What About Bob?

U.S. names Bob Bradley new head coach

Well, they went and did it. They apparently couldn’t find anyone else, so they decided to remove the interim tag from U.S. national team coach Bob Bradley yesterday. Has Mr. Gulati made the right decision?

It is widely known that Bradley was not USSF president Sunil Gulati’s first choice. The USSF courted former German soccer legend and Yank-ophile Juergen Klinsmann, following his stint as German national team coach in World Cup 2006, but the deal fell through, reportedly due to money issues.

As interim head coach, Bradley’s Nats are 3-0-1 since January, with the three victories coming against Denmark, Mexico and Ecuador. Three quality opponents to be sure, but have we seen enough to hand him the keys to the national team? All four games were played stateside, and Bradley has yet to be tested away from the comfy confines of the U.S. (although, admittedly, games against Latin American teams in the Southwest may not seem like home matches).

Is his early success a signpost of the victories to come or is it a red herring distracting us from the gathering storm clouds? The only way to guess at the success or failure of his head-coaching future is to examine his head-coaching past.

Over his nine seasons in Major League Soccer, Bob Bradley is the winningest coach in league history. He is also the only two-time Coach of the Year, and managed to guide each of his teams -- Chicago, New York, and last year, Chivas USA -- to the playoffs in every season (although you have to be pretty bad to miss the playoffs in MLS). He won his only MLS championship in 1998, his first year as a head coach in the league, and has two U.S. Open Cup titles. Here is a chart detailing his MLS pedigree.

BRADLEY’S MLS REGULAR-SEASON RECORD
Year Team W L D PTS GF GA
1998 Chicago 20 12 n/a 56 62 45
1999 Chicago 18 14 n/a 48 51 36
2000 Chicago 17 9 6 57 67 51
2001 Chicago 16 6 5 53 50 30
2002 Chicago 11 13 4 37 43 38
2003 M'Stars 11 10 9 42 40 40
2004 M'Stars 11 12 7 40 47 49
2005 M'Stars 12 9 11 47 53 49
2006 Chivas 10 9 13 43 45 42

Bradley’s overall regular-season record in MLS is 126-94-55 and his teams finished above .500 in seven out of nine years.* All of these numbers are pretty impressive alone, but if we start to break them down a few trends emerge. Following 2001, for example, Bradley was never able to break the 15-win mark. This can be attributed somewhat to the decrease in total games played, but 2002-2006 were indeed lean years for wins. In addition, Bradley’s away record is less than stellar. Isolating his away record in MLS, he was 49-60-25 away from his clubs’ home stadiums, with the worst year, not surprisingly, being 2006, when he coached the struggling Chivas USA. Only two out of nine seasons did a Bradley-coached club have a winning away record. What does this mean? It could mean absolutely nothing. His paltry away record could just reflect parity in MLS or injuries to key players (The Fire, for example, were bitten by the injury bug regularly during his tenure). Finally, I imagine if you examined the away records of other coaches in, say, the EPL or La Liga, their away records may be similarly bad. After all, in league play it is more important to win at home and to draw on the road.

But in national team soccer, success on the road is a necessity. Bradley has yet to make a foray over the pond or across the border, as the boss of the national team, and that should be an area of concern for fans. Not panic, but concern. Most U.S. national team coaches (at least in the last two decades) have managed to get results at home, even Steve Sampson managed a respectable 21-9-9 at home. It has been away matches, particularly in Europe, where we’ve come up short. Losing your away matches won’t get it done in WC qualification either, unless you plan on squeaking in against Bahrain or UAE, and in the 2010 World Cup, they will all be away matches.

Bradley’s first match as the new official U.S. team caretaker will be June 2 against China in San Jose, then comes the Gold Cup, also in the States later that month. Barring any late additions to the schedule, Bradley’s Nats won’t need their passports until the Copa America in July, so it could be some time before we see whether Bradley is far and away the best man for the job.

*all numbers compiled using mlsnet.com so blame them if they are wrong.