Bradley to be appointed U.S. soccer coach
Bob Bradley on Wednesday will lose the interim tag and will be appointed coach of the U.S. national soccer team, The Times has learned.
His first challenge is to qualify the U.S. squad for the next World Cup, in South Africa in 2010.
If he does better there than the U.S. team did in the 2006 Cup in Germany, when it was knocked out during the group stage, Bradley could remain in the post until at least 2014.
Bradley, 49, was the leading American among the half a dozen or so candidates seriously considered by U.S. Soccer, and he won out after Germany’s Juergen Klinsmann took himself out of the running.
Bradley was returning from Europe on Monday and was unavailable for comment.
Formal announcement of his appointment will be made at a news conference in New York on Wednesday afternoon. Bradley has been interim coach of the team since December and replaces Bruce Arena, who compiled a 71-30-29 record during his eight years in charge.
Under Arena, the team reached the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup and Arena’s 71 victories and .658 winning percentage are U.S. records.
The choice of Bradley, Arena’s assistant at the University of Virginia, at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and for two years at D.C. United, is expected to be popular with most of the national team players.
Asked why he thought Bradley should get the job, U.S. team captain Landon Donovan gave a one-word answer. “Results.”
The Galaxy forward added, “He hasn’t lost yet, right?”
During his five months as interim coach, Bradley has a 3-0-1 record, defeating Denmark, Mexico and Ecuador and tying Guatemala.
His first game in charge as the full-time U.S. coach will be against China at San Jose on June 2, followed by the June 6-24 CONCACAF Gold Cup -- a tournament Arena won in 2002 and 2005 -- and the June 26-July 15 Copa America in Venezuela.
“He’s done a good job with us,” Donovan said. “It was hard when he first came in because I’d had eight years with Bruce and things changed a little bit. Bob kind of tightened the strings, made things a little stricter.
“But every time I’ve been out there I’ve been motivated to play. So from my standpoint, he deserves it.”
Bradley was the coach at Princeton for 12 years and coached the Chicago Fire, New York MetroStars and Chivas USA in Major League Soccer. He won the MLS title and two U.S. Open Cups with the Fire and has an 138-107-57 record in MLS.
Bradley moved to Manhattan Beach with his wife Lindsay and daughters Ryan and Kerry when he became Chivas USA coach in 2006. His son, Michael, is a midfielder for SC Heerenveen in the Dutch first division. In addition to coaching the national team, Bradley will be in charge of the U.S. under-23 national team that will try to qualify for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
The only two-time MLS coach of the year, Bradley has a reputation for working with players on an individual basis to refine their games. Former Fire and now Chivas USA striker Ante Razov is a good example.
The league’s third all-time leading scorer was struggling after being released by the Galaxy in 1997, but Bradley turned his career around.
“He pulled me aside and said, ‘Listen, you have a good left foot but at this level you have to be more than just a guy who stands around and waits to shoot the ball,’ ” Razov said. “He was very honest with me and I appreciated that and I trusted him and so I think he was definitely a guy who helped me figure out the path.”
Starting Wednesday, Bradley will be trying to do the same for the U.S.
