10 make the playoffs, this has a big effect on his total grade IMO.
I dont think he can really be accountable for that. I mean yes it was his call but if you take it into perpective you'll not that the Argies are an EXTRA to this team, didnt count as SI, and really in those slots you are not going to get much besides average players. So dont expect too much of them in the future either. If they do good then great if they dont then that fine too, we are talking about 3rd string players here. Jusko was aquired in the last month or 2 of the season there's really no one else out there who you can get with NO transfer money and practically peanuts for salary. He wasnt our savior but a gamble. Who ever else you try and get who is out of contract is probably going to be out of shape and not that good. Simply be cause that is when all the other leagues are starting up again so any player that you get has been in vacation for 2 months(with some exceptions ofcourse). You cant tell me that ANY coach would have done better than that and if it were to happen it has much more to do with luck. THe bottom line is that you need to eveluate his moves with MLS rules as factors if this was a normal club he wouldve gotten players at the top of his list that he wanted.
The coaching throughout MLS has really improved. There are maybe 3 weak coaches, but I would say 7 out of the 10 coaches in the league are really good. With that as a given, there are not many opportunities to outcoach the other coach. Bradley is in the top 7. What separates the top 7 is the quality of their players and LUCK (as in Damani Ralph). Bradley was not lucky in that many of the players he brought in did not turn out the way he had hoped.
Re: Re: Grade Bradley first season with the Metrostars I was just at the MSG site and it definitely has a Metrostars section just like all the other major teams.
If we could actually grade Bradley on midterms and finals, what would he get? I give him an A for the first half of the season, and a C for the second half of the season, mainly because of the season ending slump. That averages out to a B. Thats what I voted for.
Bradley is a good coach, but he is slow to react and make changes. Bradley is a good coach, but he should select soccer players not students. Bradley is a good coach, but maybe he should think more as a manager not a teacher. Bradley is a good coach, but he is boring . C+
The failure to realise that Jusko was a mistake sooner than he did really sticks out. Starting/playing him prevented others who were better from making whatever contribution they could. Coming down the stretch to add someone late is a risk to team chemistry. The echos of that move ran deeper than just playing 10 men at a given time. A team has to peak toward the end. The yielding last game of the season sacrifice play was a moron move. I personally prefer a much more aggressive attacking style, similar to 00 Metro, however Bradley is not bad. He has many good qualities. It just really sticks in my craw that he did not recover from the Jusko mistake quicker than he did. I don't know whether ego or poor judgement slowed him, but it did cost us and it was his direct fault. Pretty happy with him otherwise and he does get big points just for not being OZ. Don't think it would kill him to smile a bit, though. Soccer is a game, a very competitive one, but it is suppossed to be fun! Take a lesson from the guy you cut, Bob and show some enthusiasm for your team on the field! The stone face bit is so old school...... A for your strengths B- for your weaknesses - B+/A- final grade (sign us two good strikers and you got yourself an A)
Bradley had three main jobs as I see it: installing a sense of consistency and professionalism in the organization; identifying and collecting reliable talent; putting a championship caliber team on the field. The first job was the most important, and the most difficult given the air of failure and amateur-ness exuded by Metro in the first 7 years of the club's existence. In his first 13 months I give him an A-, the only gripe being the handling of Clint in the last few weeks of the season. It was overblown, but still unnecessary, which he obviously realized. Regardless he's made Metro an organization to be proud of; he's got me believing the team is on the right track, and isn't going to mortgage its future for a quick-fix (a la Hudson and DCU). The second job was the most immediate, if foreign to the Metro fanbase. New Yorkers/Jerseyites aren't used to building a team from the ground-up, they're not used to collecting talent with an eye towards two years from now. The Knicks, Mets, Yankees, Rangers, Devils, Giants and until recently the Jets are all teams that have, in the past, abhorred the "overhaul" and instead thrown money at problems in hopes of a "quick fix". It's a tactic that's worked well for the Yankees and Devils thanks to Brodeur's year-in year-out brilliance, but it's not a game the Metros can play because of the MLS salary cap. And even without the salary cap it's not a game we should play anyway, as 9 times out of 10 it's not successful - look at the Redskins, the Mavericks, the Dodgers, the Red Sox, the (Texas) Rangers, the Rockies, last year's Red Wings, etc etc etc. So in the face of the most rabid "win now" market in, dare I say, the world, Bradley had to jettison proven professionals, replacing them with unproven young talent. Just looking at the guys he's brought in, the fact that he's going to have to come up with (at most) 3 new starters next year, I give him an A. What he did for the Metros' baseline talent this year was just short of miraculous. The final job was long-term, whether we like to admit it or not. The team Bradley constructed was never going to be about this season; the Cup run was a bonus, the fact that we got to the playoffs a feather in the cap. That said, the team was actually worse in October than it was in May. That's a clear negative, so overall on that front I give him a C+. So his total grade is a B+. There's something to be proud of in Metro land, despite the disappointment of the stretch "run" and playoffs. I'm already looking forward to 2004, and am ready for a season in which I honestly and truly think the Metro have a chance to win the MLS Cup.
If I had known I'm getting a Jag just for voting I'd have voted sooner. I agree with Richie. Most of a soccer coach's work is done during the week. Also, soccer is the least coachcentric of all the team sports during the game. I gave him a C. Not a bad job, not a great job. There's room for improvement next year.
I don't disagree with this except IMO the flip-side to this is that if he had found some jewel out of the recycle bin, then he would getting praise for his, "eye for talent," and it would raise his grade. So again, the buck stops with him, for better or for worse. That's the life of a coach.