U.S. Soccer Buying American

Interim No Longer, Bradley Readies for Busy Summer

By Steven Goff
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 6, 2007; E05

For months Bob Bradley went about his business running the U.S. men's national soccer team, overseeing training camps, arranging friendly matches, scouting overseas and setting a course for a busy summer schedule.

All the while, though, despite earning results on the field and the players' trust off it, Bradley had to come to terms with the fact that, come this summer, his provisional role could expire and a decorated foreign coach would replace him.

He was the meticulous American, New Jersey reared and Princeton educated, who guided his alma mater to a final four and was an assistant when MLS launched 11 years ago before leading three teams of his own to varying degrees of success in nine years.

Somewhere out there was a cosmopolitan international coach who probably spoke multiple languages, had worked among soccer royalty and had taken an interest in the evolving U.S. program. Head to head, Bradley did not seem to stand a chance.

"I never really worried about it, to be honest," he said recently. "I just tried to focus on the work at hand by creating a good environment and challenging the players. I knew there would be a subsequent conversation about the future, but it was out of my control."

As the U.S. team prepares for its first major tournaments since last year's World Cup -- in a favorite's role at the Gold Cup, which begins today, and as a decided underdog at the Copa America in Venezuela, which runs June 26-July 15 -- Bradley is very much in control.

After five months in limbo while the U.S. Soccer Federation weighed its options, Bradley's interim tag was removed three weeks ago; his first game as the permanent coach was Saturday's 4-1 victory over China in San Jose.

The status change allowed him to not only continue the process of molding the national team, but show that American soccer does not require a foreign coach to be successful.

"I have a saying that we've all shared the game on a lot of days in a lot of places, and I think that is helpful," he said of his strictly U.S. background and his relationship with domestic coaches and players.

Bradley, 49, was not Sunil Gulati's first choice and perhaps not his second either. Gulati, the Columbia University professor who was elected USSF president last year and decided not to renew Bruce Arena's contract following a winless World Cup, had failed to reach an agreement with Juergen Klinsmann of Germany. Needing a caretaker while he continued his international search, Gulati called on Bradley in December.

Bradley was among at least five original finalists for the permanent job, but with accomplished coaches such as Argentina's Jose Pekerman, France's Gerard Houllier and Manchester United assistant Carlos Queiroz reportedly in the mix, Gulati seemed intent on taking a foreign route.

Gulati declined to go into detail about who else he interviewed or how serious the discussions were, but when the U.S. team got off to a fast start this year (4-0-1) and veteran players began offering positive feedback about Bradley, "the focus was very much on Bob," Gulati said.

Gulati dismissed suggestions that the only way for American soccer to join the world's elite is by entrusting it to a seasoned foreign coach.

"The two-word answer is 'Bruce Arena,' " he said. "By that I mean, Bruce got us to the quarterfinals of [the 2002] World Cup and did an extraordinary job with the team over a long period of time [7 1/2 years]. There are plenty of countries that have international coaches and plenty that have domestic coaches. There are advantages potentially to both, but Bruce proved in the summer of 2002 that a U.S. coach could guide the team and guide it very well."

Paul Gardner, British-born columnist for Soccer America magazine, the New York Sun and the prestigious London-based publication World Soccer, believes Gulati made the right decision.

"We've tried foreign coaches; they haven't worked," said Gardner, who has lived in New York for 47 years. "Klinsmann would've been a big mistake. What he did in Germany was vastly overrated. . . . Bradley is a sensible appointment. As far as what he's going to produce on the field, I don't know how much it will change. But given what we've got in terms of players and their qualities, Bob will be good for this team."

The U.S. team has not had a foreign coach since Serbia's Bora Milutinovic from 1991 to 1995. Under Steve Sampson, the Americans qualified for the 1998 World Cup in France, only to lose all three first-round matches. Arena, Bradley's mentor at the University of Virginia and D.C. United, was the longest serving, and most successful, coach in U.S. history.

Eric Wynalda, the U.S. all-time leading scorer and now a TV commentator, also agreed with Gulati's selection, saying: "The hard part for Sunil during the whole process was knowing whether Bob could wrap his arms around this thing, understand all the components and build a good team. Asking someone who has not been exposed to the American way of doing things, it would have been an enormous task."

Despite hiring Bradley, Gulati may very well look abroad for help. He plans to employ a technical director, a common role in soccer in which someone oversees player development from the youth level to the national team and works closely with the head coach. "All the coaches that we talked to in this [coaching search] felt that, in a country of this size with the complicated set-up, the role of national team coach and technical director needed to be divided because it was just too big of a job," Gulati said. That position probably will not be filled until the fall, at the earliest, he said.

Meantime, Bradley has turned his attention to this summer's tournaments and beyond.

"Coaching the national team is a very special opportunity," he said. "Our goal is clear: to build a team capable of being successful in the 2010 World Cup. We are off to a very good start, and I am looking forward to the challenging road ahead."