United States Soccer announced this week that it had come to terms with coach Bob Bradley, quickly putting an end to the speculation that he was going to Europe to coach and that the United States were looking to start fresh in moving forward to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
Bradley signed a four year extension on Monday, however the financial terms have yet to be disclosed to the media.
Bradley is 38-20-8 in his last four years with the United States, which included a trip to the Confederations Cup finals after beating top-ranked Spain. The team also won its group this summer at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa before losing once again in to Ghana, this time in overtime.
Bradley has become a leader not only in making soccer more popular in the states but to his players who can trust their coach, gaining a lot from their mentor.
In recent months it seemed less likely that Bradley would be retained, as many thought the Americans were capable of much more in South Africa, while Bradley was interested in jobs at big time soccer clubs such as Fulham and Aston Villa, both members of the English Premier League.
"Bob is honored to be the U.S. coach, it's a job he enjoys very much, and he's very happy." Bradley's agent, Ron Waxman told Fox Sports.
Many countries addressed their coaching problems right after the World Cup, including Argentina firing Diego Mardona while still on the plane back home. U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati felt no need to rush a move because Bradley's current contract was not up until mid December. The Americans are scheduled for two more exhibitions games in October and competed against Brazil in a friendly just a couple of weeks ago.
The United States' last coach Bruce Arena, led the Americans to the quarter finals in the World Cup in 2002 but was not as lucky four years later when they got the boot in the first round. Bradley hopes to keep this from happening as it can be hard to replicate success the second time around.
Bradley will surely keep busy not only with the friendly matches later this year but with the 2012 summer games in London and the Confederations Cup in Brazil in 2013.
Hopefully these tournaments will help the team gain experience for the road to Brazil in 2014.
