Bob Bradley and his Swansea deep-dive

There will be skepticism about Swansea City’s hiring of Bob Bradley — Americans Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan took over the club in the summer and dumped Italian FrancescoGuidolin in favor of Bradley — but what managerial move isn’t second-guessed in the hyper-tabloid world of the British press? What should come as no surprise is Bradley knocked out of the parkhis interview with his new bosses.

I’ve known Bob for more than 30 years and I’ve never met a coach who knows more about more subjects than Bob does.

Our first soccerconversation was after a Virginia game in 1983. Bradley was in his first year as Bruce Arena‘s assistant and I was a young attorney in Richmond, covering college soccer for Soccer America onweekends.

Somehow, we got off on a tangent — Alabama A&M, a soccer power in the early 1980s. Neither of us had actually seen the Bulldogs play, but we shared stories we had had withcoaches around the country about what a great team they were.

In those days, you could probably count on one hand those nutty enough, like Bob and me, to talk college soccer like we weredoing. But his soccer enthusiasm was infectious and made me think what we were talking out was worth doing for a living. Two years later, I became the editor of Soccer America, a position I still hold31 years later.

In the early MLS days, I’d see Bradley with other coaches at events like the NSCAA coaches convention. They would be gossiping about the talk of the day, but he’d have hishead buried in the backpages of the Soccer America I handed out looking up our news on the A-League.

In Bradley’s days with MetroStars, my editors at France Football would ask me aboutthis soccer-mad American coach French star Youri Djorkaeff had. Djorkaeff would tell them stories about Bradley, who loved to talk soccer and almost knew more about French soccer than hedid.

I am sure that knowledge helped land Bradley the job he took at Le Havre a little less than a year ago. For others, it might have been a step down — a move to a second division club– but it was another chance for Bradley to impart his philosophy and work ethic on his players.

The last year hasn’t been easy. Le Havre missed out on promotion by one goal — winning5-0 on the final day of the 2015-16 season when Les Ciel et Marine would have gone up with a 6-0 win — and it endured a rough start to the 2016-17 season that it began as the Ligue 2 favorite.Monday’s 2-1 win over Sochaux — Le Havre’s first game since Bradley announced he was leaving — ended a string of five games without a win at home.

With all he had to do at Le Havre,Bradley — who coached LAC on Monday night — still found time to prepare for his Swansea City interview. The New York Times’ new international correspondent, Rory Smith, has the inside story on how Bradley got the Swans’ job.

Sources told Smith Bradley’s experience — nine years as an MLS head coach, the U.S. and Egypt national team jobs, Stabaek and Le Havre — his sense of purpose and “leadership qualities”played a part.

But what set him apart from his competition was — you guessed it — his depth of knowledge. Others talked generally about how they’d approach Swansea’s next game –Arsenal on Oct. 15 at Emirates Stadium — but Bradley blew away Kaplan, Levien and Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins with his deep-dive into the Swansea players and how he might use them againstArsenal.