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Michael Bradley to Moenchengladbach

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                                                Photo by ISIphotos.com

Michael Bradley has agreed to terms with Borussia Moenchengladbach after the German club agreed to a transfer with Dutch club Heerenveen on Saturday, New York-based agent Ron Waxman confirmed with SBI this morning. Bradley and Moenchengladbach agreed to terms on Sunday morning. The amount of the transfer has not been disclosed.

Bradley had been linked to a variety of European clubs, including Hamburg, Middlesbrough, Newcastle and AS Monaco, but Monchengladbach swooped in with a late move for the 21-year-old central midfielder.

Bradley leaves Heerenveen after two seasons following a $100,000 transfer from the New York Red Bulls following the 2005 MLS season. According to sources with knowledge of that transfer, MLS is due to receive twenty percent of the fee Heerenveen received from Moenchengladbah. That also means the Red Bulls are due to receive a portion of that transfer fee.

Bradley joins the newly-promoted Bundesliga squad that features Canadian striker Rob Friend, who was Bradley’s teammate at Heerenveen during the 2006-2007 season.

He won’t be the first American to ply his trade at Moenchengladbach. Long-time U.S. national team goalkeeper Kasey Keller spent two seasons with the club, serving as captain in the 2006/2007 season.

It’s poll time.

What do you think of the news? Is Moenchengladbach a good landing spot for Bradley? How do you think he will do in the Bundesliga? Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. I love him moving to Bundesliga but I will have to investigate who this ‘monchengladbach’ team is. I only know MoEnchengladbach who had a rough last few years but are generally a solid club.

    (sorry had to bust balls. umlaut = ‘e’ after the letter with the umlaut over it. Easy to remember. Plus it’s potentially disastrous to omit it depending on the word. 😉 )

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  2. M̦nchengladbach is the Number 5 football club in Germany Рcounting members. At the moment they have to build up a new base from young talents. Bradley seems to be a great choice for the club and the club is sure to be a great choice for Bradley.

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  3. This is a great move for him. Bundesliga and a lot of first team football on a team with a following and history. Besides people wanting to watch him on FSC, I never understood why anyone wanted him to go to the Premier League. Raw speed and endurance are not his game. As for MB being on Bayern Munich or another giant in a few years, give me a break. The kid is doing great at the club level and to say M’bach is a disappointment is silly.

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  4. What is often forgotten about the German league is how offensive minded it is. Goals/game is the highest of the big four leagues and while it can be physical, this is still an attacking league unlike most Italian or English sides. This will further refine MB’s technical and attacking creds and demand that he refine his outlet passing. It’s a good league for him.

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  5. My two cents from germany…

    Probably not his dream move or that of his fans, but still a good decision.

    The Bundesliga ist not as good as the Premier league.

    But the coaching is overall better especially for younger players, to be honest, aside from the top clubs in the premier league, the coaching – especially in the technical and tactical segments – is often pretty pathetic.

    Gladbach is a bottom to middle of the tier club in the Bundesliga.

    The competition at other preferred destinations of you (Stuttgart, Hamburg) for first team spots is crowded and the pressure is pretty high.

    So he has good chances of getting playing, maturing his game and attitude in all aspects. Staying in Heerenveen, the only upside was playing in the uefa cup, but i don’t think heerenveen is going to go on a long run in this competition and so he can develop consistency in gladbach playing pressure games at high level every week.

    Going upwards to a better club is after a good season a given, if he wants it.

    Italy would have been a terrible choice, without a first class tactical education he would get no playing time.

    So stay calm, in half a year or year ist revaluation time of this move….

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  6. Swim or sink Mikey. You’ll be having better players running at you all season.

    Wonder how they’ll like his dumbass decisions? Maybe they can cure him?

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  7. @ Daniel. You are right. The capacity is actually over 54000. I,m sure about this. I´ve got a seasonticket. The stadium “bökelberg”, which the club left 3 years ago, had the capacity of 34500.

