Bobocop
I told friends that if we had a pathetic showing at The Confederations Cup that I’d start this blog. I didn’t want to do it. I’ve been behind Bob longer than most fans and even after our sickening loss to Costa Rica a month ago I thought he’d turn it around.
We escaped Honduras at home (and I use the word ‘home’ loosely, thanks Sunil) with sloppy late dramatics and are completely nose diving in South Africa.
So many things about our team, performance, attitude, & roster are wrong and Bradley is responsible for all of it. I understand that we don’t have world class talent. But neither does Egypt, neither did Senegal in 2002, neither did Australia in 2006, the list goes on.
I’ll be touching on these in more detail so I wanted to start off with this blog with something that permeates the entire program right now: lack of passion. Regardless of the talent on the field, condition of the field, quality of the opponent this United States Soccer team is devoid of inspiration.
The El Salvador game is when I first started to notice this important ingredient missing from our game as the players stepped on the field clearly unprepared to play. The Cuscatlecos jumped to an early lead and followed that up with a goal in the 2nd half, doubling their lead. Amazingly the United States rallied and luckily (and excitingly) netted two late game goals, stealing a valuable point as they rushed out of El Salvador. Things weren’t looking good but we wrote this one off as an aberration; nothing to worry about.
Costa Rica was a nightmare in the making days before kick off. The media had everyone convinced that the United States had no chance of winning and Bob Bradley apparently didn’t prove to the players that the media was wrong. The team trotted around uninterested, almost expecting to lose from the opening kick off. There was little to no tackling and Costa Rica was the more physical team by leaps and bounds, which made its impact on the game almost instantaneously as the United States allowed a goal within minutes and never got into the game. The rest was table- punching, couch-kicking history.
Tail between their legs, Bob Bradley’s team got off to an almost identical start in a hostile Chicago (once again thanks to the genius of Sunil Gulati) when Honduras trotted down the field in the early stages of the match to stun the Americans with a cracking goal. It was looking dire until the Americans decided to be inspired and take the match into their own hands to dominate the 2nd half and get an all important, scrappy goal from their defender Carlos Bocanegra.
So after 3 World Cup Qualifiers and almost 3 loses against weak regional opponents, Bob Bradley prepares his team for South Africa where they first play World Champions Italy. The first half begins well, until the team’s heart was crushed with a foolish red card in the first half by Ricardo Clark. Surprisingly the US moved ahead with a penalty kick, courtesy of Landon Donovan. After the break with a one goal lead, Bob’s players stepped onto the field a completely different team. This team was tentative, confused, slow, and disorganized. Playing a man down against one of the best teams in the world is no small order, but what just destroyed fans watching from home was the utter lack of grit and determination on the field. They played as if getting scored on was only a matter of time, which of course it was as The Azzure dropped bombs into our net. This team was defeated when the score was still tied! Still some fans (and players and Bradley) had the ‘man down’ scapegoat and used it wisely.
Next up, Brazil, another world class opponent and Bob Bradley’s lineup did not exude confidence. It reeked of status quo, boredom, and fear of the Brazilians which was mimicked by the players who almost immediately after kick off allowed a goal. In fact watching our guys walk out for the anthems I said to myself “wow these guys don’t look like they think they have a chance.” You could see it in their eyes… there was no way they’d take it to Brazil. Our players gave the Brazilians space, didn’t move off the ball well, and passed with the quality of an AYSO team. The first goal made it all but official, we had given up again and only 5 minutes into the game.
As I said, many many things have been going wrong lately but Bradley’s inability to inspire our players is the one issue that should be making decision makers in Chicago worried. We didn’t see Egypt fear their opponents, we saw them play with creativity and passion though their player pool is light years away from our team, let alone Brazil and Italy. If you can’t field the best players in the world then you’re supposed to make up for it in a desire to upset your opponents and make an impression on those watching the game worldwide.
If Bob Bradley can’t get his team to put on their Stars and Stripes with pride then he is not the right man for the job. Bob, you’re a nice guy and we thank you for your service, but its just not working out.
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