Bob Bradley is Class

Jeff Cameron, Tim Howard, Brad Friedel, Kasey Keller, Carlos Bocanegra, The Cheesehead, The Beas, and others if it weren't for my growing inability to remember proper nouns.

 

Beasley? No, not in England. Netherlands, yes. Demerit and Boca? Meh...maybe, give you that one... a little debatable for Boca early years he kept getting pulled to the LB position and had trouble finding starts towards the end. Other than Cameron, there's not much there. Yeah, there have been other Yanks such Reyna, Harkes, etc. who had some success there but I don't consider them really improving a great deal from English experience. I really don't want to count goalies, because what makes them elite comes from reaction ability--which can only be taught up to a point.

But debating players who have or have not made it getting away from the main point that having players going to England for our country to be a soccer nation. The end of the day it's not going to happen unless the MLS rivals MLB or the NFL in terms of viewership and being the top draw of our soccer players. We will never get there unless that happens.

And I still think players would be better off trying to find a good situation (actually playing) than looking to join an English team "because they're the best league." I find it extremely debatable that, one, England has the best league and, two, produces better soccer players. And, yeah, I said the word soccer multiple times.

 

I still go with this:

"Because having players and coaches who perform under the crucible of REAL pressure -- promotion, relegation, and a real desire to win regional club championships -- is important to our international future. As long as there's no penalty for failure in MLS, the players who play there will continue to be hothouse flowers. Germany, England, France, Spain -- these are the places Americans need to succeed if we're going to become a soccer nation."

And I think the proof here is the substandard play of our internationals who were blooded overseas when they came to the more relaxing atmosphere of MLS.

 

You keep thinking I'm against players going to Europe, I'm not saying that at all. I'm arguing whether: one, we should really care about English opinion of our players and coaches and, two, do our players get a great deal of benefit from going to England?

And having our players succeed in Europe would be wonderful, but our country still won't be a soccer nation unless MLS rivals the other major sports here. You can't claim your country to be a soccer nation if the game is outdrawn by 2 to 3 other sports by large numbers. It's caught up a lot but since when I started paying attention. But then I stopped paying such close attention.

Bob's travels are intriguing though. Sorry he inherited such a shipwreck, but from what I've been reading the defending was worse off than before and were getting drubbed. If he kept them close in more games, he might have made it to the transfer window. But right now they look we did when we had to fire 3 coaches in one season to secure relegation.

 

Normally, I'd hate the idea of Cardiff in the Prem and Swansea not, but the Bradley treatment was enough to turn me around. Mind you, I'd still prefer Cardiff not be in the Prem either.