Bob Bradley Fired, Klinsmann to take over?

On Thursday, the US Soccer Federation announced that it had relieved Bob Bradley of his coaching duties for the US National Soccer Team. Was this the right choice? Absolutely. Throughout his international career with the US team Bradley posted a record of 43-25-12, respectable but when you look at what the US has recently done, you can see why he was let go. Although he won the Gold Cup in 2007, that was as far as his success with our boys went.

Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images via Zimbio

As we went into the 2010 World Cup, everyone expected us to get out of our group, which we did, barely. We were then placed against Ghana in the Round of 16, a match at which we had a good shot at winning. We ended up losing and getting knocked out. Bob’s next big challenge came in this year’s Gold Cup. While tediously watching every match we played in that tournament, I personally was not satisfied by the way we played in a single game. That includes the embarrassing 2-1 loss to Panama and the painful 4-2 loss to rivals Mexico. It is now time to move on, Bob has had his chance.

When you look at European soccer and how management is well managed, in comparison to American sports, it is completely different. In Europe coaches get fired left and right. If a team fails to win a game in 6 matches, it isn’t shocking to find out that that coach may be out of a job in the next week. It is a rough sport and a tough job to hold. That’s what soccer needs to become like in America. I’m not saying give a guy a week and then let him go, but the fact that we did not achieve our goal in 2010, and did not fire Bradley after that. It raises a few questions on how badly we want to be taken seriously in the soccer world. I don’t think Bob did a horrible job but I think we didn’t achieve what we wanted to in the last few years and it was time to part ways with Mr. Bradley

The US Soccer Federation is expected to announce a new coach on Friday, with German Jurgen Klinsmann at the top of the pecking order. This, I believe would be the best choice at the moment and here’s why. He has experience as a coach and as a player. His biggest coaching achievement would be bringing Germany to the 2006 World Cup semifinals. From there he went on to have a coaching stint at German powerhouse Bayern Munich. Besides the coaching aspect of things, he lives in California and his English is fluent so being able to communicate with players would not be a problem.

He is my top choice and although there are some others in the running for the job, it is time to get an experienced coach, and not fool around with young coaches. My point being don’t hire Jason Kreis, current coach of Real Salt Lake who is rumored to be right behind Klinsmann in the running for the job. He’s young, and has only coached Real for 4 years. With the World Cup 2 and a half years away, it is not time to experiment with a young coach. Go with the experience and show the world that with a good coaching staff behind us, we will be a force to be reckoned with in 2014.