Michael Bradley on coaching RBNY II, today’s player pathway vs. his own, and connecting with Jürgen Klopp

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Michael Bradley featured in some of the most significant games in U.S. national team history. A starter at two World Cups where the USA advanced from the group stage, he also played a key role in the historic win over Spain at the 2009 Confederations Cup and lifted Gold Cup titles in 2007 and 2017. 

The central midfielder earned an impressive 151 caps and scored 17 goals — none more memorable than his equalizer against Slovenia at the 2010 World Cup, when the U.S. came back from a 2-0 halftime deficit to earn a 2-2 draw.

At the club level, Bradley’s career spanned MLS, the Dutch Eredivisie, the German Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A, and a spell in the English Premier League.

Bradley, now 37, retired from his playing career at the end of the 2023 MLS season with Toronto. He transitioned directly into coaching, serving as assistant to his father, Bob Bradley, at Norway’s Stabaek.

On June 12, Michael Bradley was hired to coach the New York Red Bulls II in MLS Next Pro after the previous head coach, Ibrahim Sekagya, was promoted to assistant first-team coach. 

As of now, the Red Bulls II sit in first place in the 15-team Eastern Conference.

We spoke with Bradley about his transition into coaching, working in the Red Bulls organization, and the overall direction of player development in MLS and in the United States. 

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SOCCER AMERICA: First of all, congratulations on getting the opportunity to coach the Red Bulls II. Now that you have been leading the team for a few weeks, what are your first impressions and how does it measure with your expectations? 

MICHAEL BRADLEY: In terms of just an opportunity for a young coach to come into a club like this, an organization like this — everything with the standards from the top right on down are very, very high in terms of professionalism, in terms of the environment, the culture.

The group, the second team, is a really interesting mix of players. It’s a combination of young players who have come through our academy, mixed with now young internationals who have come here and are really motivated by the opportunity. It’s just the conditions every day to work, in terms of the training ground, all of the resources, the quality of the fields, the attention to detail, everything is just at a really high level. For a young coach, it’s an incredible opportunity. 

SOCCER AMERICA: As a player you came into touch with a lot of great coaches, your dad and many others in Europe and here in the USA and Canada. What were your big influences in coaching? What coaches at the club level or international level made a big impression on you and maybe influenced you in the kind of coach you want to be? 

MICHAEL BRADLEY: Obviously in football, what you try to do is you take all the experiences that you have and then you have to shape who you are who and what you want to be going forward, the type of team that you want to have, the environment that you want to create, the type of football that you want — everything in those experiences are are from things that you you’ve lived as a player.

To grow up in a house with a coach is special. You get to see firsthand what it means to pour your heart and soul into a team and your players and what it means to just commit yourself completely to improve them. I was then lucky enough to play for my dad at different points as a player and certainly he’s a huge influence.

In my early weeks around here, Manfred Schellscheidt has been around on a lot of days. He’s been in video sessions with us, out on the field to watch our trainings. Manfred’s known me since I was probably days old. In terms of a football person in this country, the coaches and the players that he has helped — he was one of my first national team coaches when I was U-14 — and so now to have him be around as I start my head-coaching career, that part is special. And when you love the game, you’re always watching. And so you watch the best teams, the best coaches, how are their teams playing? What are the things that seem to be important for them, the details? The personality that they have. 

One of the things I’ve been very lucky with in this last period is I’ve got to spend on a few different occasions good time with Jürgen Klopp.

Obviously for anybody who loves football in the last 15 years, his Dortmund teams, his Liverpool teams, the way that they combine football and intensity and mentality and spirit and all of these things — and we’ve all seen the [Pep] Guardiola stuff where he talks about the most difficult opponent that he’s had in his career was Jürgen Klopp.

So you get to spend time with him and you hear how he thinks about the game and you can feel his passion and his energy. For a young coach that’s an incredible opportunity. So certainly, Jürgen would be a huge influence as well. And you watch Hansi Flick at Barcelona this year — an example of a guy who has been in football for a really long time. He was an assistant coach for a lot of really big teams. Obviously got his chance at Bayern Munich, did really well. And now you see the way he has taken his ideas to a club like Barcelona and the football they play and how then it gets combined with pressing and being aggressive. The list would go on, all of the top coaches. 

I know Jesse Marsch really well, and I got to spend a week with him in Canada not too long ago. You’re trying to take all these things and all of your experiences and figure out how to ultimately be yourself and take the ideas that you have in your head and what you have inside of you and now how to turn it all into something special.

SOCCER AMERICA: The organization you’re with now — the Red Bulls — has a style of play they try to keep similar across all of their teams — from Germany to Brazil to New York. How has it been fitting into that style? Is it something that comes naturally to you or did you have to adjust your techniques to assimilate? 

MICHAEL BRADLEY: I mean look, the starting points of Red Bull are being aggressive, stepping on the field no matter who you play against and try to go after them. Step up, press, put the game on your terms, make the game fast, play the game in their end, really push the game. That’s consistent with who I was as a player and that’s consistent with how I am as a coach and what I want. That part’s easy. 

