The former USA head coach’s appointment as Francesco Guidolin’s replacement has been met with heavy scepticism, but he has already proven throughout his managerial career that he should never be written off.
After years of waiting for a Premier League job, Bob Bradley finally got his big break on Monday, replacing Francesco Guidolin as Swansea City boss to become the first American to manage in one of Europe’s top five leagues. Unsurprisingly, the 58-year-old New Jersey native’s appointment was met with a largely sceptical response due to his lack of experience in the English top-flight, but a close inspection of his CV will tell you why the concern is misguided.
Before arriving in South Wales, Bradley spent 11 months managing French second-tier side La Havre, narrowly missing out on promotion last season by one solitary goal. Going into the final day of the campaign, his side trailed Metz for the all-important third spot by three points and needed to make up a goal difference of six to have any hope of jumping up in the standings. They promptly did their part, thumping Bourg-en-Bresse 5-0 while hitting the woodwork four times, but Metz would only lose 1-0 at Lens to go up by virtue of having scored two more goals (54 to 52) across the whole season.
While promotion would have been nothing short of a miracle, though, it would have arguably paled in comparison to Bradley’s prior achievements in the Norwegian top-flight. Back in January 2014, the former US national team head coach landed his first job in Europe with newly-promoted Stabaek and proceeded to defy all predictions in his first season in charge by guiding the relegations favourites to a comfortable mid-table finish, earning numerous plaudits in the process.
Only three years removed from a financial crisis that very nearly resulted in bankruptcy, the cash-strapped club were once again tipped for the drop in 2015, but Bradley’s men instead took another huge step forward, spending most of the campaign battling domestic giants Rosenborg at the top of the table. Even after selling 17-goal striker Adama Diomande to Hull City with eight games remaining, they still managed to secure a third-place finish and Europa League football, ensuring Bradley would go down as a certified club legend before his subsequent departure for Le Havre.
Bradley’s spells in Norway and France are certainly not the only bright spots on his CV, though, as his track record since starting his coaching career in 1981 with the Ohio University Bobcats at the age of 22 is almost spotless. After making the move to MLS in 1998, the former Princeton graduate promptly guided the Chicago Fire to the MLS Cup and US Open Cup double in their inaugural season, before later enjoying successful stints with the MetroStars and Chivas USA, respectively, to become the first manager in league history to reach the 100-win mark.
His domestic exploits eventually landed him the USA job – first on an interim basis in 2006 following Bruce Arena’s resignation and later, after Jurgen Klinsmann initially turned down the position in 2007, permanently – and the two-time MLS Coach of the Year achieved almost immediate success by guiding the team to the Gold Cup title that summer with a 2-1 win over arch rivals Mexico.
Some were still not convinced he was the right man for the role at that point, seeing him as merely a placeholder until a bigger name could be brought in, but Bradley managed to silence some of his critics over the subsequent years with more impressive results. Under his leadership, the States made the 2009 Confederations Cup final – beating Spain 2-0 along the way to end the soon-to-be world champions’ 35-match unbeaten run – and went on to win the Hexagonal in convincing fashion. They turned up at the World Cup in South Africa the following year with a squad weakened by injuries to key men Charlies Davies, Stuart Holden and Oguchi Onyewu, but a gritty style of counter-attacking football saw them top Group C ahead of England before falling 2-1 to Ghana after extra-time in the round of 16.
Bradley was eventually dismissed following the 2011 Gold Cup final defeat to Mexico, but he was not out of work for long. A few months later, he made the bold move to accept the job as manager of the Egypt national team and, amid widespread political unrest brought on by the Arab Spring, somehow managed to guide the Pharaohs to maximum points over their first six 2014 World Cup qualifiers.
As well as having to play all their games either on the road or in empty stadiums while the domestic league was suspended, angry fans burned down the offices of the Egyptian FA at one point, but Bradley’s steely resolve and leadership during a time when the county was in chaos saw him quickly win over the public’s support.
In many ways, his achievements with Egypt were even more impressive than his later work with Stabaek, and while the team’s hopes of making it to Brazil were eventually ended by a disappointing 7-3 aggregate defeat to Ghana in the playoffs, he ultimately left his post in November 2013 with his reputation enhanced.
In the meantime, Bradley never hid his desire to one day manage in the Premier League, but despite being linked with the likes of Aston Villa, Fulham, Leicester City, Sunderland and West Bromwich Albion over the years, actual job offers proved frustratingly hard to come by. Now finally given the chance to prove himself at the top level, he takes over a Swansea side that sit 17th in the table with just four points from seven games and are without a league win since the opening day of the season.
Much of the initial reaction in the UK to his appointment has been less than favourable – whether due to an underlying prejudice towards American coaches or not – but Bradley has clearly excelled in far more testing circumstances than the one his new side currently find themselves in at the foot of the table.
At every stop, he has exceeded expectations and left the team in a better situation, while virtually every player or coach who has worked with him in the past has waxed lyrical about his managerial brain.
Former Watford and USA defender Jay DeMerit, who earned all 25 of his international caps under Bradley, told Sky Sports News HQ on Monday night: “I think it’s a well-deserved appointment. Anyone that follows the game knows that it’s a massive step up, and I think Bob Bradley will know more than anybody.
“He is one of the true students of the game. He constantly studies the game. He literally took a DVD player everywhere he went watching games, studying what’s going on out there, and I think he’s a tactician in that way.
“(He’s) not popular as far as some of the choices he makes to his line-up – maybe there was a guy with a big reputation that the Americans expected to play – but he gave me my chance when I was more or less an unknown and stuck with me because I fitted into the system maybe better than the bigger name defenders did. Then we ended up winning more games.
“Having the guile and the confidence in himself to make hard decisions, I think he was able to do that with our national team and I think he will do that here at Swansea.”
Bradley never quite managed to win over the entire US fan base during his time in charge of the States, with some supporters quick to criticise his style of football as “too negative”, but plenty of those detractors have been forced to reevaluate their opinion of late amid Klinsmann’s struggles to produce better results with an arguably superior talent pool. In reality, his approach was impressively flexible, pragmatic and perfectly tailored to the players at his disposal, while, unlike his successor, he was always prepared to step forward and shoulder the blame in the wake of a setback. Granted, his side may not have been the most aesthetically pleasing, but any conservative tactics he ever employed were largely down to necessity rather than preference.
All those traits certainly suggest that he is perfectly suited to take on the challenge presented at Swansea and, after waiting years for his opportunity, the chance to potentially open up doors for other American coaches in Europe is one he will not want to waste.
Pundits like Chris Sutton have already tried to do their best to disparage his past achievements, but Bradley has been prematurely written off plenty of times before and delivered results under far greater pressure. Given his track record, the odds are that critics will not be questioning his managerial acumen for long.
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