Bradley Back to Coach LAFC
It’s not easy being the new kid on the block.
Just ask the Los Angeles Football Club
With the Galaxy already in town, LAFC needs to prove itself as a viable operation.
Their debut season's only a year away, so they opted to make a splash hire.
This was it:
That's right. Former United States Men’s Soccer Team (USMNT) coach Bob Bradley is their coach heading into LAFC's inaugural season.
Bradley brings with him an interesting résumé, containing a mix of big successes and failures.
When he coached the Chicago Fire, Bradley led his charges to both the 1998 MLS Cup and the US Open Cup. Not a bad feat when you consider dude did this in the Fire’s first MLS season.
Bradley would go on to coach both the New York/New Jersey MetroStars -- now the New York Red Bulls -- and the ill-fated Chivas USA before being summoned by his country to serve as coach of the USMNT.
Dude led the Americans outta Group Stage play in the 2010 South African World Cup. That short run ended when they were eliminated in the Round of 16 by their biggest nemesis in Ghana.
Subsequent losses in a friendly against Spain -- if a 0-4 rout can be called friendly -- and in the 2011 Gold Cup Final against Mexico would get Bradley canned as USA skipper.
Then came his spell of wandering in the wilderness. He'd bounce around for the next few seasons, coaching:
- the Egyptian national team,
- a Norwegian club team, and
- a French club team.
After that, Bradley returned to the big stage in 2016, when he was named coach of Swansea City.
The hiring caused a bit of an uproar by Swansea supporters, who connected the dots between Bradley being the first American to manage a Premiership team and the club’s new American ownership group.
On one hand, Bradley’s Swans failed to show much progress in his tenure there.
On the other hand, dude was given a mere 11 games to show said progress.
Fair or not, Swansea sacked Bradley in December after only 85 days in charge.
So now, Bradley's back coaching in the league where he found arguably his largest degree of coaching success.
He just needs to do with LAFC what he did with Chicago twenty-odd years ago.
Of course, there's a small matter of the team assembling a roster before Bradley can begin to work his magic.
Bradley’s job could be made much easier if LAFC team president backs up his penchant for throwing names like Messi and Ronalco around like waiver wire moves.
In the meantime, Toronto fans shouldn't lose any sleep.
Dude doesn’t plan on stealing his son from then any time soon.