Bob Bradley narrowly misses a soccer milestone

Former U.S. national team coach Bob Bradley missed a major milestone by the narrowest of margins Friday when second-division French club Le Havre fell a goal short of promotion to Ligue 1.

Le Havre beat Bourg en Bresse, 5-0, in its final game while Metz was losing, 1-0, to Lens, leaving the teams tied for third place in the league table with 65 points. Both teams also had goal differential of plus-15. But on the second tiebreaker, total goals, Metz has a two-score edge and that was enough to qualify it for promotion to the first division next season while Le Havre will remain in Ligue 2.

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If Le Havre had won promotion, it would have made Bradley the first American to coach a team into a major first-tier European soccer league.

Le Havre, which finished seventh in Ligue 2 last season, has not played in the top division of French soccer since 2009. Bradley took over in November and led the team to a 12-6-6 record the rest of the way.

Bradley, who won a Major League Soccer title with the Chicago Fire, also coached the New York MetroStars and Chivas USA before taking over the U.S. national team from Bruce Arena in 2007. He led the Americans to a first-place finish in group play in the 2010 World Cup, where the U.S. was eliminated by Ghana in overtime in the round of 16.

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Bradley later coached the Egyptian national team and Norwegian club Stabaek, where he became the first American to qualify a team for the Europa League tournament.

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