If there is a legitimate question that begs answering regarding keeping Bradley, it is the question of whether it is a wise move to hand a head coach a second four-year World Cup cycle. We all remember Bruce Arena’s second world Cup, the winless campaign in 2006, and that failure is surely working against Bradley, whose first four year tenure was arguably even more successful than Arena’s.
The reality is that more and more national team coaches have been given contract extensions after the 2010 World Cup than after any recent World Cup. Perhaps the best evidence of Bradley deserving a new contract can be found in the group the United States played in during the World Cup. The Americans won their group, finishing unbeaten in fact, but while England, Slovenia and even winless Algeria have all re-signed their head coaches to new deals, Bradley is the only manager from Group C not to have his future secured with his national team.
U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati may have that difficult decision to make. Does he re-sign Bradley and reward him for a strong four year cycle that saw the U.S. national team overachieve on a number of levels, or does he look elsewhere for a new coach to build on the world Bradley has done, with the disappointment of that Ghana loss ultimately proving to be the deciding factor?
The decision could be made for Gulati if some intrepid European club looks beyond the non-existent track record of American club coaches and looks at Bradley’s body of work. If a club team does make an offer, don’t be surprised to see Bradley take it and move on to the next journey in one of the most successful careers in American soccer coaching history.
If there are no serious offers, and no European clubs willing to take a chance on an American coach, the U.S. national team should look to re-sign Bradley. If the national team doesn’t keep Bradley, we might find ourselves waiting that much longer to see an American soccer coach become a pioneer in Europe.
Ives Galarcep is a senior writer for FoxSoccer.com covering the U.S. national team and Major League Soccer.
