Bradley, madly, deeply

Bradley

So it is. Bob Bradley becomes the Premier League’s first ever American manager. He will take with him to South Wales the insecurities of an entire nation, and probably also like a vial of Bruce Arena’s tears or something. Anyway.

This is, of course, a big deal for American soccer, on both a micro and macro level. But before I make this about 330 million other people and their future soccer-playing babies, I’ll make it about Bradley, who deserves a ton of credit.

The headline achievement here is (again, if you missed it the first 10,000 times) that Bradley is the first American manager ever to land a job in one of Europe’s top four leagues. But the real achievement has been Bradley’s willingness in the five or so years since he left the USMNT to take risks with his career, to take the soccer road less traveled.

Bradley has often been portrayed as a kind of trailblazer — for American soccer in general and American soccer coaches in particular. But he should also be recognized as a trailblazer for British players and coaches, who are woefully under-traveled in the past two decades, and for that matter anyone else who has shied away from the interesting choice because the obvious one was so obviously at hand.

Bradley could very well fail at Swansea — the Premier League is a huge step up from Ligue 2, and World Cup success is no guarantor of club success — but if he does fail, he can fail knowing he tried things, he took the unique opportunities this sport will give you if you let it, weird and scary and uncertain though they often are.

Bradley’s career is testament to soccer’s ability to find a way, like at Princeton in the 1970s, or in the form of Chivas USA, or in Norway, or in the middle of a revolution. The soccer world is big and strange, and that bigness and strangeness is often used as an excuse to sneer at the world, to turn away, to close oneself off.

That is something the English game has been grappling with for a long, long time, and so if he achieves nothing else, Bradley might perhaps serve as a reminder that a successful grappling requires only a little courage, and a larger sense of adventure.

Madly

As far as U.S. soccer news goes, this is the mother lode. The country’s greatest living coach (sorry, Bruce Arena) finally gets a high-profile gig outside North America (sorry, Le Havre). You can feel it already: American soccer crumbling beneath the weight of its own insecurity.

There is also the deliciously provocative wrinkle of a fact that Bradley was not hired in spite of his nationality, but because of it, because Swansea’s new owners are (because of course they are) American as well.

The xenophobes/cynics (delete according to your allegiances) have been quick to insist Bradley got the job not because of any actual qualifications but because he will help grow Swansea’s brand in the United States, thus affirming that age-old American soccer adage: if you can’t beat ‘em, buy their clubs.

Swansea’s supporters don’t seem to be particularly happy about any of this, partly because they were unhappy with the initial sale of the club (21 percent of which is owned by a supporters trust that was apparently blindsided by the takeover). That the new owners first significant decision was to fire a relatively popular manager and replace him with one of their own has only increased the sense local fans are being ignored.

These feelings are legitimate primarily because there was no obvious reason to sack Francesco Guidolin, who impressed after taking over from Garry Monk last season and had been no worse than so-so this campaign (which, it seems worth adding, began with the club selling two of their best players in Andre Ayew and Ashley Williams).

But of course the various nuances here were mostly lost in the collective American soccer meltdown, and the subsequent, pre-emptive denial of xenophobia among British Premier League fans. The highlight so far has been the world’s least illuminating Twitter conversation between Gary Lineker, the English pundit and former player, and Alexi “The Big Tautology” Lalas.

After the news broke, Lineker pointed out quite reasonably, and not at all provocatively, that hiring Bradley was a gamble. He didn’t go into detail as to why, presumably because it was so obvious, because (a) hiring a new manager is always a gamble, (b) hiring a manager with no Premier League experience to manage in the Premier League is a bigger gamble and (c) doing all that after firing a proven Premier League manager who hasn’t really done anything wrong is the biggest gamble of all.

In his infinite smuggery, Lalas replied, “What gamble?” To which Lineker gave the obvious response. Lalas brought matters to a swift resolution, as if, in fact, he had never at any point even thought about looking for a fight:

My questionable over-reading of Alexi Lalas’ Twitter persona notwithstanding, the back-and-forth felt like a sign of things to come.

There will inevitably be two Bradley tenures at Swansea: one in South Wales and England, where Bradley will get on with the job of managing a soccer team, as he always has done, with dignity and intelligence.

The other hovering somewhere over the Atlantic, in the upside-Twitter-down. It’s easy to dismiss this second world as insignificant, the internet being what it is, dark and full of terrors. But this parallel Bradley tenure will be important in its own way, even if it does appear irredeemably stupid on the surface.

Because this will be our Bradley tenure, the one we are forced to live and explore, the one we will hand down to our children as we enter this brave new era of American soccer fandom. Frankly, at this point, it’s hard to decide which will be harder to bear: watching Bradley win or watching Bradley lose.

Maybe the best thing would be for him to be simply adequate, to guide Swansea to so many consecutive, say, 13th place finishes that everyone forgets he even exists, let alone that he’s the first American to take charge of a club in one of Europe’s top four leagues.

Deeply

Lest we forget, Bradley was hired to manage a soccer team. It’s not an easy job — Swansea are currently in 17th place and two of the teams below them are, at least on paper, more talented — but this a solid squad that is more than capable of finishing mid-table.

The Swans have developed a reputation over the past decade as a team that plays attractive, pass-first soccer. That image has wavered somewhat since the departure of Michael Laudrup two years ago, as the club has been forced by the necessity of avoiding relegation to adopt a more pragmatic approach, but it still holds weight.

