SI.com’s Grant Wahl digs into U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati for the way he’s handled the Bob Bradley situation. Bradley, “a man who deserved better,” was forced to wait 160 days while Gulati mulled over his European options. In the end, Gulati couldn’t get his man (or men), and now, after all the waiting, Bradley has finally been given the job he should have received nearly two months ago, after the U.S. drew 0-0 with Guatemala-the final match of his “interimship.”
It would be one thing if the results had been poor, but three wins and a tie are about as good a start as a coach could hope for. But, says Wahl, “we have 160 reasons to believe that Bradley wasn’t even Gulati’s second choice (or his third? his fourth?),” as head coach.
Despite the poor treatment he’s received, Wahl believes, and most U.S. soccer pundits agree with him, that Bradley is the right man for the job, and has been ever since Juergen Klinsmann walked out on the job that was his for the taking last December. In fact, Bradley might even be a better choice than Klinsmann, given his pedigree as the winningest coach in MLS history and his history of developing American players through the American soccer system. As Wahl says, Bradley has not only delivered, but he’s won the confidence of the senior team’s players, beating the odds where Gulati set him up to fail. As for Gulati, “it’s hard to imagine his handling of the coaching decision going much worse.”