USMNT a going not where with clueless Bob Bradley.

Not quite. The 75% mark is 75% of matches for which the player was available. Matches played while the player was injured don't count.

 

Friendlies aren't counted.

 

There are plenty of players that never fulfill that requirement now playing in England. The lastest American to succeed is Benny Feilhaber. He's had some minutes but he's nowhere near the watermark requirements. So you see there are exceptions and petitions for exeptions. Happens all the time. Happens every transfer window in the EPL.

 

OK, scratch that theory, I was wrong. It happens.

Now I'm back to wondering what the hell Bornstein was doing in Sweden.

 

Because you can count the number of American left backs who are better than Bornstein on at most 2 or 3 fingers. And you can argue that those guys like Pearce and Burciaga are no better then Bornstein is. Seriously, who would you have called in? Pearce was already there.

And people need to stop bitching about Michael Bradley. The kid starts for Herenveen in the Dutch Eredevise, and he's 20 years old. He's there on merit. Benny Feilhaber hasn't played important minutes for a pro club EVER, and I don't see people bitching about his callups. Sure he managed to learn what sitting on the bench in Germany feels like.

 

To those who said they'd prefer Arena at this point:

Arena was a good coach, but he was way too keen to rely on older players who he was more familiar with--Chris Armas in old age, Kerry Zavagnin, Chris Klein, even Cobi Jones in qualifiers in 2004. I know it's a bit different with Arena because we were preparing for a World Cup when those guys were getting run outs, but Bob Bradley seems much more willing to try out young, untested players than Arena ever did.

Do you guys really think Arena would've given looks to Zizzo, Hill & Davies at such a young age? Arena never even gave Ricardo Clark a decent run out during his tenure, despite the fact that Clark was performing very well in MLS in 2005 & 2006.

 

its like....that almost makes sense dude

and i re-affirm the point, Klinsmann, SVE, Cappello, even Sir Alex would all be lining up players like Altidore, Braldey Jr, Bornstein, Adu, Zizzo, Davies, etc out of the gates at least as early as BB has, if not earlier. Id venture to guess much....much earlier. And people would still be talking smack.

I dont take the Copa America results seriously at all, and neither should anyone here, Alex Ferguson couldnt have won with what BB was forced to play out there. And Sweden...we didnt play bad, we just re-enforced the fact we have a desperate issue up front that needs to be dealt with.

We will see if our 17 year old phenom forward is on the roster tomorrow, i entirely expect it. He's been good about bringing in youngins as of late and giving them proper time to grow in games that DONT MATTER. Itll matter in qualifying people, it doesnt matter now. Ill take a few jabs to the chin if it makes us better in the long run, and thats what Bradley is building for, the long run.

 

I agree. Bob Bradley has shown a willingness to give young guys an extended look in the team to test them. Do people think Charlie Davies was going to step on the field in his first two friendlies and score 6 goals? No.

And if you're going to experiment with younger players in away matches, you are going to lose. But that's the reason you play these games. To put these kids under pressure to see who can handle it. Some will. Some won't. Then we'll know for WCQ who won't wilt at the Azteca.

 

Dear lord...

For bobby, there might be the slightest shred of truth, as he actually depends on a WP; although an appeal could easily focus on the injury and prescribed treatment as reason that he missed out on what would otherwise have been requisite caps.

Neither of the other two need WP's, and neither of them have or are playing to that point.

If MB, at his age and with his experience, doesn't qualify for an exceptional talent exception to the WP rule, I'd be totally shocked. Either way, neither are in the frame for any British clubs, and neither are in need of it, end point.

 

Champions League versus Arsenal?

Other than that, completely agree with your sensibility. It's refreshing to see someone not trying to pump some 'arcane' knowledge or logic, just facts and sense.

 

U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati is suck, he did not know how to find a
good head coach for US men's national team. I doubed about this president's ability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Bradley ( BB's resume)

Can BB get a job (head coach ) some where else outside US ??
In Europe: no
In Asia : no
......

 

It's not about the young players. I think most people expected that. It's about the lack of direction the USSF have. Our u17s can't control a ball or string together 4 passes. A fair amount in our senior squad have no tactical sense whatsoever. Bradley isn't the main problem but to me he symbolizes the problem. With a Capello or Klinsmann the USSF philosophy changes. Under Bradley it pretty much remains the same and we the supporters get jerked around. You may jerk off to the recent results but the PLAY is more shocking than the results at times.

The experience they get against Brazil is also overstated. Brazil don't have the same mentality in Friendlies as we do. And for a good number of guys in squad playing against Brazil isn't going to teach them to stop ball watching or how to control the tempo of the game.

 

And neither is Bob Bradley.

Bob is not in charge of the youth programs or player development. He's the manager for the senior team. He picks from players that are, or are close to the finished product, puts his team on the field and manages the game. That is the issue of this thread.

If you want to talk about the bigger picture, our convoluted youth system, etc., then perhaps there are better threads for it.

I'll leave you with this however...Klinsmann did not take the US job reportedly because of 'power' issues. Did you think these issues stemmed from senior team player selection or tactics? Hardly. The obvious answer was that he wanted to revamp the whole system top to bottom...and met with massive resistance. Until whatever the source of that resistance is broken down, there will be no real changes in our player development.

But again, that has absolutely nothing to do with Bob Bradley.

