Bob Bradley, the\u00a0head coach\u00a0who led the United States Men’s National Team to its first clinch of a World Cup group stage since 1930,\u00a0was relieved of his duties by the U.S. Soccer on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The 53-year-old coach, who initially earned the job under the “interim” tag in 2007, took a program that quickly bowed out of the 2006 World Cup to unprecedented heights under his guidance, despite constant criticism of his tactics and player selection.<\/p>\n
“We want to thank Bob Bradley for his service and dedication to U.S. Soccer during the past five years,” said\u00a0U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati in a statement. “During his time as the head coach of our Men’s National Team he led the team to a number of accomplishments, but we felt now was the right time for us to make a change.”<\/p>\n
Bradley’s\u00a0dismissal comes after a forgettable month of June for the National Team. On June 4th, Bradley\u00a0curiously\u00a0fielded a reserve-laden starting XI against World Cup champion Spain for an international friendly in Foxborough, MA, and watched his team get annihilated\u00a04-0. A week later,\u00a0his squad\u00a0was upset by Panama 2-1 in the group stage of the CONCACAF Gold Cup tournament.\u00a0\u00a0Although\u00a0his side would rally to clinch a berth in the finals, it\u00a0was visibly overmatched against a superior Mexico side\u00a0in a comprehensive 4-2 loss – a\u00a0result that left many to ponder whether Bradley was still the man for the job.<\/p>\n
“It is always hard to make these decisions, especially when it involves someone we respect as much as Bob,” said Gulati. “We wish him the best in his future endeavors.”<\/p>\n
During his tenure, Bradley went 43-25-12 in four-plus years (2007-2011) with the National Team. In 2007, the Americans went on to win the Gold Cup, earning them a berth to the 2009 Confederations Cup – a tournament that saw them shock Spain in the semifinals with a 2-0 win, earning the U.S.\u00a0its first-ever FIFA Cup final. The following year, Bradley steered the team to a first place finish in Group C of the 2010\u00a0World Cup, but fell to Ghana in the Round of 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Bob Bradley Era ended on Thursday, as the oft-criticized coach was shown the door by U.S. Soccer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/bobbradley.jpg?fit=383%2C259&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5729"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5743,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5729\/revisions\/5743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}