On The Pitch

Just got done listening to the US Soccer Bob Bradley podcast. Here are some highlights:

• It sounds like things fell apart with JK within the last 48 hours – that’s when serious discussions with Bob began.
• He feels he and Gulati have very similar views on how to proceed.
• His take on the interim tag: It’s an honor to have the opportunity to coach the team.
• Unintentional laugh line: "US Soccer will always make decisions that give us the best opportunity for success in the future"
• Players at the January camp will be primarily from the MLS
• Direction program needs to go in to be competitive: There will be a natural transition as experienced players retire and new players move up
• Immediate priorities: Finalize players for camp. Put together a staff. Make a permanent hire or two [ed note – hiring assistants as ‘interim’ won’t be easy] Mentioned coaches who were part of Bruce’s staff.
• State of the USMNT program: Healthy and moving forward [ed note – ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!] Margin between success and failure is very small. Made comparison to France in 2002.
• Bob feels Bruce and his staff made much progress to get team where it is today and that they had done a ‘phenomenal job’.
• Hopes he and his staff can has as much passion as Glenn Myernick had.

That was it. I guess you can’t expect THAT much given how quickly this landed in Bradley’s lap. If he had any grand ideas already in mind, he didn’t share them here. Did anyone catch him on ESPN? Did he say anything different?