HARRISON, NJ — Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor, so when Red Bull New York came calling for Michael Bradley to take over as first-team head coach, it was a decision that he admitted took “half a second” to make, even though there were some factors that provided some moments for pause.
“There are a lot of things that you can control in life,” Bradley said during his introductory press conference on Monday at Sports Illustrated Stadium. “In football, one thing that you can never control is timing. You can’t control when certain opportunities come, when certain people call.”
The 38-year-old former midfielder, one of the most decorated players in American soccer history, has never held a full-time head coaching position in a top-flight professional league. He was brought in just six months ago to take over Red Bull’s second team, which he steered to an MLS NEXT Pro championship, and even after former first-team boss Sandro Schwarz was fired following the franchise’s first playoff-less campaign in 16 years, the idea of taking over was not at the forefront of his mind.
But conversations with head of sport Julian de Guzman, along with Red Bull’s global braintrust in former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp and ex-German international striker Mario Gomez, now the technical director at Red Bull, only accelerated what became the fast track to the first-team job.
“When this opportunity came, when the chance to take the step and lead the first team was put in front of me, it was something that, when I came here six months ago, it was in the back of my mind for sure,” Bradley admitted. “It was something that I hoped to, with time, earn, work for. I didn’t think it was something that was going to come necessarily this quickly. But when the season ended, when Julian and I were able to speak, when I was able to have discussions with Jurgen and Mario and understand even more what this club wants to be going forward, how in the world could you say no? Like anything in life, you could ask yourself a million questions: Is it the right time? Am I ready? But certain things come, and you have to go for it. So this one took me half a second to realize that we’re going for this.”
Bradley now inherits a team that is in considerable flux. New York has parted ways with notable contributors of years past, like former captain and defender Sean Nealis, Scottish international winger Lewis Morgan, midfielder Peter Stroud, and center-back Alexander Hack.
Taking over for previous head of sport Jochen Schneider, de Guzman is preaching fresh, youthful energy to turn things around for a franchise that already has a reputation for developing young talent.
“We need change,” he said. “Simple as that.”
Bradley is the man to help execute that vision. New York is going to deploy a more aggressive 4-3-3 format that stresses a balance of the organization’s trademark aggression with what Bradley described as “really good ideas when we have the ball.
“I still believe strongly that the game is connected in every way,” Bradley said. “I don’t believe in separating the game into 100 different parts. The better and more aggressively you press, the more you have the ball, and the better you can be with the ball, the more passes you can connect, the more ideas, the more ways you have to create chances, the better you counterpress and be against the ball. We are going to from Day 1 set out to create an envitremonet to create training that challenges the players and that brings out the best in them.”
Despite limited coaching experience at any level — he spent a year in Norway with Stabæk as an assistant to his father, Bob — a wealth of experience from his playing days will be leaned upon.
Bradley played in the best leagues on the planet, with stops in the German Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A, and England’s Premier League.
“An individual like Michael doesn’t come around very often,” de Guzman said. “For him to be ready and available and hungry for an opportunity like this, it wasn’t a challenge pulling him by both limbs and saying, ‘Hey, we have to sell you a product here.’ No, this is something he wants, and he matched our identity… This opening, it was perfect timing.”
