Michael Bradley's busy summer
By Luke Cyphers and Doug McIntyre
ESPN Insider
CARY, N.C. -- Facing top-ranked and reigning world champion Spain on Saturday could be the easiest part of Michael Bradley's summer.
That's not to say that the U.S. midfielder isn't looking forward to the high-profile friendly at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass. (ESPN, 4 p.m. ET).
"These kinds of games are obviously only friendlies," Bradley told us in a rare, 25-minute sit-down interview at a ridiculously fancy hotel here, where the U.S. squad has gathered for its Gold Cup training camp. "Still, when you play against these teams you are tested at the highest level."
And once the Spain match is finished, Bradley's summer really gets cooking. In no particular order, he has to:
• Find a new job.
• Help the U.S. win the Gold Cup/qualify for the 2013 Confederations Cup in Brazil.
• Get married in July before immediately jetting back to a yet unknown European city for preseason training. (The honeymoon is scheduled for next year, when there's a longer break in the FIFA calendar.)
That last part says all you need to know about Bradley and his focus on soccer. After a January loan from Germany's Borussia Monchengladbach to England's Aston Villa, he played sparingly over the next four months, his first extended period on the sideline since establishing himself across the pond with Dutch club Heerenveen in 2007. He wants to make sure that doesn't happen again even though he insists his EPL stint wasn't all bad.
<OFFER>
"The experience at Villa was a really good one," Bradley says. "Players go through different times in their career, where maybe you don't get everything that you think you deserve. Everything doesn't always go your way."
To be fair, Bradley walked into a difficult situation at Villa, normally a top-half Premier League mainstay that by midseason was deep in a relegation dogfight. Regardless, the lack of playing time brought back the message board critics and their nepotism cries. Because his father is U.S. coach Bob Bradley, Michael is a lightning-rod topic among a section of American soccer fans who now have ammunition in questioning his place in the starting lineup after watching him ride the pine for Villa.
For any player, riding the bench for long stretches erodes fitness, confidence and skill. On the other hand, the younger Bradley has been a stalwart the past four years (topping the Yanks in minutes in 2010), earned universal praise for his performance at the World Cup in South Africa and was perhaps the best U.S. player in the national team's most recent game against Paraguay two months ago.
Furthermore, the play of Maurice Edu, Benny Feilhaber and others hasn't merited benching Bradley. (Although had the injured Stuart Holden been available, it would have been interesting to see if first-choice midfielders Jermaine Jones, Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan, Holden and Bradley would have been on the field at the same time.)
Still just 23 years old, Bradley remains one of the squad's most important players and he figures to start alongside Jones against Spain and at the Gold Cup. In any case, he expects to be playing regularly again next season anyway.
"It's important to find the right club, get myself settled and establish myself as a key guy," Bradley says. "I was able to do that at Heerenveen and Gladbach. Now I have to find that right, next challenge and use these next years of my career to establish myself as an important player wherever that is."
The "where" remains unclear. Bradley has a year left on his contract with the Bundesliga team, and interim Villa manager Gary McAllister has suggested that the club could exercise its option to buy his contract.
For his part, Bradley says he's open to returning to either club as he considers all of his options.
For now, the focus is on Spain and the Gold Cup.
"It's a really important time for us as a team, to build on the things we've done the past few years," says Bradley, who has been doing extra fitness work after each session in Cary, something he says he's been doing for the past few months to offset the limited on-field minutes.
"At the same time it still has the feeling of something new. We want to reestablish the way we do things and really set a high standard for ourselves as we move forward."
That begins against La Furia Roja, whose squad features six starters from the Barcelona team that hoisted the Champions League trophy last weekend.
"Is Spain going to have the ball a lot? Yes. But the way that we try to close them down, make it hard on them, try to impose ourselves on them -- that doesn't change no matter if we're playing Guadeloupe, Canada or Panama," the Americans' three group stage foes at the Gold Cup.
"Those are the things that make us a good team," Bradley continues. "We try to make sure that's what we're about every time we step on the field. Are we going to have to do more of that against Spain than is likely in the first-round games at the Gold Cup? Probably. That's just reality. But it doesn't change what we want to be about."
Just like the last few months haven't changed what Michael Bradley's about, either.
Notes
• Looks like Aston Villa coach Gerard Houllier won't return next season because of health reasons.
• With the Monday arrivals of Carlos Bocanegra, Clarence Goodson and Alejandro Bedoya -- who won't be added to the official Gold Cup unless or until Feilhaber's ankle injury officially rules him out -- 23 players are in camp. The U.S. can make any injury-related change up until 24 hours before its June 7 opener against Canada.
