Photo by Mark J. Rebilas /USA TODAY Sports
By CAITLIN MURRAY
With a disappointing season at Toronto FC behind him, midfielder Michael Bradley will be undergoing foot surgery on Tuesday.
A TFC spokesman told Toronto media Monday that Bradley will have surgery in New York to correct a lingering nerve issue. There’s no word on how long his recovery is expected to take, but the surgery likely rules him out for a pair of U.S. Men’s National Team friendlies overseas next month against Colombia and Ireland.
Bradley battled through injury for stretches of the season, getting treatment for a nerve issue back in April that sidelined him for several weeks. Ahead of the World Cup, Bradley told reporters the procedure was just an injection and he felt fit.
With the TFC season ending over the weekend, Bradley finished the season having played in 25 games and recording just two goals and four assists.
—–
What do you think of this news? How will the surgery impact the USMNT’s upcoming schedule? How does this news put his 2014 season into perspective?
Share your thoughts below.
Defiantly puts his terrible year in perspective.
Hope TFC didnt push him to play any more than he should. But props to him for pushing thru the pain.
A lot of the WC players that play in MLS look burnt out. A couple months off should do the trick.
I think this will be one of the major story lines of 2015-2016. Has MB reached his ceiling and this is truly the best he has, or was the past 12 months a plateau borne out of a nagging injury? i for one hope it’s the latter. The USMNT needs a midfielder with his qualities and skills to continue to grow and develop to “the next level”. If he does he’d be an ideal next captain. if he doesn’t the horizon looks pretty ordinary for awhile. I personally have my doubts that the MLS will draw that kind of growth out of him, but he has demonstrated an inner grit and determination which makes me think he has what it takes to bring it out of himself–provided he’s healthy and there’s a higher ceiling that what we’ve seen.
Fingers crossed.
Bradley is still only 26 years old. He is a very good deep lying CM who may bomb forward from time to time. He has played that role well for club and country. Why JK is insistent in using him in an advanced position is anyone’s guess?
Since 82
“He is a very good deep lying CM who may bomb forward from time to time. He has played that role well for club and country. Why JK is insistent in using him in an advanced position is anyone’s guess?”
It’s not that much of a guess. Right now Mikey probably does not deserve to start for the USMNT.
Mikey has played a variety of roles for the USMNT over the years. He’s playing a little further up now because that is where he can best fit in the team.
For whatever reason, whether it is the foot issue or something else, he has not been himself for some time.
The US has better options for the deeper lying roles such as Jones, Beckerman, Cameron, Williams, etc. along with a number of up and coming younger players.
Mikey needs to get healthy and then get back into shape before he can win back his spot on the USMNT.
Saying that Jones is a better deep center mid than Bradley is very debatable. Saying that Beckerman, Cameron, and Williams (much less the etc.!) are better is bold to say the least.
Mr. Lamb,
Debate it all you like.
Mikey is very versatile but is not particularly exceptional at any one thing, except maybe that box to box thing. He used to be great at scoring by ghosting in on the blind side late but he hasn’t done a lot of that in a long time for the US.
He is not a particularly good defender, he’s not an enforcer, nor is he a physical presence; he is a fine passer and has decent vision which should get better but he is not yet a Pirlo. And of course he is a pretty savvy veteran.
At his best he was good at the Reyna role, the time keeper, the guy who everyone got the ball to and who kicked off everything. He was working his way towards making that his role with the USMNT but it has been interrupted for some reason, either his injury or just a general loss of form since his move back, you pick a reason.
Whatever, he has not played up to his usual standard for the USMNT for some time. He certainly did not have a great World Cup.
Maybe he comes back, maybe he does not. He will be facing lot of competition so his return to his previously dominant role with the US will not be easy. Playing for a crap team will certainly not help him.
at his best he was the most important player on the USMNT oftentimes, playing in Serie A, etc.
and now its revealed he’s been playing injured
so he goes from top performer to injured performer played out of position. This next cycle are the prime years of his career if he doesn’t get shut out to make a point about players coming back to MLS, which I predict Klinsi does to him. and you and others here will rationalize it all for digestion, and some will eat it too
Will they rationalize it for indigestion? lol
I had a feeling there was more to that foot thing…
You kind of contradict yourself in your analysis of Bradley, but even if you are correct that he is not a great player, you still have the matter of somehow showing that Williams, Cameron, and Beckerman are better players than his to explain.
This is already starting to feel like our “Julian Green is going to be the best American striker within a year” debate.
None of those three players can touch Bradley’s value and worth to the USMNT when he is healthy.
Mr. 82,
Well he apparently isn’t healthy nor has he been for some time it seems.
So by your own words Mikey’s value and worth to the USMNT is not what it was.
Mr. lamb and beachbum,
You guys are making this whole thing much more involved than it really is.
Mikey apparently has a long term injury and it has affected his play.
