Monday, June 7, 2010

Bradley tells it like it is


Bob Bradley is extremely thorough in his preparations, and has the ability to keep his focus on the important factors within a team and within a game.

In an indepth feature on U.S. coach Bob Bradley, the World Cup coach is described as bringing a ruthless honesty in his approach.


"He'll tell you exactly what he’s thinking, whether you like it or not," midfielder Clint Dempsey said. Bradley's management style is --engrossed, driven, all the distractions shaved and smoothed away in pursuit of something intensely personal and finely wrought

Once there was a man who carved a duck from a block of wood. Asked how he did it, the man said, “I just got rid of everything that didn’t look like a duck.”

The story was a teaching lesson told by Pete Carril, the longtime basketball coach at Princeton. It was passed on to a young Princeton soccer coach, Bob Bradley, who guided his alma mater to the Final Four in 1993 and who in 2006 became the coach of the United States national team.

The Americans will open World Cup play against England on Saturday in Rustenburg, South Africa. As Bradley, 52, prepared his team the last four years, his management style reflected Carril’s woodcarver — engrossed, driven, all the distractions shaved and smoothed away in pursuit of something intensely personal and finely wrought.

“Bob always liked that story,” said Jim Barlow, the current Princeton soccer coach, who played for Bradley there. “He just gets rid of everything that’s not soccer.”

There is a phrase that Bradley uses: on the inside. It means that most information should be kept within the team, not shared with those on the outside.

His wariness was evident at a World Cup training camp at Princeton. The camp was closed to the public. Windows in the press box at the soccer stadium were papered over, lest reporters or scouts glean some tactical surprise. It took nearly a week for Bradley to announce that defender Carlos Bocanegra, the team captain, had had surgery for a sports hernia in early May.

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