"There are a lot of things that you can control in life -- in football, one thing that you can never control is timing,” Michael Bradley said at his first press conference as Head Coach of Red Bull New York.
The full-circle timing -- the moment of Bradley tabbed as Head Coach at Red Bull New York -- is the culmination of a lifetime dedicated to the sport, ending up back where he started and kicking off a new era for the club.
The timing, though, couldn’t be more perfect.
Signifying a new chapter for RBNY, three decades after their opening whistle as a club, Bradley joins at the precipice of a year where the world’s eyes turn to the United States, to soccer. Bradley is uniquely qualified to be the center of that spotlight -- and to lead Red Bull New York.
Head of Sport Julian de Guzman nailed that point home in Bradley’s introductory press conference on Monday at Sports Illustrated Stadium.
“This is somebody you don’t see every day,” Head of Sport Julian de Guzman said. “He’s serious about his work, he’s relentless in his preparation, and he creates an environment that lifts everyone around him. That’s the kind of leader we want in this organization."
For Bradley, this moment to be named to lead this team came quickly, but to him, it was a “no brainer.”
“When this opportunity came, it took me about half a second to realize we were going for it,” Bradley said. “To be trusted to lead this club is a huge honor, and it’s something I’m committing my entire life to.”
Bradley becomes the club’s 17th full time head coach in club history, a storied history he knows as well as anyone -- and includes his father, a legend in his own right.
Just like when he joined the team as a teenager, Bradley knows he has to be able to reach the young stars of tomorrow on the roster, balancing that with taking care of the veterans and stars on the team. He knows he has to find the right mix of talent, experience and youth to win games.
“The experiences that I have in the game, the places I've played, the different players that I've played with, with different coaches that I've played for, it means that I can find ways to connect with every single guy in that locker room, whether it's the oldest guy or the youngest one,” Bradley said.
Bradley and de Guzman both reiterated that restarting the club’s playoff streak is just the minimum level of success they are looking to attain -- and the real goal is silverware.
“We’re not here to scrape into the playoffs,” de Guzman said. “Our standard is higher than that. We want to build a team that competes for trophies, plays exciting football, and makes our fans proud every time they walk into the stadium.”
All that work has already started, including exactly how this RBNY team is going to look when they take the field.
“We are going to get to work on day one, building a team, a team that can play football, a team that plays with intensity, a team that goes after the opponent when every single time we step on the field -- you know, the foundations of Red Bull football that have always been there, in terms of pressing, intensity, making a game that's fast, trying to put the game on our terms In every moment,” Bradley said. “That's what we're going to do but we're also going to combine that with really good ideas when we have the ball.”
The roster that Bradley will control is continuing to take shape, even as preseason kicks off in days and the season starts on February 21.
“As you build a team, you have to find the right ways to balance that with the right experience, the right leaders, the right people around them to make sure that we are putting, not only individual players, but our team in the best possible place to succeed,” Bradley said.
The new-look RBNY team will play a type of soccer true to the Red Bull ethos -- with fun, energetic soccer, led by veterans and stars, inspired and pushed by the stars of tomorrow.
“Red Bull is known for giving young players opportunities and when you look around the world at any of our teams, when you look at average age, when you look at the types of players and profiles that we look for, that is a big part of the fabric of Red Bull football,” Bradley said. “We're going to have a young team. We're going to have talented, young players that we aren't afraid of when the time is right to push them, to throw them into it and really challenge them to take the next step.”
The “next step,” the challenges, it’s all something Bradley is intimately familiar with, living through it himself at the beginning of his two-decade playing career for both club and country. He’ll bring that to his role leading the first team.
“We are going to, from day one, set out to create an environment that challenges the players, that that brings out the best in them, that develops them individually, and to create a team that when we step on the field, people watching they see a team that is different, they see a team that when they leave the stadium they want to come back,” Bradley said.
Through it all, though, what will matter is the intensity, the connection and the competitiveness. The goal of it all, of course, is to win. To play for silverware. To make the fans proud.
“We want to put a team on the field that plays with intensity, presses aggressively, and plays on the front foot — a team that our fans are excited to watch and proud to come back and see every week,” Bradley said.
