The Marriage of Convenience: U.S. Soccer Re-signs Bob Bradley Through 2014

As I’ve pointed out before, Bradley did what he was asked to do. Play up the secondary competitions as much as you want (Yes, they beat Spain. They also lost to Italy and played 135 shockingly bad minutes against Brazil), but Bradley’s job was (a) to qualify the U.S. for the World Cup (he did) and (b) to advance through the group if feasible (he did). The issue, however, is not how Bradley performed the last four years, but how Bradley will perform the next four. International coaches generally go stale during a second cycle. Did Bob Bradley display potential for further improvement or did he show his ceiling?

You can spin the World Cup two ways. There’s the positive take. The U.S. won their group for the first time since 1930. They went undefeated against European opposition. U.S. Soccer’s acolytes in the blogosphere will emphasize this.

There’s the negative. They led for about two minutes over three matches in their group win. They made substitutions at halftime (a sign of conceptual failure) during three of the four matches. They showed a remarkable inability to adjust tactics match to match. The U.S. showed great spirit overcoming hurdles, but they were hurdles of their own construction. Their World Cup campaign ended when they could not refocus after the Algeria goal. The enduring feeling in the 2010 aftermath was that the U.S. could have been playing in the quarterfinals or, with some luck, further.

The depressing thing was how this was handled. If Bradley was the first choice, U.S. Soccer should have signed him to an extension immediately following the World Cup. If he wanted to test the market, they should have pressured him. Instead, they were cryptic, floated out other candidates and left the decision hanging for nearly two months. This suggests they weren’t entirely confident they wanted another four years of Bob Bradley.

Bradley is competent. His contract extension is not a disaster, but, ultimately, retaining Bradley is safe. It’s a move to maintain an acceptable level of success. For a fan base enlivened by possibility in South Africa, the complacency is underwhelming.

[Photo via Getty]