In defeat against Liverpool on Saturday, the Swans were excellent, pressing the Reds intelligently, and passing the ball at a high tempo when they won it. This team remains, on their day, one of the best to watch in the league. They do not, in other words, need a massive overhaul, just a few small tweaks, and probably a boost in confidence. So what will Bradley’s Swansea look like?

For clues, it might perhaps be best to look at Bradley’s U.S.A. side that went to the round of 16 at the 2010 World Cup. That team was not only the best Bradley has managed, but also matches up conveniently with the skill sets of the players he’ll have at his disposal at Swansea.

Bradley used a 4-4-2/4-1-3-1-1 with two wingers in Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan that were given a lot of freedom. When Bradley’s U.S.A. were good, they were really good: hardworking and organized without the ball, and always quick to push the tempo in attack. They played with conviction and when they got going, teams struggled to stay with them.

Bradley already has his Donovan in Gylfi Sigurdsson, but he must decide whether to play him behind the striker (either Borja Baston or Fernando Llorente, as obvious a pair of Jozy Altidore surrogates as I ever saw) or on the right side of midfield. Given that Sigurdsson has been playing on the right side of Swansea’s front three recently, both are realistic options.

The biggest question, regardless of how Bradley deploys Sigurdsson, comes in central midfield, where Swansea have no obvious ball-winning defensive midfielder. Leroy Fer has been excellent this season and is capable of playing as a holder, but given he’s the Swans leading scorer, it would probably make more sense to give him some license to get forward, in a similar role to the one Michael Bradley played in 2010.

The two players most likely to partner Fer are Leon Britton and Jack Cork. Cork is the more natural ball-winner, but Britton’s ability to control the tempo of a game, not to mention his experience and influence at the club, cannot be easily dismissed. Fer will presumably shoulder some of the defensive burden, which could give Britton the edge.

The third option is to play all three. In some variation of a 4-4-2, this would most likely mean Cork plays on one of the wings, with Sigurdsson and Wayne Routledge occupying the other wing and the role behind the striker (both players are capable of playing both roles). This would allow Swansea to get forward in numbers, while shifting relatively seamlessly to a five man midfield without the ball.

These are all variations on the same theme, and it’s likely we’ll see more than one of them as the season progresses. But they’re all good options, and if Bradley does adopt a similar approach to the one he did with the USMNT, he has the players to execute it effectively.

The last question is if, how and to what extent Bradley implements some kind of pressing game. Pressing has been increasingly important in the Premier League the last few seasons, and the league’s smaller teams, including Swansea, are opting more and more to incorporate some kind of press into their games.

The Swans had success with this kind of approach against Liverpool in Guidolin’s final game, and it will be interesting to see whether Bradley builds on that foundation.

Weekly Awards

The Chris Kamara Award For Fighting Like Beavers: Burnley

Burnley were awesome in defeat against Arsenal, arguably even more so than they were in victory against Liverpool last month. They were more adventurous than they were against the Reds — Sam Vokes should have scored in the first half, but didn’t seem to realize how open he was when the ball fell to him 6 yards out — Michael Keane hit the bar with another header, and the Clarets were willing to break in numbers late on in a way they generally didn’t against Liverpool. And of course they were phenomenal at the back; their willingness to work for one another of the ball was extraordinary, especially so given how obviously tired they became as the game wore on. They deserved a point out of this game, and not just because Arsenal’s goal was clearly offside.

The Brendan Rodgers Award For Ambitious Player Comparison: Arlo White

John Stones is a divisive figure in England. There’s something about a talented young center-back not only capable, but even enthusiastic about taking a proactive role in building out from the back that manages to tug on all of English football’s many insecurities at once. Suffice it to say that Stones has been the inspiration for many a quasi-introspective “national” conversation. The bottom line is he’s an extremely talented young defender currently being managed by arguably the best coach in the world. That’s good news. Then again, on one of several occasions Stones carried the ball through midfield at White Hart Lane on Sunday, Arlo White decided to compare him to Bobby Moore, which, well, if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem, Arlo.

The Thierry Henry Award For Mass Embarrassment: Dimitri Payet

Dimitri Payet scored probably the goal of the season so far on Saturday, beating six Middlesbrough players (including the keeper) on his (somewhat circuitous) way to goal. It was one of the best individual goals in the Premier League since Thierry Henry ran through Tottenham’s entire starting XI in 2004. It really was a wonderful goal, and one of the few bright spots in West Ham’s season so far.

The Clark Award For Unoriginality: Diego Costa

Hull vs. Chelsea was a strange little game. Most of it involved Victor Moses aimlessly run down blind allies on the right wing. One of those runs resulted in a challenge in the Hull penalty area that may or may not have been a penalty, and that was about all the first half had to offer. The second half picked up somewhat, but things didn’t really get going until Willian curled an exquisite finish into the top right corner. It was a lovely goal; the way he let Eden Hazard continue his run just long enough to give him the opening, the way he opens up his body, the way almost all the significant action takes place within a space of about a yard. Then, about five minutes later, everyone’s least favorite professional asshat, Diego Costa, scored a near identical goal, and it was much worse.

The Sam Allardyce Award For Going Down Swinging: Francesco Guidolin

The word on the street before Swansea took on Liverpool Saturday was that Francesco Guidolin had two matches to save his job, which turned out to be very inaccurate. So we can now say with certainty that he went out in style. His side outplayed Liverpool in the first half, and would have held on for at least a draw had Angel Rangel not bundled into Roberto Firmino in his own box, and would have come back to draw if Mike van der Hoorn didn’t miss a wide open opportunity in stoppage time. There was more than enough evidence here to suggest Guidolin could have guided Swansea to their customary mid-table finish. But he won’t.