FIFA World Cup 2010: The Past and Future of Bob Bradley's US National Team

So that’s it then.  The culmination of two and a half years full of trips to Nicarauga, Honduras, Guadeloupe, Trinidad, Jamaica, Mexico, Costa Rica (but not the cool parts), and Guatemala. Finishing the 2010 World Cup with a .500 record, having conceded exactly as many goals as it scored, was not the way this was supposed to end for the US Team.  And yet it has.

I started writing this thinking it would be an analysis of the game.  But it turned into something else entirely.  Nevertheless, here’s my take on the game—Bob Bradley’s decision to start Rico Clark and Robbie Findley put us in a terrible position from the beginning, creating the need for early substitutions, which left us out of gas when the game went long.

Tim Howard needs a lot of work on his positioning.  The first goal was poor on him.  Similarly, the first Slovenian goal was the result of his poor positioning.  That’s why Algeria kept shooting from outside on him—the scouting report is known—he’s  a good shot blocker who loses his position with regards to the goal too often. 

That’s a bad tendency for a goal keeper to have.

We go behind every game because we come out every game trying not to go behind.  We start out negative, looking to absorb pressure, instead of coming out positive and looking to possess the ball and drive forward.  That is coaching.  That’s why it keeps happening. 

We were positioned wrong, with the wrong personnel and we set out to let Ghana possess the ball and the middle of the field, hoping to knick a goal and tighten up like a frog’s ass. 

And we play better when Bradley has to let the players open up and chase the game, because that is what our team does best—attack.  It’s really that simple.

This game and exit from the World Cup indicates a lot of things to me—one is that we haven’t come as far as we should have, another is that Bob Bradley lacks the tactical acumen to take us any farther, and finally, it’s time for a new generation of players to take over.

WHY AREN’T WE BETTER?

I’ll start with the first point.  Here it is—we are not a top-15 team.  And we should be. 

Off the top of my head, the following teams are better: (1) Brazil; (2) Argentina; (3) Spain; (4) Portugal; (5) Germany; (6) Chile; (7) Paraguay; (8) Uruguay; (9) Czech Republic; (10) Italy; (11) France; (12) Denmark; (13) Ghana; (14) Nigeria; (15) Mexico; (16) the Netherlands; (17) Slovakia; (18) South Korea. 

There may even be a few others.  But that’s a long list.  At this point, in 2010, we were supposed to be better.  But were not.  Why?

That’s a tough question to answer.  It’s not just that soccer has never ascended great heights here, although that’s certainly true.  Sure, our best athletes are generally pushed elsewhere.  That was obvious against Ghana, who were far more athletic than we were. 

There’s more though.

We still haven’t figured out how to maximize the soccer talent that we have, which is a bigger problem.  The US Men’s team comes out of two pools of players: (1) Olympic Development Program teams that feeds into junior national teams; and (2) college soccer teams. 

Recently we’ve seen some MLS teams make some inroads with youth talent, but that has yet to result in a player making the national team. The problem with the two feeder systems that we have is that both cater to a very narrow demographic—suburban, wealthy kids. 

It’s not just that we don’t have our best athletes playing, it’s that even if we did they would likely never have the opportunity to be recognized by anyone who might be able to put them into a player development system.  They won’t have the means to play club soccer, which means they’ll never feature at the Dallas Cup, never get to Olympic Development Program tryouts, never go to the summer camps where college coaches scout, and never receive tactical and strategic training.

There are ways to change that, but they aren’t easy.  The only reason it doesn’t happen that way in other countries is because in countries with a “soccer culture” the professional teams have relationships with youth clubs and give scholarships to promising young players. 

MLS doesn’t have the money to do that yet.  The kind of trans-Atlantic partnerships that big European clubs are starting to form with American teams is a partial answer. 

But that will take time. 

Until then, our best players will be undersized athletes who couldn’t do anything else (Landon Donovan), the children of immigrants (Jozy Altidore and Claudio Reyna) and the rare find who lucks into the right system (Jose Francisco Torres, who was discovered by a Mexican professional team while playing high school soccer in Longview, Texas). 

That makes long-term success dependant on a lot of luck and serendipity, which are not the bedrocks for long-term, stable success.

BOB BRADLEY NEEDS TO GO

Now, about Bob Bradley.  I’m not a passionate hater of him.  He came along at the right time.  And he’s the first coach we’ve ever had who has been regularly willing to play young, new talent immediately upon discovering it.

