United States Soccer's Letter to Fans Ignores Important Issue of Bob Bradley

It has been six days since the Mexican annihilation of the United States at the Rose Bowl in the Gold Cup Final.

Up 2-0 25 minutes in, the United States were unable to protect their lead, again, and fell to a Mexico team that outclassed them for the last 65 minutes.

You can argue that Mexico is faster and has more talent, but any American who has been closely watching the United States for a while knows the issue.

There has been a frenzy in the world of the Internet this week. A global community where anyone's voice can become heard has seen a large increase of support for the United States Soccer Federation to give its fans what they want:

The sacking of manager Bob Bradley.

Bradley replaced the fired Bruce Arena in 2006 following a group stage exit in the World Cup and now the Princeton graduate is surely feeling the heat on his back side from the fanbase nationwide.

Following the 4-0 loss to vengeful Spain on June 4, USSF President Sunil Gulati stood behind his coach with a vote of confidence. On Saturday, he slipped out of the Rose Bowl refusing to comment, saying only that a statement would be made at the end of the week.

The end of the week is here and we have learned only a couple of things.

First off, the USSF confirmed two international friendlies which will be played in September. The first will be at the Home Depot Center on September 2 against Costa Rica before a game against Belgium in Brussels four days later.

The other thing that came out on Friday was a letter to fans discussing the way fans should conduct themselves at games.

Why was this necessary? Well, the letter came out "after receiving several complaints about unacceptable behavior toward U.S. fans" at the Rose Bowl on Saturday night.

The letter went over the same usual stuff that you would hear before any sporting event around the country, but honestly, is there need for the USSF to treat its fans like little kids?

Let me make clear, I am not criticizing the idea of condoning sportsmanship, etc., but what concerns me is that the federation are leaving us in the dark.

The fans want answers to one question: why is Bob Bradley still the manager of the US National Team?

What is it about what Bradley has done that is impressive? Is it the way we limped through the final round of World Cup Qualifying? Is it the way we fortunately got our only three points of the Group Stage in a win over Egypt at the Confederations Cup where we somehow managed the three goals that we needed at the very last minute after Italy fell to Brazil?

It cannot possibly be because of the 2-0 win over Spain where clearly Spain were not at their best (most evident on the two American goals that normally Spain would have stopped)! Was it the fact that we were up 2-0 on Brazil at halftime? Wait, that cannot be it. The US lost that game 3-2 after their collapse.

Well, it clearly was not the World Cup performance. Say what you will about the Americans making the last 16, that was a DREADFUL World Cup by the United States! Never should we be celebrating a tie, even against a quality team like England. That was a terrible goal that the US gave up and the goal the US scored was even worse.

Never should the US have been down 2-0 to Slovenia. Never should the US have needed Algeria to hit the post so much and to have a wide open net for a rebound in the last minute of the game to get to the last 16. Let's not even talk about Ghana. That was terrible.

At what point do we stop talking about how some teams are far more talented than the US is? Slovenia and Algeria certainly are not and neither is Panama, who beat the United States at the Gold Cup. Paraguay is not but they beat the US in March.

Talent is only part of it. You need a coach who is good at what he does.

Bob Bradley is not good at what he does, unless it is lined out in his job description that he needs his team to play poorly.

Thinking about it, I seldom hear Bradley criticize his team or anything about how they played after a game. It's like he honestly does not care.

I am a "glass half full" kind of guy, but as a coach, you always need to go into every day as if there is room for improvement. You are never as good as you could be. It does not matter what team we are talking about, be it Spain, FC Porto who just completed an unbeaten season in Portugal or even Barcelona, widely considered the world's greatest club team, you are never as good as you can be.

No one ever told Bob that, apparently.

Luck has been on his side for too long and it's not fair that we reward his pure dumb luck. It was luck that put the US even out of the group stage at the Confederations Cup. It was luck that they made the last 16 at the World Cup. It was luck, as horrible as it sounds, that Benny Feilhaber got hurt playing for New England or else we would have not seen Alejandro Bedoya at the Gold Cup. Bedoya was one of America's most important players.

This last one, the Bedoya situation, is one that could have been avoided, but there is another flaw with Bradley: his terrible squad selection.

Bedoya is an established player on a club team in Europe that is on its way to the Europa League. He is a key starter on that squad. He has proven to be a talented player and a player the United States will need this cycle, so why is he not chosen over the useless Robbie Rogers?!

It's not far from the truth to say that Rogers is not a better player than Bedoya. He has done virtually nothing in his time with the National Team and Bradley's fascination with him almost cost him until Feilhaber got hurt.

Luck aside, the United States has played well below what they are capable of while Bradley has been in charge. The average American soccer fan, meaning the fan who sticks around for the World Cup, will say that the United States was fantastic, but that is because they think the US is not capable of anything at all. Thank you, stereotypes.

With Bradley in charge, we will not win. It is a fact. We will not be a threat worldwide and we will likely lose players to other countries if they have a second country available to them. We have gotten lucky with some of our players choosing America so far, but the best players, mainly Guiseppe Rossi, will continue to choose their second country when there is no hope for US soccer.

There is no hope for the US with Bob Bradley in charge. Sunil Gulati needs to get this through his head.