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Bob Bradley believes he can compete with world’s top managers

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Like many throughout the soccer community, Bob Bradley is quick to identify the game’s top managers: Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, Carlo Ancelotti, Mauricio Pochettino. But, when looking back at the experiences that have defined his career, the former U.S. Men’s National Team boss believes he deserves a chance to earn his place among them.

Speaking to Sirius XM, Bradley said that he believes he has what it takes to be counted among the game’s very best managers. Bradley, who was hired by French second division club Le Havre in November, recently missed out on promotion to the top flight by just one goal.

“When I have a chance to observe different managers,” Bradley told Sirius, “the ones that do good work, I mention Pochettino, Klopp, (Thomas) Tuchel that took over for Klopp at Dortmund, he’s a fantastic young manager. We haven’t even talked about the Guardiolas and the Ancelottis, but I’ll tell you what, maybe I’m stupid, but I think I’m a manager in and around that level. I’m not saying I’m better than these guys, I haven’t had those types of opportunities, but I think people that have played for me have always felt that the experience in the team was different, that training was challenging, that there were a lot of things done to help them become better players and better people.

“I believe in my work, but I don’t go around every day complaining. I roll up my sleeves and try to show people what I’m all about and see what happens.”

Bradley’s career is one that has taken him all over the world in a variety of jobs. After beginning his career on the college level, Bradley made his name in MLS as head coach of the Chicago Fire, New York Metrostars and Chivas USA before accepting the USMNT head coaching position. It was with the U.S. that Bradley managed what was likely his best game to date, a defeat of juggernaut Spain in the 2009 Confederations Cup that ended La Roja’s 35-game unbeaten run.

A first place group stage finish followed at the next summer’s World Cup before defeat at the hands of Ghana. Just one year later, Bradley was removed from his post following a Gold Cup defeat to Mexico.

Since, Bradley took over the national team job at Egypt before beginning his climb up the European coaching ranks. After leading Norwegian club Stabaek to unprecedented success, Bradley took over at Le Havre and nearly secured promotion on the season’s final day.

Through all of his travels, Bradley admits there is still a certain stigma around the American manager, one that has hurt his opportunities to prove himself among the best at the top level.

“Take out the American tag for a second, and for me, here’s how it works,” Bradley said. “Around the world, there are some great managers. For every one great one, there are a lot that aren’t so good. We’ve seen young managers, look at the job Pochettino has done. When jobs open, every club has this way to go about a process to bring a new guy in. My name gets mentioned sometimes, but I’ve said before, I’ve only had a few times where I’ve got in and felt like I was really being considered.

“What are you going to do? You try to prove yourself. With every team you manage, you try to show your work. You try to show what your team is all about, your ability to develop players, your ability to manage players. Are you a team that plays with some kind of an identity? What are you all about? When I look at the job Jurgen Klopp has done in Liverpool, the first thing that flies off the page is that, when he goes into a team, you could tell that that team has identity, that team has a whole different way. I think many of the teams that I’ve managed, that happens, but my name’s not Jurgen Klopp.”

Comments

  1. I love Bob but the only way to get noticed is to win. Stay with Le Havre, get them back into the top tier and then take them on a run to the top 5. No way will people be able to ignore him then.

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  2. Love the man and have infinite respect for him as a manager.

    However, there’s nothing about his managing tactics, adjustments or philosophy that inspires me to consider him in the category of world class.

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  3. Last Summer when Leicester signed Rainieri many people on here would have probably said Bob’s a better manager than that guy, why does he get so many jobs. Now people talk about him like he’s a god of soccer.

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  4. In coaching soccer? Of course. In getting a top paying job? No not a chance, that sound proof door isn’t even open a crack for him to peer into.

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  5. The problem for managers like Bob who cannot get their foot in the door is that a bad season, or worse, getting sacked will set him back years. Yet Rafa Benitez gets sacked annually and he gets Real Madrid.

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    • You just have to get that one shot in a top league and then you will get constant jobs. Its the same in the NBA and NFL, owners will hire a guy with minimal success or an untested guy 3 out of 4 times because at least they know what they will get.

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    • Rafa Benitez coached a mid table Valencia side into being La Liga and European Champions, then he went to liverpool and took them to two European finals in 3 years, winning one of them. As much as I like Bob Bradley, and I really hope he does well at Le Havre, its not fair for Benitez and to Bob to compare them.

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  6. Good read, and not the usual fare from Bradley. He is typically low-key and humble to a fault. I think he’s shown he could more than handle a gig in a top 4 league. I don’t doubt the American tag works against him, even though he had success at the Confed cup and the 2010 WC. Sadly he may have to keep toiling another 5-10 years in lower leagues before he gets an honest shot.

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    • They could care less about his time in MLS and his national team duty with US and Egypt just isn’t seen as great because the club world and nat worlds are so different. Being successful in 5 – 7 game tournaments with very little training and often simplified tactics isn’t the same as 34-38 game campaigns and also overseeing academies which multiple youth teams involved, plus managing transfers, and midweek cup play. Being around Le Havre’s youth system should be very beneficial for Bob’s future.

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      • This is the ultimate in mentality that shows why he won’t even get a look.

        Sure you won MLS Cup and coached the US Nat team successfully and are doing fine now, but if you could spend more time with the LeHavre youth system…..start there, that is the experience we would like to build on….and get back to us in a decade.

      • Don’t be confused I’m not saying its right I am saying that’s the way it is. The MLS system when Bob was in charge in CHI,Chivas, and Metro is very different than the Euro system, if you are going to put a man in charge of that type of organization you want some assurance that he knows what he’s doing.