 

I keep hearing about the whole Micheal Bradley playing to get a work permit blah, blah, blah... Is the requirement that he starts or that he plays in 75% of the matches he's available for??? I also believe that other players should be getting a look over him who I feel can probably contribute to the team more than he can at the present moment... B/c from what I can see, lil junior starts a lot of games... Also I was thinking about this when I read that Mexico was calling up its young guns... I actually think that some of them are going to perform really well in the up coming friendlies for Mexico... Sanchez chose a game against a not so difficult opponent to test players for the national team, see who he likes and doesn't like and Bradley decides to bring them on the field against Sweden??? Now Sanchez takes those players and some more young guys deserving of a call-up for their next two friendlies against Panama and Brazil... Test more people out against Panama, see who does well and start them against Brazil... Process of elimination... Are we purposely trying to destroy whatever bit of confidence they might have??? Zizzo and Davies are not ready for big time competition like Sweden... When we schedule friendlies against Guatemala, Jamaica, T&T, don't call up our stars call up Zizzo and Davies then... I think that Mexico's approach right now is going to see them take the throne back as the top team concacaf... Bradley, what is he doing??? I haven't seen any improvements at all, we still play the same, scoring a lot of goals from set-pieces, I want to see more from the run of play... At times we possess the ball very well, but I also think that has more to do with the quality of the team we're facing... I honestly don't know where this team is heading at this point and time...

 

This really is about Tactics and strategy, a world class coach can take these things and motivate almost any player and have him play the way he wants them to play.

Look at it this way, some teams have a ton of talent but if the talent is not used properly and or the tactics and formation are out of whack then in the end it wont matter.... you could have 11 Rhonaldinhos on the pitch and it would not matter 1 bit.

Coaches are important because players not only look up to them but they also take direction from them. The Coaches job is to take the avaliable players and work on a plan that would have tactical advantage over the opponent, the strategy and tactical component is always tweaked depending on the opponet and their style of play.

This is a chess game, and each and every situation is not exactly the same and you need to have a phenomenal coach that knows exactly how to tweak the formation and apply tactics to get not only the most out of his players but to actually force a result.

And Big Bad Bob is not that coach, his tactics and strategy are none existant.

 

everyone makes vaild points here...but as my good friend eric wynalda says " the USMNT is about putting the best 11 players on the field, not trying out players"

i dont have a problem losing one game after another if we had the best possible squad we could have sent to each game.

 

And who are the great tactical coaches, other than Hiddink? It's hard to tell with just about anyone else, because all the "top" club coaches have top talent at their disposal.

And once you answer that question, who else was a realistic USMNT candidate?

Before you say you would have preferred Klinsmann, let me point out that Klinsmann himself admitted to being a mediocre tactician, and considered his primary role with the German NT to be team-building. He left the tactics to his assistants. So... we wouldn't be any better off tactically with Klinsmann, seeing as he wouldn't be able to retain his old assistant (who has taken over the German NT head coaching job).

 

This just simply isn't true. I feel like Bob Bradley is very good at using new tactics and formations. I get the feeling that he is constantly thinking about what is best for the team and that is why we constantly see new things from the team. For example, when we used a 4-3-3 in the Gold Cup where Bob basically let Clint, Bease, and Landon(our 3 best attacking players yet not true strikers) have free reign. Bruce never would have tried such a thing. He loved the 4-5-1 with Landon as the #10 or withdrawn forward. It was the same old tired out thing every game with Bruce. The point is that Bob is not scared to change his tactics and I can not remember a time when Bob was outcoached. In our four losses we were not outcoached and really should not be embarrased about these losses.

 

Agreed 100% f*ck bradley.

 

I just don't think we can afford the attitudes of Brazil and Argentina where our coach has to be American. And we can't afford a "good enough" attitude where it's okay to lose frequently. It's not going to turn around at the WC. Does any other national team want Bob Bradley? If not, why is he coaching ours?

 

1) All of you anti-MLS Eurosnobs can quit dreaming. Your favorite European club's coach is not going to leave their club to come coach the US national team and if he does we will still fail to win the World Cup because we don't have the best talent in the world.

2) He is playing his son because he deserves to play.

3) Our top players had to go back to MLS and Europe. The best caoch in the world wouldn't have done any better in Copa America. Argentina and Brazil were in the final for a reason. They were that much better than the other 10 teams!

4) Winning the Goal Cup was more important. We are in the Confederations Cup which is more exciting than Copa America. Honestly, the only reason people were excited was because Argentina was in our group. Exclube them and Brazil from the tournament and no one cares about it. We may get another shot at Italy in 2009, so don't complain.

5) Germany had home field advantage in 2006 and some of the top talent in the World. Their 3rd place finish at the World Cup had a lot to do with that and not so much coaching.

6) Dolo was fouled before the pass was made that led to the goal vs Sweden. We were hosed by the ref.

 

My dad played against him in college, and went through the A license coaching course with him. From what i'v heard from him, Bradley was never a special player, pretty mediocre actually. On his way to becoming a coach he worked hard, to get where he is today. His heart is in it. But he's an internet drill coach....... He doesnt have the soccer brain we need to run a national team

 

No, no he doesn't. Not over Ricardo Clark, not over Pablo. The kid is mediocre at best right now. He cant pass, cant shoot and has a god awful first touch. Maybe in the future he will earn the right to be a set-in-stone starter on the USMNT, but as of right now.......no way. And Bob's insistence on including him is reason enough to argue that Bob doesnt need to be our coach.