Besides wanting to re-energize, refocus and reinvent himself in his second four years as the coach of the U.S. men’s national soccer team, Bob Bradley hasn’t given many specifics on how he plans to do it.
He needs only to look at his own words from Tuesday’s conference call for a place to start.
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“When we look back on things that need to be better, it’s always the ability to be more successful in the hardest games,” he said.
This goes for more than just the players. Sure, the only truly negative result for the United States in South Africa was the loss to Ghana, but the seeds were sown in Bradley’s repeated poor lineup selections in the group stage — namely, Ricardo Clark and Robbie Findley. Bradley can’t put all the blame on the players — he picked who would be on the field, and his halftime substitutions in each World Cup match reflected tactical failings that have plagued his tenure.
“Most important is identifying players, beginning the process of bringing those players into national team camps and looking for opportunities to get them into games,” Bradley said. “I really believe strongly our staff did an excellent job of that in the last cycle.”
How then does that explain Jose Francisco Torres, who still looks out of place after two years of grooming, and Benny Feilhaber, who was underutilized in South Africa because he doesn’t fit into Bradley’s system? Meanwhile, Herculez Gomez and Edson Buddle had a combined three national team appearances before World Cup training camp. The best coaches in every sport adapt their systems to their players, not vice versa. How Bradley handles German-born Jermaine Jones will be a good measuring stick.
“The idea that we are a team that’s mobile, athletic,” he said. “We are a team that continues to improve technically. … We have to combine those things with a team concept because, again, we’re not yet at the point where our talent level is up with the best teams in the world.”
Bradley may be realistic, but that sure sounds defeatist. Stability shouldn’t mean satisfaction with the status quo. This mentality is what led to Clark and Findley starting the most important game of the last four years. It’s the responsibility of Bradley and U.S. Soccer to drive the game forward in this country, and that means valuing skill as much as speed and athleticism. If Bradley can’t learn to do that, he’ll have spent four more years reinventing the wheel.