        Big clubs almost always choose guys that played for the club or another big club, guys who coached in their youth system, or guys that coached at another big club. Certainly there are outliers, but most come from those three areas. Look at the odds for the next manager at Everton, its filled with guys who have been sacked somewhere else, very few names without top flight experience and very few who have been national team managers.

        It just takes one owner/president to believe in you though, I mean Preki almost got to manage the EPL Champions.

      • Actually that is right, but for different reasons than you suggest. The challenge of joining Le Havre midseason – french city, french mindset, french language (his physio was the translator) – and convincing them of his approach to the game, not bringing in any of his own players, and then getting them promoted despite their fairly average talent, would have been an amazing accomplishment, greater and more difficult than winning MLS or advancing out of a world cup group.

        That, if it happens next year, coupled with his ability to compete in Ligue 1, would get him noticed by club owners. And rightfully so. It’s the challenge and the adversity. I have big respect for him. These are difficult environments, where the press and public are both unforgiving and very knowledgeable about the game, much more knowledgeable – sorry US-only fan – than stateside.

        Not that his time in MLS hurts him, not at all. I think his poor speaking ability does though, as in Europe being a manager at a big club can seem at times more like a job in PR. But it can be brutal listening to him.

    • I admit I don’t know a lot about Le Havre Summer plans, but if they are able to keep this group together and maybe have a player or two coming up you would give them decent odds to challenge for promotion next year too. The problem at Stabaek was that Bob knew it was fire sale time at the end of last season, as you can see from their early results this season.

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    • You just have to get into the clubs, by getting a top league job somewhere and then you can hang around forever, moving from club to club. Or you can win a Europa League title like AVB and then you’ll get plenty of chances.

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    • Little more complicated than that, there is arguably an anti-American bias in player recruitment and particularly coaching selection (since they aren’t signed by good teams to sell shirts with no intent to use much). It is an odd comment for an incumbent to be making, but fair comment nonetheless. If he had an EU passport I suspect someone with his CV would be an easy choice for at least a lower level head job in a first division.

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      • It’s not that cut and dry obviously. But at the end of the day, he’s not being shopped around nearly as well as he should be. Get a better agent

  7. BB, I believe you can do it too and you have a record to prove it (Sorry for thinking you were only fielding your son just because he was your son….smh). You did the best you can with a very limited player pool (at a time when playing MLS players meant you were fielding a B or C team) and still the team hasn’t “launched” from where you left it…”You never know what you have until its gone” (or better yet you never know what you have until Sunil Gulati gives you Klinsmann)…

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  8. Bradley is promoting himself again and lobbying for a new job? It must be the offseason. Next we’ll hear “rumors” that specific big clubs are interested in him.

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    • Coaching is the same as playing: If you start in college, then move to MLS your pedigree just isn’t as strong as someone who started in the backroom of a Premier League team and worked himself up through the lower leagues there. OR who actually played professionally, which is very much preferred these days (see Gary Neville and Zidane). Bob just doesn’t have anything to hang his hat on. Even in Egypt, he did so well and was blown out on the last game. People remember that more than the other wins.

      There was a reason Bradley got the nickname “Bunker Bradley”: He gets results, but his teams don’t play well. For a lot of top clubs, parking the bus isn’t enough, even if you do grind out the random win. See Stoke for years.

      And Bradley can’t point to the Spanish game when we were a miracle away from getting eliminated after getting blown out during the first two group games, then allowing Brazil to beat us after we went 2-0 up.

      He was on the big stage and was left wanting.

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      • Agree with you but you cannot compare Zizou to Gary Neville, as players or as managers. Completely different situations. Zidane to Guardiola may be better, as they both went on to coach reserve teams for the last club they played for, where they were already considered legends, and naturally moved to the A team, albeit sooner than expected. Also, managers have nearly always been players, often good ones, so I think it may only seem recent in the sense that history escapes us sometimes (Beckenbauer, Cruyff, among the great players to also become great managers). Even coaches that you don’t think of as former pro players, Ferguson, Pellegrini, Heynckes, Van Gaal, Rinus Michels to go further back… of course were. Mourinho and Sacchi are two of the exceptions I can think of.

      • Bunker Bob huh… his Le Havre team scored more goals than all but 4 teams in Ligue 2 this year…

        US Soccer made a gargantuan mistake letting Bob go and hiring a stubborn prima donna who holds a grudge like no other…

      • i agree for the most part, but the “bunker bradley” thing is not really applicable to his whole career. he’s actually managed very attacking (but always organized) sides. he’s simply a very practical manager, and adjusts his system to the talent he has on hand–which, in the case of the usmnt, was a defend-and-counter scheme.

      • Bunker Bob was a moniker, I think, first put forward by that Soccer America genius Paul Gardner.

        Gardner was basically complaining that the US was winning, but not by using all the creative, talented and exciting Hispanic-American US players Gardner continues to believe exist in great numbers. (Please note the sarcastic praise for Gardner.)

        Bunker Jurgen does not have the same ring and Gardner is not creative enough to come up with some catchy, alliterative phrase to capture his disdain for JK.

        Bradley has been a very clever coach/manager in that he employed the players at his disposal to give his team the best chance to win. If winning were not not the essential thing in professional soccer, then instead of keeping track of goals, we would have judges to award points for creative brilliance, pulling off clever plays and making dribbling runs at defenders. His teams have pretty consistently achieved better results than their combined talents would have indicated were possible.

        Gardner and some others seem to think that winning is not paramount, they are wrong. Of course if a team is winning, it is exciting to see those clever moments of brilliance, but if the team is losing, no one much cares except perhaps diehard fans of your team or an opposing coach who will try to sign that exciting player away from you.

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