The result vs. Egypt will be the final piece of evidence, but the comments by Dempsey in this article are pretty telling. I know a lot of you out there aren't Dempsey fans, but his accomplishments away from the MNT indicate him as one of the best American players out there. I am not sure how far spread the discord is, but clearly Dempsey and Bob B. are on the outs. http://www.yanks-abroad.com/get.php?mode=content&id=4820
I think Bradley has lost the team but I don't really see this as that big of a deal. I was expecting much more from the title of the thread.
this is not good, if true. i mean, why wait to fire him after we fail at the 2010 WC? fire him, and see if you can salvage the WC.
I think that a lot of people want him gone. Watch "The Sitter" from this week with John Harkes and Alexi Lalas, on MLSnet.com. They both clearly imply that Bob needs to go.
I am pretty sure he lost the locker room as soon as baby Bradley became the #1 undisputed most important player on the team. Is it really possible that the other players have no feelings about Mikey being given a free pass to a starting spot in the WC? Does anyone else have one, besides maybe Landon, and apparently Beasley? The answer is no. There is no way to maintain a truly cohesive atmosphere when you have this kind of situation. A team is both a competitive and a cooperative system, and when the competition side is not being handled fairly the cooperative side suffers. Actually I think our guys have done a great job of holding together, but the situation is deteriorating quickly. Bob Bradley is giving his favorites WAY too much advantage, and his judgement is clearly compromised. He is making horrible tactical decisions, and they are making the team look bad. I never expected him to improve the team, but not to bring it down so much either. I wouldn't be shocked if Dempsey gets benched vs. Egypt. I think his dislike for BB is showing in his play, and he basically called Bob out in that interview. I don't think Landon is happy either, but he doesn't have the balls to speak out. He is the only player who can really bring heat on Bob though. Our golden boy. He looks pretty upset, so maybe it will happen. He can't be pleased.
It is true. Just look carefully at the players' body language. They have been beaten to a pulp with Bob's horrible decisions about personnel. They don't have any more confidence in him. And they're not playing for him. When a team loses it's confidence in a coach, then it's time for that coach to move on -- whether he is fired, or resigns. Mr. Gulati, Mr. Flynn, and Mr. Bradley should ALL realize this, and act accordingly. USSF should give Bob the chance to resign -- now that he has been enlightened that he is not the man to take the team to success at the World Cup. If Mr. Bradley fails to resign, the USSF should quickly and resoundingly fire him immediately. And call Cruijff and Van Basten. I'm sure one of those two would be proud to lead the US to the World Cup next year!
We're going to be playing catch up in every game for a while. It's hard to win when the defenders can't mark their man or clear the ball, while the midfielders can't pass, or trap the ball, and the forwards can't shoot. I wouldn't min, if we had a better coach, but it would be interesting to see what his lineups would do considering every lineup Bradley has tried seems to lack basic skills.
I'm guessing Bradley told the team that any sort of flashy play will not be accepted. That explains Dempsey's very boring , 'go through the motions' play in recent games. That also explains his sudden outburst of ridiculous moves strung together at the most pointless time of the game. And it also explains Adu's lack of playing time. He wants the team to succeed because of him. If the US were to succeed he wants all the credit and that can only happen if the players did exactly what he told them. That would ensure that no one really breaks out and becomes a star and nothing would overshadow him and his son. I know it sounds like a ridiculous conspiracy but hey it's just my two cents.
I'm no Boob Bradley supporter but, this is not a good example of Bob losing touch. Bob hasn't lost the team because he said players were nervous and Dempsey retorts that he, himself wasn't nervous. Bob's refusal to give talented players minutes based on hypocritical and variable standards is the bigger issue.
Then why is the team playing so much worse now than it did in 2008? Or 2007? People have wanted this to be an issue for a long time, and it never has been. The US is playing worse now than it has in a looooooooong time. A lot of it has been player mistakes, even by the best players: Feilhaber's give away and Onyewu's subsequent retreat from Rossi, Dempsey's give away against Honduras, Spector losing his marker against Brazil, Bocanegra not closing down against Costa Rica, etc. Yet, after this many simple mistakes, it comes back on the coach. The players' attitudes/approach seem to suggest that Bradley isn't leading them anymore.
to add to Dempsey's quote.. his showboating @ the end of the game was just him defying his coach. imo, he was telling us his opinion of the state of this team and his respect for Bob. also.. did anyone notice him get an 'OLE' by the fans around the end of the 2nd half?
I am not a BB supporter, but this article does nothing to show that Bob Bradley has lost this team...
