re: Michael Bradley's performance versus Germany compared to France's midfielders

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Why do people keep asking this like it should be considered with how he played in the WC? I don't care what he did before the WC when I'm talking about how he did at the WC.

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it's likely your expectations of our 'best player' were that he'd score a bunch of goals or have a bunch of assists and flashy plays.

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This is really it in a nutshell. I've watched every match Bradley played at Roma and read/listened to the myriad critiques of his game from everyone analyzing AS Roma for a while.

This is the widely agreed upon breakdown of his strengths and weaknesses from experts on his time at Roma:

Strengths:
1) tireless athletic work in breaking up opposing attacking play
2) accurate and very good vision for lofted through balls and long diagonal passes to switch play and start breaks
3) very tidy in short passing recycling possession game and strong on the ball
4) very good but not elite ball winner
5) EDIT: should have also added that he makes very smart off the ball runs into space when not asked to be the primary distributor

Weaknesses:
1) doesn't possess a consistently elite first touch in tight spaces
2) good passer all over the pitch when given time on the ball but often muffs quick paced counter attacking opportunities in the final third
3) tendency to run more than keep sound defensive shape in defensive pressing


Zeman loved his work rate in pressing in the only somewhat controlled chaos of Zeman's press and Bradley's ability to play accurate long diagonals. However, it fit less into the lightning play to feet in tight spaces attacks under Rudi Garcia which also placed a premium on positional discipline.

As an aside, I wish that Bradley wouldn't have gone to Toronto since Zeman was just hired by Cagliari and I'm sure would have taken him in a second. I'd love to watch more of him in that style.


Bradley fit well at Chievo as they needed his ability to break up play and their "attacking" style was more like Chinese Water Torture in that they never risked a turnover by playing the ball quickly into the center of the pitch (which is the reason you see some of Bradley's conservative passing in the videos the Kashonly guy posted).


In short, these pros and cons are pretty much what we got from Bradley in the WC. It was disappointing only insofar as he's capable of matches here and there (especially for the USMNT) where he looked every bit Xabi Alonso or Daniele De Rossi and he didn't have any quite that level in Brazil.