In a sense, the real surprise isn’t that it took almost six years for Michael Bradley to get his flowers for his long and laureled United States men’s national team career. It’s that he agreed to receive them at all.
That sort of thing is, after all, extremely un-Michael Bradley.
Still, before Saturday’s friendly between the US and South Korea at Sports Illustrated Stadium, New Jersey’s native son will have no choice. He’ll have to stand there, in the spotlight, the center of attention, and wave to the crowds for a little while. The now-38-year-old head coach of New York Red Bulls II will be honored for a career in which he amassed the third-most US caps of all time and the second-most assists, starting every game at the 2010 and 2014 World Cups.
From 2006 through 2019, Bradley had one of the most accomplished spells in men’s national team history. And, somehow, also one of its most controversial. In none of his 151 USMNT appearances – captaining the Yanks in 48 of those matches – was there total consensus that he ought to be there, even as the do-it-all central midfielder methodically climbed to one of the historic powers of Serie A with Roma. But as a boring debate over the merits of his game dragged on year after year, its effect was muted or altogether negated by the fact that Bradley himself didn’t seem to care even the tiniest bit. The only person in the American soccer community who didn’t seem to have a loud and public opinion about Michael Bradley was Michael Bradley.
We sat down for a one-on-one interview once, a long time ago. Bradley emerged from the elevator and passed over the many fine and frilly couches scattered about the hotel lobby. He chose, instead, to sit on a little stool by a comparatively sad, plastic table in a corner. It may have been a kids’ corner, I can’t remember. Then, for 40 minutes, his pale green eyes beneath his heavy brow barely broke contact with mine as he thought deeply about everything he was asked and deeper still about how to answer carefully and diplomatically. The spell was only broken, briefly, when I wondered about a tattoo on the inside of his biceps and he recoiled and tugged down his sleeve to hide it. “No, that’s OK,” he said politely.
Such was his searing intensity during the interview that Bradley didn’t notice until it was over and he rose to walk away how uncomfortable he’d been in the little stool, wincing in pain as he stretched his back.
Bradley was not adequately appreciated in his time. Through little fault of his own, he became a kind of Rorschach test for however it was you already viewed the American men’s program. If you believed that American soccer was beset by favoritism and nepotism and that certain players’ ascent was preordained, Bradley seemed to confirm that. Although he was given his national team debut under Bruce Arena, he became a leading player under his father, Bob Bradley, about whom the fanbase nursed their own unreasonably strong misgivings.
If, conversely, you thought a new age had dawned in which even a born-and-raised American could grind his way up the sport’s ranks – from the New York/New Jersey MetroStars, to Heerenveen, to Borussia Mönchengladbach, to Chievo, and finally to Roma before returning to North America with Toronto FC – Bradley was proof positive of that as well.
His case seemed to cut right to the id of a soccer community and its deep-seated hopes and insecurities.
He also didn’t do much to boost his flagging popularity. When he spoke, Bradley was always incredibly guarded, although he took a laudable stance in criticizing President Trump in 2017. He could be ornery, especially when he was younger. He really didn’t seem to have anything other than soccer and family going on in his life; or if he did, he didn’t care to share any of it. He’d been that way even as a kid. Sports Illustrated told of a time when an 8-year-old Bradley refused his uncle’s offer to buy him fried chicken because, as young Michael put it, “That’s not what soccer players eat.”
But if you cared to look carefully and honestly, you would discern perhaps the best midfielder the nation has ever produced. What was always remarkable about Bradley was that he didn’t have any standout physical or technical attributes, yet he willed himself into an excellent player all the same. He was solid-to-good across the board – Athletic, but not a monster. Technically sound, without being a maestro. What elevated him was an unshakable zeal for whatever tasks he’d been assigned on the field – and they varied wildly, as far as central midfielders go. He ran all day and read the game as if he’d been handed the manual. He could break up a counterattack or ping a diagonal ball to unlock a defense. He was relentlessly competent, never had a half-hearted game. His application to his craft was total.
It’s just that midfielders who are on the ball a lot get a pass wrong sometimes, and that those tasked with covering a lot of ground lose their man on occasion. Then, inevitably, there would follow an outcry. For Bradley, there never seemed to be the same kind of tolerance for mistakes that others were granted.
While he captained the side when it lost to Trinidad and Tobago on the fateful 2017 day when the USMNT missed their first World Cup in 32 years, the program’s modern nadir, Bradley set the standard every day that he was on the national team, protecting and prolonging its culture.
“Getting to know him, watching him work and operate and the professionalism that he showed every single training session, every camp, listening to the way that he speaks about and approaches the game, preparing himself – all things that a lot of guys were able to take from him,” said current US captain Tim Ream. “I’m sitting here today because of some of the things and conversations that him and I have had. The leadership that he showed from all the time that we were together, was something that I always left camp in awe of, and now still try to use those examples today.”
Michael Bradley made the players are him better, too. He just didn’t get credit for that either.