Amen! I will go out on a limb here; but, but dad tried something new vs non-CONCACRAP teams and paid for it. But dad did not get the reds. Nor did Clark for that matter but the refs said so. There went the Italy match. Maicon watches the Italian match and goes diving as well for fouls. He gets one and Brazil gets one. Before you go look all the other early opportunities Brazil had, also know that the Brazil attacker did not score as the player was under pressure in all but one of the Brazil misses. Red cards change a match and as far as I am concerned, the USMNT did learn some valuable things. 1. DeMarcus, come on home to MLS and enjoy the sunset. 2. Dempsey, dad was trying to give you an out. 2 matches of very mediocre showings mean the bench for you. maybe you and dad can exchange pleasantries there. 3. To the Jonathans, well done you will make good 2nd choices. 4. Junior I loved you attacks for the last two matches, finally. 5. Junior bummer those attacks showed you lack athleticism, touch, speed and size. So dad, if Junior is on the pitch, even though I thought you should be kept on through the WC, it is time to go. Junior has played 95% of the minutes at CM against top quality teams and has proved to be the weak spot. The players know it, you know it and it is time for a change. Time to see more of these Altidore.......Casey.....Ching Torres....Feilhaber.....Clark.....Kljestan.... Donovan...Adu Bornstein....Gooch.....Boca.....dolo.....Spector....deMerit.....Pearce .................Howard.....Robles (your going to like him)......... Any combo, but time to see these guys and no more junior, dempsey, beasley and guys who have not yet made an appearance (except under future extreme circumstances). If you can't see Junior et al off the team until 2010, time to go.
You need to read between the lines. Yesterday in a post I said that whenever Bob leaves, I would read the disparaging quotes from "an anonymous US player" as "Clint Dempsey." I guess I'm right.
#3) If Bornstein doesn't start at left back, who does? #5) Everytime Michael Bradley steps on the field (including in the Bundesliga), he is one of the biggest guys out there. This last comment makes no sense. LINEUP) I don't understand the constant need to find a "Holdup Forward". Out of the successful teams in Europe, Italy is the only team that I can think of that uses this tactic... and even they only use it occasionally. I can't think of another successful team in the world that uses this tactic. The US talent pool has evolved to the point that the USMNT is best served if it does NOT use this tactic. It's said that Ching causes nightmares in CONCACAF for opposing defenders. Well isn't that a cute thing to say. Versus the rest of the world, he provides a good night's sleep for opposing defenders. And Casey is a poor man's Ching. The US would be much better served building from the back just like they did in the first half against Italy, just like all of the top teams (and even top 30 teams) in the world do and just like my 6 on 6 team did in LA and my 5 on 5 team does in Buenos Aires. We have the personel and the ability to play intelligently. Why isn't the team allowed to do it?
I also think Dempsey's "check out my FIFA Street promotion" during the last 5 minutes of the Brazil match was trying to tell Bradley something: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYI6ocV9KJs"]YouTube - Clint Dempsey fails TWICE in one game. First a rabona then a Cuauteminha[/ame]
This doesn't implicate anything at all. Bradley thought they looked nervious, but Dempsey said he wasn't, so this means what? Either Bradley was wrong, he wasn't reffering to Dempsey at all, but other players, or Dempsey is lying and he was nervious. Anyway it shouldn't matter at all. If the manager said he thought they looked nervious then they to him they looked nervious, that's it. This isn't some ground breaking thing at all. I think people here are just looking for anything to through Bradley under the bus. Everyone on her needs to realease that like it or not Bob Bradley is our Manager for this cycle, and there is nothing you can do about it. The World Cup is less than a year away and we are in the midst of qualifying, IMHO it is too late to blow everything up and start from scratch. Instead of freaking out when anything bad happens, maybe we should look at it as a learning opertunity. I would rather barely qualify and look like complete shit while dong it and have a lot more questions answered on players and formation then blow through everything and show up next summer without facing any problems and get smacked in the face like we did in 2006. All of these poor performences are showing Bradley who/what works and doesn't and will prepare us for the real dance. Qualifiers matter, but everything else should be looked at as a learning oppertunity to get us ready for the WC. Who cares what our ranking is next summer or what the world thinks of us. The only thing that matters is that we are prepared and ready to show up and play our best next summer, something I beleive we will be a lot more prepared to do then we were last cycle.
I think this means that Dempsey did not buy into the excuse Bradley said caused the beating. It's probably his way of saying, "it was you not us."
Did anybody else connect this.......................In 2009 Freddy Adu has only played in 28 minutes.................In 2008 and towards the end of 2007 Freddy Adu had much much more minutes..............anybody see a correlation here.... As another poster pointed out "Adu is not a key to our team..he is THE KEY to this team" Im startign to believe it more and more........