The really exciting part is with Jürgen [Klopp] at the head of Red Bull [global sports director] now, he is very adamant that the things that Red Bull have, the foundation of Red Bull that’s always been there in terms of the intensity and being vertical and counter pressing — those things have to continue to be there and we have to get even better at them. But he also wants with that more football, more ideas, more goals, more entertainment — a complete package of football that now connects ideas against the ball, with the ball and now is developing teams and players to that that can play football at the highest level.

For a young coach, that’s a dream. When you hear that we want teams that are aggressive, we want teams to press, we want teams that counter press, no matter who they play against, they’re going to try to be dominant and put the game on our terms. I had more conversations with [global Red Bull director of sport] Jochen [Schneider] and Jürgen and [technical director]  Mario Gomez. To be a part of this right now is really, really exciting. 

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SOCCER AMERICA: And what has it been like taking a job with a second team where winning is very important but also it’s a lot about developing players. It’s a different responsibility, where getting young players ready to be promoted to the first team is as much of a goal sometimes as winning. 

MICHAEL BRADLEY: Good question. One of the things that I spoke to [Red Bulls Head of Sport] Jochen about was this idea that it is a second team and it will never be that winning on Saturday or Sunday is the only thing that matters. It’s how do we balance being competitive, putting teams and players on the field who do everything to try to win? But also now do everything to try to win by playing football in the way that we want? 

And then still have an eye towards how do we develop players for the first team? How can we have an eye for which players can be fast-tracked from this whole thing a little bit? How can we find the best balance of all that? 

For a young coach, it’s a perfect scenario. It’s Red Bull and I understand it’s football and there’s always a little bit of pressure, right? But relatively speaking, it is a second team and the pressure to win with a second team is not quite as big. And for a young coach now who is trying to develop himself and learn and find the best ways to continue to improve myself, it’s a perfect match where now, yes, we want to win, yes we want to be competitive, yes. We want to play our football, but it’s also how can we develop players for the first team and how we can find the best balance for all that.

SOCCER AMERICA: Being from this area myself, I saw lots of young players break into the first team of this organization — MetroStars or Red Bulls— as teenagers and then get into the national team. You did it, Jozy Altidore did it, Eddie Gaven did it back then. Then there was Matt Miazga and John Tolkin. Now you see players you coach like Julian Hall also coming through with more on the way. So while pushing young players into the first team has happened for decades, the infrastructure between when you did it and now couldn’t be more different. How much does MLS Next Pro help? Do you think had it been around decades ago, it would have helped you or your generation?

MICHAEL BRADLEY: It’s improved it, for sure. When you look from a bigger picture at just the academy system back then and now MLS Next Pro, it’s been a huge plus. Would we have benefited from it? Absolutely. Having said that, did we find our own path and were there still a lot of good people and a lot of good things going on in American football before all of this? Of course. 

The residency program at IMG was not perfect, I suppose, in every way, but in that period of time, the number of really, really good players who came through that program and now had the opportunity to be fast-tracked as young professionals was amazing. 

When I signed my first Project 40 contract, I was playing for the MetroStars. My first year there was no reserve league in 2004 and so what did we do?

On Sundays, when the first team would play on Saturday night, on Sunday morning the guys who didn’t play needed games and minutes, my dad would bring in Seton Hall and Rutgers and local teams and we would play. As a young professional, I was still getting real games and real minutes. Was it perfect? No. Is MLS Next Pro better? Yes. 

But there was still an effort even in that time to ask how do we develop all of our players? How do we continue to find minutes and opportunities for everybody? 

My second season, when I started playing more regularly for the MetroStars, was the first year of the reserve league and there was a more formal reserve schedule. I want to be clear, the academy system and MLS Next Pro and everything that’s going on has been a big plus. Would we have benefited from it? Absolutely, but there were still a lot of good people trying to find ways to push the game forward and help players.

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SOCCER AMERICA: To have your footprint on this next generation of players, which include current top youth internationals, it must be kind of really rewarding. Does it leave you more optimistic about the direction the country and this league are headed in with youth development?

MICHAEL BRADLEY: The game is growing in a big way, and that is by every metric. 

When you look at the number of players that we have playing at big clubs in Europe, that’s a big number. When you look at the way that MLS has grown and the number of young players, the number of good players that come here, do really well, and now have earned opportunities in bigger leagues, at bigger clubs — that part is awesome. 

You look at infrastructure in the United States, stadiums, training grounds. The profile of our national teams continues to grow. The spotlight that comes on our national team every time they play. There’s pressure, but the pressure is a product now of people caring and of people paying attention. 

Academies, young players, different pathways, MLS Next Pro, USL, young players with European passports going to Europe. In every way, the game is growing. We have good players, we have good coaches, we have good clubs, we have a good national team. 

And now it’s just, how can we find the right ways to push it all even further and take the next steps?

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