By Luke Cyphers and Doug McIntyre
ESPN Insider
CARY, N.C. -- Facing top-ranked and reigning world champion Spain on Saturday could be the easiest part of Michael Bradley's summer.
That's not to say that the U.S. midfielder isn't looking forward to the high-profile friendly at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass. (ESPN, 4 p.m. ET).
"These kinds of games are obviously only friendlies," Bradley told us in a rare, 25-minute sit-down interview at a ridiculously fancy hotel here, where the U.S. squad has gathered for its Gold Cup training camp. "Still, when you play against these teams you are tested at the highest level."
And once the Spain match is finished, Bradley's summer really gets cooking. In no particular order, he has to:
• Find a new job.
• Help the U.S. win the Gold Cup/qualify for the 2013 Confederations Cup in Brazil.
• Get married in July before immediately jetting back to a yet unknown European city for preseason training. (The honeymoon is scheduled for next year, when there's a longer break in the FIFA calendar.)
That last part says all you need to know about Bradley and his focus on soccer. After a January loan from Germany's Borussia Monchengladbach to England's Aston Villa, he played sparingly over the next four months, his first extended period on the sideline since establishing himself across the pond with Dutch club Heerenveen in 2007. He wants to make sure that doesn't happen again even though he insists his EPL stint wasn't all bad.
<OFFER>
"The experience at Villa was a really good one," Bradley says. "Players go through different times in their career, where maybe you don't get everything that you think you deserve. Everything doesn't always go your way."
To be fair, Bradley walked into a difficult situation at Villa, normally a top-half Premier League mainstay that by midseason was deep in a relegation dogfight. Regardless, the lack of playing time brought back the message board critics and their nepotism cries. Because his father is U.S. coach Bob Bradley, Michael is a lightning-rod topic among a section of American soccer fans who now have ammunition in questioning his place in the starting lineup after watching him ride the pine for Villa.
For any player, riding the bench for long stretches erodes fitness, confidence and skill. On the other hand, the younger Bradley has been a stalwart the past four years (topping the Yanks in minutes in 2010), earned universal praise for his performance at the World Cup in South Africa and was perhaps the best U.S. player in the national team's most recent game against Paraguay two months ago.
Furthermore, the play of Maurice Edu, Benny Feilhaber and others hasn't merited benching Bradley. (Although had the injured Stuart Holden been available, it would have been interesting to see if first-choice midfielders Jermaine Jones, Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan, Holden and Bradley would have been on the field at the same time.)
Still just 23 years old, Bradley remains one of the squad's most important players and he figures to start alongside Jones against Spain and at the Gold Cup. In any case, he expects to be playing regularly again next season anyway.
"It's important to find the right club, get myself settled and establish myself as a key guy," Bradley says. "I was able to do that at Heerenveen and Gladbach. Now I have to find that right, next challenge and use these next years of my career to establish myself as an important player wherever that is."
The "where" remains unclear. Bradley has a year left on his contract with the Bundesliga team, and interim Villa manager Gary McAllister has suggested that the club could exercise its option to buy his contract.
For his part, Bradley says he's open to returning to either club as he considers all of his options.
For now, the focus is on Spain and the Gold Cup.
"It's a really important time for us as a team, to build on the things we've done the past few years," says Bradley, who has been doing extra fitness work after each session in Cary, something he says he's been doing for the past few months to offset the limited on-field minutes.
"At the same time it still has the feeling of something new. We want to reestablish the way we do things and really set a high standard for ourselves as we move forward."
That begins against La Furia Roja, whose squad features six starters from the Barcelona team that hoisted the Champions League trophy last weekend.
"Is Spain going to have the ball a lot? Yes. But the way that we try to close them down, make it hard on them, try to impose ourselves on them -- that doesn't change no matter if we're playing Guadeloupe, Canada or Panama," the Americans' three group stage foes at the Gold Cup.
"Those are the things that make us a good team," Bradley continues. "We try to make sure that's what we're about every time we step on the field. Are we going to have to do more of that against Spain than is likely in the first-round games at the Gold Cup? Probably. That's just reality. But it doesn't change what we want to be about."
Just like the last few months haven't changed what Michael Bradley's about, either.
Notes
• Looks like Aston Villa coach Gerard Houllier won't return next season because of health reasons.
• With the Monday arrivals of Carlos Bocanegra, Clarence Goodson and Alejandro Bedoya -- who won't be added to the official Gold Cup unless or until Feilhaber's ankle injury officially rules him out -- 23 players are in camp. The U.S. can make any injury-related change up until 24 hours before its June 7 opener against Canada.
