When did Michael Bradley go from one of our key players to "damn wish he retired from the NT"?

i do recall some chatter but comparing a play where someone got injured and crumpled with the 2014 failure to trap is apples and oranges IMO.

 

For You.

Cameron and Wood are some of my favorite players because they always fight no matter what and had no easy career.

Meanwhile Cameron and Wood cant get any call-ups under Berhalter, but lets build our core with traffic cone Bradley (the most connected player in the modern era). .

 

I think maybe early on, sure. I think the issue was that no other options were tried, and as others pointed out, he was generally not a good enough player to build a team around (even at his peak, much less so in the last 4-5 years).

My opinion early on was to try other options. I remember we got Klinsy, and he did try others, not sure of the year, but probably during the start of his tenure (so maybe 2011 or 2012?).

It was pretty clear at that point Bradley still belonged on the field, so that shut me up for a few years, really until after 2014, becoming most vocal and obvious during the last Hex.

Think it all comes back to guaranteed spots on the natl team. I think it's REAL dangerous, especially when (queue the anger) the guaranteed starter is an old MLS guy. Only a guy like Pulisic should be an obvious starter. But if he suffers an injury, a loss of form, returns to MLS for a payday, my thoughts on that would change quickly.

Too often it seems a manager is finding "his" guys, and riding them, when I think an NT should be rotated constantly, if for nothing else than keeping everyone engaged, avoiding complacency. The laziness/complacency is why we didn't qualify in 2017, in my opinion.

 

Managers and "their guys" are a constant balancing problem. I would like an NFL coach as USMNT GM, those guys will cut their own son in law if it makes the roster a touch better.

 

Can you imagine Belichick watching that Hex team? Think he'd be afraid to rotate in a guy like Dax for a bit of defensive grit?

 

You don't need to explain yourself. I too on numerous occasions during 2012-2015 period defended Bradley when others were harsh. But, too watch us lose big games because the other team tactically targets him as the weak point, BUT we have him as the core player? criminal.

 

I have joked for years that I would rather have him as USMNT coach than the guys we had because he is only loyal to results, not players, not coaches and not systems.

 

im not defending or arguing for any alternative, but cameron make it nearly impossible to return to the national team with his behavior/quotes (not to mention at his age all he would have done was keep long/miazga from getting any minutes til, roughly, now).

and bobby, good grief, i get it- the dudes likable as hell. but you (the general "you") cant even say his form went to hell at least a full year and a half before he stopped getting calls- his time as an effective player was the blip. he didnt have a lot more "peak" us matches than holden or davies.

look at it dispassionately- his last couple of years with the nats he wasnt playing club ball, his entire output was a couple of run of play and a handful of pk goals trying to get him going again. the lack of options is the only reason he wasnt dropped long before he was, and honestly should have been regardless.

theres still people holding on to hope for sapong (whos like 43 now, if im guessing)- his shot should have come rather than some of the far too many career rehab minutes wood got.

 

Agree for the most part, but Wood scored more goals, scored in more games, and scored more consequential goals than Jozy did in the last Hex, despite playing in less games (I think, I'm not going to go find each lineup, but doubt he played in 9).

 

respectfully, we dont need another thread poisoned with jozy nonsense. please. it has nothing to do with my point about bobby.

 

YES it does.

it shows the double standard of Fighters vs spoiled coddled babies.

 

Not sure how it doesn't apply. I'm happy leaving Jozy out of it, but if we're talking about production, Wood still clearly deserves to be in the conversation, no, since he's our most productive current striker on the NT (outside of Sargent, I guess).

How about - Wood scored more goals, more important goals, and in more games than any other current striker in our pool during the last Hex?

 

sure. how many club matches has he played in the three years since? how many usmnt goals?

i feel bobby was a genuinely productive player his first year and a half with the national team, and got an incredibly long leash after that. but boy that was a while ago. i cant imagine an argument for his being remotely close to the team now, regardless of any other players.

besides, weve got zardes, who led the team in goals last calendar year. we are completely set. numbers never lie, and always tell the whole story.

 

Since Oct 2017 (so let's say 2 years, since nothing's happened since late last year pretty much), it looks like Bobby had 8 appearances and 3 goals (8/3).

Zardes 15/6.

Altidore 5/1.

(Edit - Sargent 12/5)

 

man, aaron long took twice as many caps to get that many goals...

but super, zardes and sarge are our guys. its all settled.

 

You seem to be going a bit crazy about statistics.

I agree - Sargent is my starter. Not a huge Zardes fan, but like so many say, can't argue with his production. And if Jozy is (by most accounts) a starter or near starter, not sure why Wood isn't when comparing production.

Anyhow, back to MB90.

 

Some posters here seem to just read the box score after games and call it a day.

 

This is extremely difficult for me to answer. He was my favorite player from his U20 cohort. I followed him religiously at Herenveeeeeeeeen and BMG, but even as far back as qualifying for 2010 there were definite issues with how many minutes he was getting, lack of opportunities for others and difficulties finding a suitable partner for him.

