Submitted by Erik, Jun 27, 2007 13:46

...since the bruce era is the s reportage on the sport here. The differences in the Bradley approach are sizeable (Arena would never have played a christmas tree), but are naturally restrained by the level of the players, their youth and inexperience, and the US Soccer youth development process. Bradley was picked because of his strong eye for young developmental players and his knowledge of the US player pool. Now he's trying to push these players to change from the organizational/hard work type of players who grew up getting their plaudits from mom at the AYSO meets to hugry technical individual players who can at any moment change the temperature of the game with a key play. Rico Clark, Benny Feilhaber, little Bradley, they're all being pushed to be more technical on the ball, more dangerous in their passing. None have arrived yet, but signs of progress are clear. What's more, the "shaky" backline that is so much talked about is another transitional work by bradley. Pushing for a style of wing play that is more in line with top flight European play means developing a different type of back line. He's trying to transistion these players into something more than a border patrol and sweep style of defence. As the Gold Cup went on, you saw Boca clearing balls to the stands less and less, and you saw a more dynamic overlapping type of rear defence than under Arena, with the Left and Right Backs making big offensive plays at times. The players are clearly stuggling a bit back there adjusting to the new style and pushing their technical abilities and their ability to read the game to new heights. Both Boca and Gooch showed marked improvement at these things over the course of the game. Mexico's goal was the result of an error in the midfield and the lack of Bornstein's defensive qualities, but Gooch was left to look like the weak link as he had to drop in and cover two other player's mistakes (mastro and JB). Boca is adapting quicker, as was evident in the Mexico game as he was dynamic all over the back third as well as pushing the play up the center and distributing well to the wings. Up front, Bradley is pushing players into new depths, as evinced by Demps' stint up top, Ching's increasingly technical play in Mexico game (he may never be great ;-0). EJ doesn't seem to be fitting into Bradley's plans tactically, but we'll have to wait and see. Twellman has long had a good tactical sense up top, but as someone else pointed out, you can't coach finishing... So, as I said, it would be refreshing if, instead of the same tired comments that lack any real insight into the development of the national game, we were to have some commentators who had a better understanding of the team, the coaches, and the players and who could provide more than just a topical laundry list of what mistakes were made on the feild this time.

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