    Btw: I´m not sure that bradley easily makes it into the starting team. Believe me, the team is not that bad, as you probably think.

    (sorry for my bad english)

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  8. If this is true about Subotic — then I have almost completely lost faith in the USSF over the past two years.

    1) Klinsmann

    2) Rossi

    3) Subotic

    At least we have Eddie Johnson, who would struggle to make the cut for Guatemala’s NT.

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  9. I’m not over the moon about the transfer (I was hoping for Stuttgart), but I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad move. People referring to ‘Gladbach as a bottom-feeding club or the German Derby clearly don’t know their history. I would compare ‘Gladbach and their recent situation to a team like West Ham — they’re a strong club with a lot of history who happened upon a run of bad form. This could be a good move for Bradley. Let’s give it a little time.

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  10. i think its a good move for MB. The German league is very physial as well, he’ll toughen up even more.

    as for Subotic…this is the world of football we live in today. We are not the first nor the last national team to lose players to a world power.

    Go ask Poland and Australia, they know all about it

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  11. guys, Bradley was never going to stay at Heerenveen. Knowing that, he did the professional thing and took the best offer the team and he could get. This is a squad that gave him every opportunity and made him the player he is. Had he refused a transfer after announcing he wanted to leave, he would have screwed the club and screwed himself. This way ‘veen gets something for him instead of nothing. He gets a raise (one presumes) and a chance to prove himself in another league, the club gets money and everyone is happy. If you ask to leave and then make yourself unsignable, you make it real hard for your next team to take a risk on you. So he takes a probable ten thousand euro a week raise and moves on. Maybe fifteen.

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  12. So according to Goff, Stuttgart was the most interested. What happened there? Wouldn’t be guaranteed a first-team gig?

    Anyway, wasn’t this move supposed to make bigger headlines?

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  13. It’s about damn time that Subotic is so close to play for Germany. The loss of Subotic and Rossi should wake up the blind US supporters about the corrupt and idiotic USSF.

    With the way the national and youth teams are run, the USSF should expect defections. Why should dual or multiple allegiance Americans/immigrants feel pride wearing the shirt when BradleyBall reigns?

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  14. I haven’t read through all the comments so I don’t know if I’m the first one to bring this up, but…

    This situation reminds me a lot of Feilhaber to Derby. Everyone knew Derby was a low level prem team, so assumed that Benny would get loads of playing time. Look how that turned out.

    Of course, Mikey’s situation is a little different, in that I think he’s a much more consistent player than Feilhaber. But still…

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  15. @ Kevin, who said “Playing in front of 55,000 each week will do wonders for his playing.”

    BM’g’bach’s stadium seats 34,500. It’s a nice place, but IIRC wasn’t a World Cup venue b/c of size. Ditto with Leverkusen’s place.

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  16. DD, sounds like you’re telling us you think he’s on his way to wearing the German kit.

    Wow, who saw that coming? I think the general consensus is “no one”.

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  17. Jogi Löw (German National Coach) are intersted in Subotic for the German National-Team. The Manager of Dortmund has do a application for a German Passport for Neven. After the first two Qualifikation Game from Germany, he maybe gonna play for them. Not sure yet if he gonna play for the U21 or A-Team, if he even wanna play for Germany. He told this theme don’t care him (till yet 😉 ). In some weeks we will know more. (Hope you understand what i have written 😉 )

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  18. A little like seeing Feilhaber joining Derby. Except you would think M. Bradley has more talent to play first-team football for a bottom-feeding team that would most certainly be relegated at the end of the season.

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  19. At worst people here should be taking a wait and see attitude. I think the Bradleys are much better informed about world soccer than the posters here and this will turn out to be a very smart move. Seriously, what did anyone think of Heerenveen when Bradley first went there?

