Grant Wahl of SI.com has a lengthy article on the coach’s son, national team midfielder Michael Bradley, who Wahl says is arguably the most improved U.S. player in the past year. He’s also played a heck of a lot of soccer: in addition to the nine months Bradley’s put in for Heerenveen, he’s also made 13 appearances with the senior national team and five with the U.S. U-20s at the World Cup in Canada. Regarding the latter, which occurred during Bradley’s three-week summer break, Bradley says, “I didn’t want a vacation on the beach or whatever. When you’re a soccer player and this is your profession, this is what you want to do every day.”
As Wahl says, when Bradley the younger talks about the game, “the similarities to his father [national team coach] Bob … are almost eerie.” They use a similar phraseology, have similar tone inflections, but they’re also great students of the game they love. And the similarities are a good thing, Wahl says, because Bradley, at just 20 years old, is growing into the all-important role of midfield general “with nearly the same thought process, passion and work ethic as one of the most accomplished soccer coaches this country has ever produced.”
And the two have a wonderfully close working relationship. For example, father and son dissect replays of Heerenveen games on the phone. “I speak to him every day about everything,” Michael says. “Things in life, what’s going on in soccer, how my training was today. He’s the first person I’ll call after a game.”