I absolutely lost my sh!t once he was installed as a defensive midfielder. It's a terrible position for him, I don't believe he was any good at it, particularly after the ankle injury and more importantly for the team, it threw the shape and the rest of the players into a constantly imbalanced confusion that others would get criticized for and opponents would capitalize on repeatedly.

Watching team after team mark him at the center circle and pressure the outlets, for him to just keep going backwards, dropping ever deeper, often being behind the two center backs when receiving yet constantly demanding the ball, only for it to result in someone else having to hoof it long and a turnover in possession drove me absolutely insane during the entirety of the 2018 qualifying cycle.

Running the ball through him on every build up was the stupidest structure possible and lead to the biggest failure in the federations history. There is absolutely no excuse for the failures of 2018 qualifying and from my perspective at least, the utilization of Bradley, playing him every minute of every game and building everything around him was not the only factor, just the primary factor in that colossal failure.

This also led to Bradley himself being unfairly criticized because all a player can do is play as best he can and of course will want to play every minute of every game, so none of that is his fault, that is the coaches that constantly put him in that position. This is also where things get a little weird with the confluence of the federation/MLS/SUM and the preoccupation with marketing specific faces and wanting them to represent MLS.

In any event I never wanted to see him in the kit after Couva, that game was an individual disgrace for him that cannot be blamed on coaches.

 

I think Bradley was in noticeable decline in 2014 and had no business being called up in 2017.

 

I think the read of the room when he came back to MLS was "good for him, it's crazy money" but worry that his game would slip for the 2014 WC. I personally was for his return as i thought he was the type of player who would thrive being "the guy" as opposed to a supporting starter and that this leadership would translate to the USMNT (my bad).

He played ok at the world cup but wasn't one of our best players by a long shot. IIRC, that was around the time that there was a thread asking if "Bradley was the best CONCACAF player".

His game continually declined from there and at some point, he switched from being a firebrand that we were worried about getting red-carded to being a stoic guy showing little visible emotion.

In hindsight, we should have stopped building around him after he returned to MLS although I do think he was good enough to be a starter - his game requires a team to be built around him to offset his deficiencies and Klinsmann didn't have the courage of his convictions to do the right thing and not build around him as his game dropped.

I will always admire him for putting the US/Mexico rivalry in perspective in 2016/2017 but that's outside of soccer.

 

I don't want to nitpick but Klinsy and Bruce didn't so much "build around" Mike as just kept playing him.

Vanney built around him. Look at the defensive actions from Delgado and Osorio in the 2017 MLS cup as one example.

https://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2017-12-09-toronto-fc-vs-seattle-sounders-fc/boxscore

 

No worries. Jermaine Jones stated that the team was built around Michael and after he aged out, we always put the second CM as a sidekick. I'm sure it could have been done better but who was the last USMNT midfielder whose game excelled when next to Bradley?

 

You make a good point, it's not that they didn't do it, it's that they did a bad job of it.

 

its easily arguable thats been a problem his entire usmnt career.

there are a handful of very good cms that never had the national team career they could/should have because they didnt "compliment" bradley. he was obviously a great player in his time, and i wouldnt argue against best player we had (at points, though i wouldnt MAKE that argument).

but i will say he was never SO good it made sense to lose overall quality due to that. excluding feilhaber, kljestan or whoever for not...whatever they didnt do to allow bradley to flourish properly has been a consistent issue since day 1.

which is why i, personally, was always a little annoyed when jones came in. i know thats worded awkwardly, but i wasnt annoyed with jones. its that he came in and they couldnt pull that same bullshit about fitting with bradley, cause after roughly bradleys third week in rome no one in their right mind would sit jones if there was a choice between the two. and ironically jones/bradley is the least complimentary (in styles) of most combos that were never given much time.

to give context to that- jones never really played destroyer+ for us, thought thats what id say made him great/was his primary role in his club career. i dont want to say he felt "above" usmnt level, but he undeniably played like that old rooney commercial where he took over every position. my point being- while not stylistically the same- they played very similar roles for us.

and if you feel thats not the case, id point to beckerman being brought in to play behind them. two of our best cms ever, a team that has historically played 2 in the middle the vast majority of the time, necessitated a dedicated destroyer behind THEM.

man, ill say this- bradley is an interesting dude/VERY interesting story. ive been very vocal in my criticism since the time i thought he should have been out of the team, but i never really think of him as a villian. i dont think im unfair re him. i thought the nepotism stuff was ridiculous in terms of being bobs son, but in terms of of us soccer as an inbred ol boys club (however you want to describe it) hes the star-crossed poster boy.

 

Michael Bradley's problem is that he is the only great player of a horrible generation, he isn't an offensive player and he tops it off with being long lasting. So, basically a convenient scapegoat. Very similar to Argentina's Zanetti. The difference is that Zanetti, the greatest full back in Argentina's history was dropped from 2006 and 2010 in spite of being the best choice.