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  20. Borussia Mönchengladbach is a 5-time-german champion, 2-time uefa-cup winner and one of the most popular clubs in germany. their economic situation is very good and they have some youngsters in the team, who give much hope for the future.

    Alltogether this club definetly a level higher than heerenveen. bradley clearly improved his situation.

    german press reports that the transfer fee is about 3,5 to 4 million dollars (2,5 €).

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  21. Bradley will be a 1st team starter and booking his way to South Africa. If he can get used to the Bundesliga and the pressure he will be a success. Playing in front of 55,000 each week will do wonders for his playing. I imagine in 2 or 3 years he will be moving to Bayern Munich or Everton. Good luck Mike.

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  22. Bradley will be a 1st team starter and booking his way to South Africa. If he can get used to the Bundesliga and the pressure he will be a success. Playing in front of 55,000 each week will do wonders for his playing. I imagine in 2 or 3 years he will be moving to Bayern Munich or Everton. Good luck Mike.

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  23. Bradley’s performance on the international stage is what killed his stock IMO he has looked good for his Dutch club; however while player for his country he has looked average and just good enough IMO . That says alot about a player’s star quality .

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  24. this is a good move for Bradley.

    I’m soooooooo happy he didn’t go to England. That’s no place to send a young American. The Premier League is better suited to players who have already developed and are fairly well-rounded.

    Just because the clubs are better known (read: better marketed) does not mean it would be a better fit.

    As someone said before, Holland and Germany are much better places for young American players to develop. Bradley is nowhere near ready for Newcastle, Boro, etc…

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  25. Not sure why there’s so much Boro love floating around. We’ve seen time and time again American players who play in Germany and the Netherlands end up with much better technique overall than players that go to the English leagues.

    As for the ‘downward’ move from Heerenveen to Moggy, the higher overall quality of the league will be good for him. He’ll probably play the same amount there out of necessity as he did in the Netherlands. Ultimately, like Joamiq said, he’d only 21; his development is much more important than the big-name move right now.

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  26. Great move for Bradley. Who saw Mochengladblach’s last game. They played a strong Wender Bremen, and won. They are a good team. He will learn a lot, and play around and against better players than he did in Holland. If he impresses in Germany; he could end up with Bayern Munchen, or move over to Italy or England to a high profile team. He is young, and still has a much to learn. This move is going to develop Bradley into a great and smart soccer player. Good Luck Bradley.

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  27. Good luck Bradley, not sure about your choice of moves, its totally his decision, but if it was me, I would have played out the season and the rest of my contract, leaving me able to leave on free to wherever I wanted, there would be some risk (having a poor season or suffering a severe injury), but a sucessful season and being able to leave on a free would have opened up all kinds of options…

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  28. I’ll tell you what, this club has quite a history. Having said that they just gained promotion…in Germany. Not that it’s not a good league, but the lesser clubs in Germany’s first division aren’t exactly Middlesbrough (which is actually pretty sad to say).

    As long as he is in the first team I will be happy for him, but there isn’t much difference between his new club and Heerenveen. He should have just stayed there, he speaks the language, was settled in, etc. This might even be a step down.

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  29. underwhelming. goes to a team no better than the one he left, but in a better league.

    hope everybody enjoyed those goals last year, cause he’ll be lucky to get five in germany.

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  30. I was hoping for Newcastle. They need all the help they can get, and then I’ve got an American to root for on my favorite team! 🙂

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  31. Wait, MB goes from Heer. (a top 5 Eridviste club last season) to Borussia M. (a newly promoted club) and this is a positive move?

    Sure the Bundesliga is better than the Eridviste, but haven’t Americans that have gone to bottom table / newly promoted clubs had a bad experience? I’m not sure this was the best move, especially if Newcastle, Hamburg and/or ‘boro were interested in him.

    That said, if he thought he was just going to ride the pine for those clubs, maybe this is a better move because he gets first team action and has a chance to show himself a little bit more.

    Still, this doesn’t seem like a clear cut move up.

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