Your friend musta been good. I had 9 youth CAPS for USA and I lived and went to school in Bradenton at the IMG residency program. I'm an 87 which happens to be the same year as Bradley. Bradley played for Chicago sockers which my club team Weston fury, in Florida, played 2 times in the national final 4 and once at the Dallas cup finals. After club soccer I went on to play division 1 soccer at USF(south Florida) which is a top 10 program every year. We got a new stadium called Corbett stadium and it's one of the nicest in the country. Since Bradenton is so close to Tampa, alot of the times the US team would come train at the new facility. We scrimmaged the full team twice during spring as well as u17s from Trinidad and u23s from Jamaica and u18s Americans. I have trained and played with Bradley and he is a simple minded player with no creativity at all. Take the ball from the left side and switch it to the right and sit in the hole like a good little d mid. If that's what you want in American soccer is no creativity, we might as well get hard ass bob Bradley back in the mix and just play a 5-3-1 and try to tie everybody. At least we know he will start and play his own kid. Hell he might even make him captain again.

If you played with Beckerman it would imply you are around 5 years older than Bradley. Given that he left for Europe when he was 18, you were a grown ass man playing with a kid, 7 years ago no less.

Dempsey has been at the club for 2 weeks. He will surely be an everyday starter with Spurs. EPL > serie A and it's not even close

Read it again brotha

yes, my friend was good. He played for indiana's team that won the ncaa in 04. But, again, none of that has any real relevance to the discussion at hand. It's a strawman that you are using to try to prop yourself up as a pseudo-authority on the subject.


I'll also gladly go with the eye test that more than tells me that 1) beckerman is crap at the international level and 2) that bradley is one of our best players at the international level. There's also the small fact that bradley has started in serieA and beckerman has never played in europe, much less starting for teams in italy. So, are a lot of clubs in europe dumb too?

dempsey isn't starting over adebayor, lennon, or bale

Good thing he doesn't need to start over any of them. Him and adebayor up top

4-3-3 tho. Dempsey gonna push out Lennon.

Sorry, hadn't seen your latest post when I was typing up that response.

Cool stuff, but fact remains that the last time you would have played him was 2004 when he was 16/17 years old. Since then he's been purchased by 4 European clubs of increasing prestige and been capped in the World Cup.

Either everyone else is missing something, or he's gotten slightly better in the past 8 years while he's been a professional.

yea, I doubt this. would obv love it if it happened, but I doubt it

It's been since 2008 and im sure he's gotten slightly better. Anybody who would train with professionals would get better with time. In 2006, my roommate Neven Subotic couldn't hold down a starting spot with USF. In 2007 he started and played every minute for borrussia Dortmund and has started and played in almost every minute for them since. He has won the bundesliga and played in champions league but a year earlier he couldn't start over some college kids. People do get better and I'm not arguing that fact at all. I'm arguing that Michael fkn Bradley is not the best soccer player on USA. How is he better than donovan or dempsey? Hope my dad is the coach someday so he will put me on the team too

so, then using your line of thinking, how could subotic be one of the US' best players if he stayed with the US? How is he one of serbia's best players then?

seems more like you have something personal against bradley than actually watching what is on the pitch

Lol what does he do that is special on the pitch? I have nothing against Bradley but I'm not impressed by him. What does he do that makes him so good? Other than you being friends with a good soccer player, I don't know how well your "eye" test fares.

To be fair, I'm not sure playing college soccer automatically makes someone a great judge of talent either. There are a lot of ****ty coaches and GMs with college pedigrees.

I'm not sure what "special" you are looking for. The fact that he has controlled games through his passing for us should speak for itself. The fact that he is generally the quarterback for us should also say plenty. That you are refusing to acknowledge it is what's laughable(especially in saying that beckerman should start over him).

You're having played the game means nothing in all honesty. And, if my feeling about Bradley makes you think I'm an idiot, that's fine as you seem terribly stuck in your own head

Just a former NSCAA All American, 87 national team pool, 4 time state champ, 2 time regional champ, 1 national championship and 1 runner up, 3 time big east champion, national B licensed coach, PDL assistant coach, 2 time HS state runner up coach. That's all I've done in the past 7 years. Now it's your turn. Go.

What the hell is going on? I can't even bring myself to post all of the reasons that this blade guy is not smart. That's cool that you played D1 and with YNTs, you should have just told us about that and left out the parts where you think Beckerman is better than Bradley, we might have been interested to hear about it.

Also, MB90 has probably had his play develop and improve more than any other US player over the past 6 years. Let me know when Kyle Beckerman is bossing the midfield AND taking free kicks and corners for a Serie A team.

lol.

On the 7th best team in serie A

Pretty much all of this means nothing. I think that's cool and you should tell us more about that stuff and stop thinking that this makes you a wizard of evaluating talent.

And you are? Just some random nobody giving an opinion. What makes your opinion better than mine? You sit at home and jerk off dreaming about your under 8 days in rec soccer and how you could have been so sick if you woulda just kept with it

I won a state championship in more than one sport. Where's my scouting job? I should be working at Shattuck Saint Mary's or something.

Maybe you should be giving your opinions in softball or kickball threads or whatever sport you won a state championship in that isn't soccer

Also something worth pointing out is that the reality is that Beckerman and Bradley don't play the same posistion, and for good reason.

The point wasn't beckerman is a better attacking mid than Bradley. It was that Bradley is not the best player on the US team and was just giving an example.