MLS<\/a> NEXT Pro championship, and even after former first-team boss Sandro Schwarz was fired following the franchise\u2019s first playoff-less campaign in 16 years, the idea of taking over was not at the forefront of his mind.<\/p>\nBut conversations with head of sport Julian de Guzman, along with Red Bull\u2019s global braintrust in former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp and ex-German international striker Mario Gomez, now the technical director at Red Bull, only accelerated what became the fast track to the first-team job.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen this opportunity came, when the chance to take the step and lead the first team was put in front of me, it was something that, when I came here six months ago, it was in the back of my mind for sure,\u201d Bradley admitted. \u201cIt was something that I hoped to, with time, earn, work for. I didn\u2019t think it was something that was going to come necessarily this quickly. But when the season ended, when Julian and I were able to speak, when I was able to have discussions with Jurgen and Mario and understand even more what this club wants to be going forward, how in the world could you say no? Like anything in life, you could ask yourself a million questions: Is it the right time? Am I ready? But certain things come, and you have to go for it. So this one took me half a second to realize that we\u2019re going for this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bradley now inherits a team that is in considerable flux. New York has parted ways with notable contributors of years past, like former captain and defender Sean Nealis, Scottish international winger Lewis Morgan, midfielder Peter Stroud, and center-back Alexander Hack.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taking over for previous head of sport Jochen Schneider, de Guzman is preaching fresh, youthful energy to turn things around for a franchise that already has a reputation for developing young talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need change,\u201d he said. \u201cSimple as that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Bradley is the man to help execute that vision. New York is going to deploy a more aggressive 4-3-3 format that stresses a balance of the organization\u2019s trademark aggression with what Bradley described as \u201creally good ideas when we have the ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still believe strongly that the game is connected in every way,\u201d Bradley said. \u201cI don\u2019t believe in separating the game into 100 different parts. The better and more aggressively you press, the more you have the ball, and the better you can be with the ball, the more passes you can connect, the more ideas, the more ways you have to create chances, the better you counterpress and be against the ball. We are going to from Day 1 set out to create an envitremonet to create training that challenges the players and that brings out the best in them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite limited coaching experience at any level \u2014 he spent a year in Norway with Stab\u00e6k as an assistant to his father, Bob \u2014 a wealth of experience from his playing days will be leaned upon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bradley played in the best leagues on the planet, with stops in the German Bundesliga, Italy\u2019s Serie A, and England\u2019s Premier League.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\u201cAn individual like Michael doesn\u2019t come around very often,\u201d de Guzman said. \u201cFor him to be ready and available and hungry for an opportunity like this, it wasn\u2019t a challenge pulling him by both limbs and saying, \u2018Hey, we have to sell you a product here.\u2019 No, this is something he wants, and he matched our identity\u2026 This opening, it was perfect timing.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more on Michael Bradley and Red Bull New York, visit AMNY.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARRISON, NJ \u2014\u00a0Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor, so when Red Bull New York came calling for Michael…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[36372,6583,9,11,10,36179,6585,400,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-90360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-michael-bradley","9":"tag-mls","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-red-bull-new-york","14":"tag-red-bulls","15":"tag-soccer","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}