Bob Bradley returns home to Princeton

The US Men’s National Soccer Team began their week-long pre-World Cup training session this morning at Myslik Field in Princeton, NJ. After weight training and conditioning yesterday, the 30 man team took the field under cloudy skies and continued their march towards South Africa this summer.

There were three notable players missing from this morning’s practice. GK Tim Howard (quad strain), D Jay Demerit (abdominal strain) and F Eddie Johnson (hamstring) were all out with injuries, though none are thought to be serious. Landon Donovan, Edson Buddle and Jose Torres were still getting physicals, and four other players had yet to arrive from Europe.

US coach Bob Bradley ‘80 was kind enough to speak this morning about the two burning topics that he was clearly growing tired of: America’s first match against England and Charlie Davies. Bradley spoke first about the American’s chances in Group C of the 2010 World Cup (Also in the group are Slovenia, Algeria and of course England). Bradley wanted to emphasize that the result of the game against England will not decide whether the US team will move past the group stage. Still, it was hard to not notice “the great storylines” of the England-US matchup. Bradley feels that his team is prepared but wants his players to know “it’s not about grudge matches.” A win against England could cement America’s place in the top tiers of national soccer and provide valuable bragging rights, but so would a knockout round appearance and that is what this team is focused on. Bradley summed up the team’s focus on the group stage by saying that the first round is like the NBA playoffs. Every team knows there are going to be small victories and setbacks. The important thing is to “regroup, adjust and come back just a little bit better each time.”

Bradley also addressed the Charlie Davies situation that has been the biggest story since the 30-man national team roster was announced and the rehabilitating forward was left off. Coach Bradley and his assistant coaches were in fairly constant communication with the coaching team at Davies’ French club team Sochaux. Bradley saw Davies’ progress through video of his training sessions and sent assistant coaches to France to get further information. Bradley said he understood Davies’ frustration, after the speedy forward had expressed frustration with Sochaux’s role in being left off of the national team roster. Still, Bradley said that he spoke to Davies in February about the possibility of his rehab not going fast enough despite the extremely hard work Davies has put in to recover from a life-threatening car crash. “What’s most important is that [he] can get [himself] back to that level [he] was playing at before the accident.” And it was too wrong that it “seems like a failure because the timing just doesn’t coincide with the World Cup.”

Finally Bradley talked about the importance of holding this week-long training sessions at Princeton. Bradley, who led the Tigers in scoring in 1979 and coached the team from 1984-1995, expressed his happiness about Myslik Field. Coach Bradley was glad to be around all the “friends and family at Princeton” and that the are brought back fond memories. Coach Bradley’s brother Scott is currently the head coach of the Princeton Baseball team, and Bob Myslik was the Athletics Director that hired him in 1984 and he wanted to reiterate that he was “proud of this stadium.”

As the team looks forward to a May 25th game against Czech Republic, and a May 28th game against Turkey, Bradley hoped that the team would be down to its final 23-man roster before team travels to Philadelphia to take on Turkey next week.

WPRB will have continued coverage of the soccer team’s practices throughout the week here on WPRB.com/sports and on Timeout this Friday at 5:00 PM on 103.3 FM.