It is interesting how you all seem to think any criticism of Mikey is sacrilege and that anyone who criticizes him must think Mikey is totally garbage. In that case call me a heretic. Mikey at his best is a nice player but he is not yet at what you might call the “proven Champions League regular” level. And he may never become that kind of player ..
It is also interesting how in your world it seems as if anything good that happens to Mikey is because of his inherent goodness while anything bad must due to the evil JK.
Mikey and his dad have made no effort to hide their lack of love for JK for what seems to be pretty obvious reasons but JK, regardless, has obviously seen fit to make MB a vital member of the team . If you think otherwise, maybe you all have forgotten the run up to Brazil where it looked like Mikey might actually finally make this his team instead on Landon’s team.
I’m not sure what you mean by a soccer person but the Mikey I know is talented enough to handle the positional changes and demands JK made on him.
That he did not tells me there was something wrong.
Mikey is a soccer player. If there was a long term health issue with either of his feet then I am making the wild leap that maybe, just maybe, his feet might make a difference to things like his ball control. You know those little things like putting the ball exactly where Mikey wants it to go or controlling a pass to him so that he could retain possession? That minor detail everyone calls “touch”?
Mikey might be fit enough to run from LA to NY and back but if his “touch” is iffy, if he doesn’t trust his feet, one might be forgiven for thinking his confidence and effectiveness might be compromised.
I’ve watched Mikey closely since 2007 and seen just about every game he has ever played for the US and more than of few in his European travels.
He was not the most talented midfielder there ever was and Jermaine Jones at his best was a superior player.
When JJ declared for the US the feeling was that the track suited king of nepotism would have a dilemma because he would have been faced with moving out his beloved MB90 for the new guy. How would that work out?
Of course injury took care of all that so it never became an issue.
Since then Mikey has gotten better and JJ has gotten older and slowed down somewhat.
In the beginning Mikey’s main assets were the consistency of his earnest Energizer Bunny endeavor, coupled with his talent for ghosting in on the blind side (which is how he got a lot of his Heerenveen goals), a willingness to shoot from distance and a much better passing touch than most gave him credit for.
His move to Chievo helped restore some of the confidence that had been shaken by the latter part of his fun time at BMG and then the farce at Villa. The Italians believed in him and wound up giving him the keys to their team and he handled it well enough to earn a transfer to Roma. At Roma he filled in very well for DDR. Bob Bradley has said that Mikey felt he had earned a shot at replacing DDR but apparently Roma felt otherwise.
I don’t think anyone believes Mikey could have sensibly turned down the TFC offer. However, it would have been interesting to see Mikey stay and battle it out. I don’t think he has reached his peak yet and I wonder just how far he could have taken it at Roma but now we will never know and getting back to that level of form will be hard.
And, unfortunately, Mikey joined a cluster f**k of a team. Dempsey was luckier. Once he got fit, Clint returned to a contending team, with really good players to play on.
I don’t think even you two would contest the idea that playing for that f**kwhit of a team did not do his skills and his form any good. Mikey is no super star but he is better than this and I have not seen him look to be at his best since he decided to have Rob Ford as his mayor.
The way Mikey is today he is not the most important player to the USMNT . JK has made a concerted effort to put together a team where no one player is indispensible. The closest thing this team has to an indispensible player is Dempsey, who remains their single most reliable clutch scorer. Which is why Clint may hang around a lot longer than people think
Mr. Philly,
“ If he does he’d be an ideal next captain”.
Ideal? That’s debatable.
A team captain is whoever the manager feels is best suited to the role as he (the manager) defines it.
Usually the manager and the players define the role together. It seems to be different from team to team. Some Captains are the liaison between the manager and the players. Some are the best player. Some are the face of the team with the media and the officials. Some are combinations of all that.
I’m not in that locker room so it is hard to say who would be the best captain.
Being named Captain might do Mikey some good. I’d pick from Beckerman, Cameron, Fabian or Jones.
Beckerman had a nice World Cup but at 32 it’s time to move on. Same with Jones even though Klinsmann might hang, on for some reason. Cameron needs to actually find a position and lock it down soon.
“even though Klinsmann might hang, on for some reason.”
The reason is Jones is one of the few difference makers the USMNT has.
There isn’t a rule anywhere that says the captain has to be a long term thing.
If there were some advantage to that then I’d name Guzan, Mix or Yedlin captain.
All the guys I mentioned, assuming they retain their form, should be good until at least Copa America.
It’s a new cycle and time to start finding new difference makers going forward. Trying to shove Jones into a center back role that’s a short term move at best is a waste of time, that could be used bringing along a younger player. The Gold Cup and Copa should largely be used to get a core of players tournament experience going into 2018.
Difference makers learn from other difference makers. Jones has a lot to teach the new crop who are, at this point all painfully,short of the kind of experience.Jones has mostly because none of these new guys are playing at top clubs.
MB is not a difference maker? not as much so when played out of position because the coach left himself no other options. debate that GW
I love JJ too
beachbum,
Are you blaming JK for Mikey’s loss of form? That began before the World Cup.