He also has permitted talented players to beat out old mainstays, as is shown by the inclusion of Stuart Holden, Maurice Edu, Jose Torres, Hercules Gomez, and Edson Buddle on the squad.  But his tactical understanding of the game is very limited.

Bradley will be raked over the coals, justifiably, for his starting 11 against Ghana.  It was clear to anyone watching the England game that Robbie Findley is not good enough for international soccer.  Yet, Bradley stuck with him, crudely hoping that his speed would allow him, somehow, to emulate Charlie Davies’ predatorial goal scoring ability playing off of Jozy. 

That was a naïve perspective, and shows an inability to accurately assess a player.  But Bradley continued to start him.  Despite his obvious ineffectiveness and the fact that a hungry Hercules Gomez, who led the Mexican professional league in goals this past season, was sitting on the bench and that Clint Dempsey, the best striker on our team, was playing wide right in a position which could be ably filled by no fewer than three quality players on our bench (Feilhaber, Holden, and Beasley for Donovan, Donovan switching to the right). 

That is a bad decision.  But it was driven by his negative tactics.

Bradley played Findley because he did not believe in his team.  He didn’t think the team was good enough to hold possession, pass the ball, and constructively dissect other teams with organized defenses.  So he thought we needed to pack the back, with two old-fashioned centerbacks, and a deep-lying defensive midfielder (Clark, who I’ll get to in a minute), so we could clog the middle and try to play quick, long counter-attacks, which require a speedy forward. 

Thus, he starts Findley purely for his pace.   Because Bradley did not recognize that this team is BETTER than any team we’ve had before.  Not great, sure, but Michael Bradley plus two out of Edu, Feilhaber, and Torres, with Donovan, Dempsey, and Altidore, is a lineup that can possess and pass the ball. 

Bradley either didn’t recognize this, or didn’t know how to scheme to maximize it.

Which brings me to Ricardo Clark.  Who is really a fine player, in most circumstances.  In his defense, he missed a lot of this past year with injuries.  Also, he usually gets better over the course of a game.  It was his long-range effort that sealed our trip to the World Cup in the first place. 

BUT—

He’s always been too nervous on the ball for me.  He makes bad decisions, rash challenges, picks up red cards, fails to track back, gets caught with the ball at his feet with no angles, and is not an inventive passer. 

The bigger the game, the more likely he makes a fatal mistake.  He’s an excellent MLS player.  He’s not world class, not even close.  And he was the third best option at his position. 

But Bradley knew Clark would stay back, and brought him in repeatedly for that purpose.  And that was pure stupidity.  England never scores on us if Edu starts—Edu doesn’t lose marks like that.  Similarly, Ghana doesn’t score that first goal if Edu is in. 

But Bradley wanted to play negative, to sit back and wait for counters, so he started a guy who is a negative player.  Ricardo Clark.

So Bradley needs to go.  Because we are better than we were.  And we need a better coach.  Someone who can figure out that Benny Feilhaber is an actual, creative midfielder of the sort we’ve lacked since Reyna retired. 

He’s a better offensive player than Reyna, in many ways.  Someone who can figure out that Maurice Edu is ready for the show, and that Michael Bradley plays better with someone who occasionally attacks next to him. Someone who can figure out that Dempsey needs to be playing a withdrawn forward, with Jozy up high, and an actual wide player, like Stuart Holden, playing outside.  Someone with the courage to play a flat back three, with Edu in front of them, and Bradley and Feilhaber paired in front of him. 

So goodbye Bob.

GOODBYE TO THE ROCK AND ROLL ERA (MALKMUS FTW)

Finally, this was also the end of the Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey era of the US Men’s National Team.  It’s been a good run.  They’ve taken us higher than anyone ever before them. 

But they’ll both be 32 next time around, and that’s old.  So we got the young guys behind them, who need to step up.  Michael Bradley, Maurice Edu, Jozy, Torres, Holden—this is your team now boys.  Go forth and find some defense, please.

I hope we have some young defenders in the pipeline, because Demerit, Cherundolo, and Bocanegra have played their last World Cups.  Jonathan Spector gets worse every year, and I don’t see a lot out there.  I hope that changes.

The next World Cup this team is going to look very different.  We should have an entirely new back four, hopefully Davies will be back upfront with Jozy, and hopefully we’ll find another good quality wide player.  I’m excited for the future—cautiously optimistic that we’ll have a more positive coach, and approach.  We’ll see.

This article is from the Pitchmen blog .

Follow on Twitter: @PitchmenGoal