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Bradley’s Egypt runs unbeaten streak to 8

Bradley (Getty Images)

On a day when 73 people stood trial for their alleged roles in the deadly riots at a February soccer match in Port Said, Egypt, Bob Bradley was busy doing his part to restore the game in the African nation, guiding the national team in another match while trying to assess his squad before the games start to count in June.

Egypt played Iraq to a 0-0 draw in the United Arab Emirates Tuesday, running its unbeaten streak to eight matches (6-0-2). Egypt had beaten Nigeria, 3-2, and Mauritania, 3-0, in its other matches in the UAE over the last week.

Important matches for Egypt are on the horizon, as the Pharaohs face Mozambique and Guinea in 2014 World Cup qualifiers on June 1 and 8, respectively, followed by two 2013 African Cup of Nations qualifiers against the Central African Republic on June 15 and 30. According to reports out of Egypt, Bradley will hold another camp in Turkey prior to the qualifiers to better prepare his players, most of whom have been inactive otherwise after the remainder of the Egyptian club season was cancelled in the aftermath of the riots.

Comments

  1. Banal Bob Bradley got everything he deserved and should have gotten more after the WC 2010 debacle, followed by the losses to Panama and Mexico, the nepotism exhibited towards playing his son all the time (regardless of how he performed) was also a legitmate point of ire for the fanbase.

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  2. I agree, his firing was completely unnecessary if the USSF had just made the proper decision in the first place not to rehire him after WC 2010 debacle.

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  3. That historical account is missing a key fact: we also lost to ***Panama***. We even got a re-match against them, and just barely got by. Bradley’s seat was quite hot before we ever played Mexico.

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  4. I think Bradley’s strength is in tough, defensive system play, and having months to work with on-hiatus Egyptian players is probably the ideal situation for him. Kind of contrasting how I think the US youth NTs are struggling somewhat with the professionalization of their player pool. In the old days we would have months to train our youth and even senior teams because most of the players were not serious professionals, they were collegians and minor leaguers. In that sense Bradley is able to avoid the usual club-country disputes, and structural limits on time with his players, and just train and train a team. In which case I’m sure they’ve improved collectively……the interesting bit might be how he fares when the Egyptian league restarts and he’s juggling players all around the world again like he was here. Will he start falling back on his Egyptian Kljestan equivalents?

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  5. I think the talent level is still borderline enough overall that the coach needs to be consistently good for us to succeed. You look at the 2006 WC and 2011 Gold Cup and I think you see where we are one coaching banana peel, and an injury or unfilled position, away from being pretty mediocre.

    In that context, I actually think it’s appropriate to keep the heat on the coaches. We can’t afford an Eddie Lewis LB experiment, a Bornstein at LB settle, a Reyna-at-CM-at-70 button push, a 433 in Costa Rica.

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  6. When he made the WC knockout round out of a group with England — tying them — I think he had earned the right to stick around, second cycle or not. IMO what actually happened in the second cycle was what sealed his fate. That Gold Cup was awful and one could argue it related to his selections, slow team, lousy forwards other than the soon-injured Altidore.

    I also don’t think it helped that Gulati always seemed to have preferred Klinsi to Bradley, he just was unwilling to do what it took when we first picked the coach. And he couldn’t fire him off that WC. But the Gold Cup and neighboring games were so bad, and some of the Kljestan/Bornstein choices so repetitively insane, that I think Bradley gave Gulati what he needed to make a change.

    I think Klinsi is doing a better job of identifying players, particularly foreign, to infuse into the pool, my concerns are whether he will deploy defensive enough a formation to endure CONCACAF and whether he can avoid a Rogers/Kljestan Bradley tendency to occasionally rely on His Guys even when the pool has much better talent.

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  7. English is the lingua franca of (most of) the world. I’d wager he coaches in English and his team does fine to understand him.

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  8. Ignorant, maybe, but xenophobic? No. He didn’t say anything about the Egyptian people. Given the political instability and lack of security, post-revolution, I share dan’s view. Egypt isn’t a country in which I’d want to live – not right now.

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  9. They are a very intelligent family. Michael learned the language at his previous spots throughout Europe, and having only been in Italy for a few months he has already started conducting interviews in Italian. Bob only uses a few Arabic words or phrases at times, but you can bet he is doing what it takes to familiarize himself with it right now, and will soon start speaking it.

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  10. So what? The NBA’s greatest coach came from North Dakota. At least I am not afraid to hide behind some fake name.
    I have tried debating with you but you can’t seem to put two thoughts together to make an argument. Nor do you have any facts besides your stupid theory which obviously isn’t right.

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  11. Last I heard, he and his wife were living in Egypt, and not in some gated foreign compound. At least back in Feb. when he was interviewed by Al Jazeera, he spoke in english and the interviewer translated to arabic. Bob did start with a greeting in arabic, so I would guess he is not fluent yet.

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  12. What style that Bradley implemented? You mean what Arena taught Bradley and used?
    Oh you mean the formation where everyone knows their role? Yeah Bradley didn’t do that. That’s why we always gave up early goals. Nice try.

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