That 1-0 win over Mexico sure looked like a Bob Bradley special

Aug 16, 2012, 10:00 AM EDT

Egypt's head coach Bob Bradley of the U.S. reacts during their friendly soccer match against RD Congo in Doha

Reuters

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: The United States concedes possession. They bend, bend, bend, but don’t break. Tim Howard comes up with a few huge saves. The Americans score an ugly goal and eek out a shocking win.

I’m talking about Wednesday night’s victory over Mexico in Azteca, but I could be talking about the 1-0 win over Italy or the victory over Spain in the Confederations Cup or any number of other games. The faces on the field are different but model is the same.

Jurgen Klinsmann came into the US coaching job with plenty of bluster about playing pretty and possession and looking good while winning. And that’s great. It should, and will, remain the goal of the American program (an American program that is slowly, surely, inevitably producing better talent). But he’s also realized that sometimes — frequently, in fact — the Red, White, and Blue squad needs to get dirty in order to get results. They don’t have the top-line talent of a Germany, a Spain, a Netherlands. (Heck, even a Mexico.)

And, here’s the key, that’s fine. Results, after all, are results. No one is going to remember how the US beat Mexico in Mexico for the first time ever. They are just going to remember that they did. The devil may be in the details, but the big picture sure is familiar.

All credit to Klinsmann for pulling off what no US coach could do in the history of the rivalry. But let’s not pretend it was some revolutionary scheme that got the Stars and Stripes the result. It was good, old fashioned hard work. We’ve seen this before and we’ll see it again.

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dfstell - Aug 16, 2012 at 10:12 AM

I get so frustrated with the people who poo-poo wins like this. Was it the most beautiful game ever? Of course not and I’d love it if a few more of our guys looked more comfortable with the ball. But, the poo-pooers are making it sound like we scored on our ONLY opportunity of the game and that’s just not true. There was the play where Herc got taken down in the 4th minute. That would have been a weak penalty, but it could’ve happened. There was that play in the 2nd half where Herc completely didn’t see Boyd all alone in the middle. There was the play where Beckerman almost caught their keeper off the line. There was that great ball that Shea played to Boyd that he just didn’t get ahold of. All of those could’ve been goals. Sure, Mexico put a few more on frame, but that’s how the cookie crumbles. And sure they dominated possession, but a lot of it was ineffective possession.

Point is….I’ll take it and I think we should play like this against Mexico every time down there.

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whordy - Aug 16, 2012 at 11:07 AM

Well, it did in the fact that a defensive gameplan reminds people of Bradley. Because that what all Bradley did even when we were the better team.
But its not fair to use that comaparison. Just listen to Klinsman and his ideas and his goals and you can tell right away he has more amibition for this program than Bradley ever did.

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adslazaro - Aug 16, 2012 at 11:17 AM

And the same can be said of Klinsi’s “other” big win in Italy.

I stick by what I’ve said from the start: Klinnsman is basically the same coach as Arena and Bradley (hell, he admits to learning most of his coaching from Bruce Arena himself.) That’s not a knock against him, just an observation.

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fcphillyboy - Aug 16, 2012 at 11:30 AM

not so sure about this article. was jurgen supposed to what we all would acknowledge is not an A team into a hostile environment and play carefree, attacking soccer? give the guy a chance, bradley certainly had his

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footballer4ever - Aug 16, 2012 at 1:51 PM

As much as Bradley did for the USMNT, this team is run by Klinsman and it’s almost a year into it. Any similarities to other outings to a previous coach does not entitle that coach with any credit. Why is there a need to make unnecessary comparisons? I am sure Bob Bradley musy have smiles to the USMNT’s win, but he’s not taking any credit on that.

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schmutzdeck - Aug 16, 2012 at 3:03 PM

I have a greta deal of respec for Bob Bradley but he did not invent the 4-5-1. Nor did he invent the idea of flooding your midfield to avoid being overrun. And he did not invent letting your opponent have possession as long as they kept dribbling down blind alleys headed nowhere (which is what Mexico did last night) so to speak.

All of these things, and all of these tactics have been around for years and years. Spend a day or two on line or better yet go down to your public library and read a few good books on soccer tactics and history.

It would be nice if writers such as you stopped perpetuating the myth that Bradley was abnormally conservative defensively.

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