It seems to me this foot issue may have been an issue for longer than we know but chances are Mikey will never tell. From what I saw MBtfc’s troubles began when he transferred to TFC if not before, during all that bench time he had at Roma.
Whatever the reason, attributing his subpar play to allegedly playing in a so called unfamiliar position for the USMNT is horse s**t. Had Mikey been his normal bubbly self, he would have done just fine in that “unfamiliar position”.
As for the difference maker thing, because of his position and our unfamiliarity with whatever intangibles he brings to the team, it is harder to point to vital games for outsiders to point vital competitive where Mikey was clearly the difference between winning and losing.
He missed the Confederations Cup final and the US looked good but lost His 2014 WC campaign was not good. He played well in 2010 but mostly I remember that campaign for the awful pass he gave to Rico Clark that hung Redcardo out to dry and resulted in the turnover that eventually led to the first goal in the Ghana game.
At his best Mikey has been the focal point of the team but he has never been the kind of difference maker that LD or even Deuce has been. I can’t recall him having a “beast mode” competitive game in a vital situation like JJ had vs Portugal in Brazil.
Mikey is not and never has been that kind of player.
@GW
His goal against Slovenia?
Jack,
Nice gola but it was Landon’s roofer that turned the game around and set off the US.
GW – Bradley is easily one of the most important players on the team. I don’t really know what you mean by “difference maker,” but he is the best midfielder we have for the next few years. He has shown this with his consistency and his performances. I will say it again — he was not nearly as bad as people seem to think in Brazil, and it is not hard to make the case that he was actually better than Jones, who made a couple of huge plays, but was otherwise pretty poor. Bradley’s “form” was great going into the WC. Remember the Mexico warm up game?
Back to our original debate — How are Cmaeron, Beckerman, and Williams “difference makers,” but MB is not?
GW, moves from one position to another happen a lot, like midfielders to wingback or CB, but Dmid to attacking mid? rare. why? because you play with back to goal so much for one, besides the obvious skillset/mindset difference. you’re a soccer person, you know this, it’s not horses**t. and his late insertion into that role is all on Klinsi, whether you think it brilliant or not
and MB form leading into WC was good, don’t know what you are talking about there, TFC was good early and he was part of it. That team needs some guys who can finish chances
and how about Torres, playing well for Mexico but stuck working out on that horses%^t team Chivas. still has his talent.
but really, trying to claim now that MB has not been a difference maker on the USMNT , and for more than a cycle now? come on man
@ don lamb, great responses
For how long was Donovan one of the few difference makers the US had?. There’s just a time when it’s best to move on.
It’s not as if you just decide “Well LD is retired time to pickup a new genius”
Landon burst on to the scene 14 years ago. Care to tell me who is the American player in the last 14 years who has come along to replace him?
Don’t you suppose everyone in the USSF has been trying to find a replacement for him for 14 years now?
How’s that going for them?
My point was Klinsmann had no problem just dropping him. If your going make those kind of changes its better to do it now then wait until the eve of a World Cup.
I could see a 36 year old JJ at center back.
Well if that’s the state of things, we’ll be lucky to even qualify for Russia.
I think JJ is gunna stay around for the Gold Cup and maybe the Copa America. I expect the same from Dempsey.
If Don can just move a couple more of the better teams to the West, perhaps TFC can finally make the playoffs and it will not look like MLS grossly overpaid for Bradley’s transfer
I wonder how much this affected his world cup. I doubt he would admit it, but I bet this is why he had a brek-like first touch in Brazil and for tfc all year
He could have been missing his foot and still had a better touch.
That was my impression. There was something wrong with him. He just did not look the same…or anywhere near the same.
He still ran as hard as ever, he just didn’t have any kind of touch this year.
I watched him live a few times. It didn’t effect his top speed or his endurance. In fact, he ran the most out of anyone at the World Cup. Guys play injured all the time. Nerve injuries are perhaps easier to treat, especially in the foot, because direct nerve blockers can be used since the nerves have such a predictable distribution pattern.
“Every trainer talks about movement, about running a lot. I say don’t run so much. Football is a game you play with your brain. You have to be in the right place at the right moment, not too early, not too late.” Johann Cruyff But I agree with your observation regarding Bradley’s work rate and speed.
Agree with your impression. I am getting the sense MB might not be the “best patient” for a doctor to evaluate, and that TFC and USMNT may not really have been fully informed either because I would think this would’ve happened much sooner.. “I’m fine” and “I feel fit” are admirable for toughness, but he is obviously playing at a diminished level on the ball, and has been more many months now. Hard to know what TFC’s feeling are but it would seem that an injury that limits a player in this way simply needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later, particulaly an investment as significant as MB in a season that got away from them a long time ago. I’m glad it’s gettting looked at, but
Well he also had a surgery on his foot just before the World Cup as well.
“Just an injection” according to Rambo90.