CARSON, Calif. – Michael Bradley was back in his familiar holding-midfield role for the US men's national team's friendly last week in Chile. Did it signal that Jurgen Klinsmann has changed his mind on how best to employ the Toronto FC star?
Uh, no.
Klinsmann played Bradley as an attacking midfielder last year, including all four World Cup games in Brazil, but he positioned the 27-year-old veteran deeper against Chile, he said, based on the makeup of his roster.
“Obviously, we're not putting pieces kind of in stone [right now], you know, 'it has to be this way or that way,' ” Klinsmann said ahead of the Yanks' match Sunday afternoon against Panama at StubHub Center. “It depends always on what other players do we have in camp, how do we put a whole team together.”
He offered no hints on where Bradley would play against Panama.
There has been controversy surrounding where Bradley should play after he received lukewarm reviews for his performance in an advanced position at the World Cup.
Klinsmann, in a December interview with Fox Sports 1, said he sees Bradley as an attacking midfielder.
"The role that he ideally plays for me as a coach is an advanced role on the field,” Klinsmann said, “where he gets close to the opponent’s 18-yard box, gets into the 18 yards, maybe scores goals, maybe plays a decisive ball, and has these brilliant moments and connects the dots higher up the field.”
Greg Vanney, Bradley's coach at Toronto FC, doesn't agree.
“I've spoken to Jurgen, and most of the conversation, to be fair, was Jurgen telling me how he thinks Michael should be played,” Vanney said during his end-of-season news conference last October. “My conversations are more with Michael and how Michael feels he should be played. We are with the player on a daily basis, and we have a rapport and a relationship with the player on a daily basis and how they train and how they work.
“I think Jurgen feels like he's a player who should be higher up the field. But I don't know that Jurgen and Michael see things exactly eye-to-eye. So I work more closely with Michael than Jurgen in that realm.”
Vanney said Bradley “sees himself as a holding midfielder,” but Bradley declined to discuss position issues ahead of the Panama clash.
“We see [Bradley] in that half position, ideally, like he played [against] Mexico last April,” Klinsmann said Friday. “I think this is really a role where he can connect with the forwards, [where he] can play those penetrating passes – those 'killer balls,' as we call it – and maybe even finish himself. We don't want to see him come back and pick up the ball from the center backs. We want the center backs to open up the game and stuff like that, but we're working on that.
“It depends a lot also who's next to him. Is it more a defensive-minded player, is it more a passing player, is it more of an offensive-minded one. There's a lot of pieces to the puzzle.”
Klinsmann was asked his preference.
“The preference comes through once we have the entire roster together,” he said. “As soon as we go into the March games [against Denmark and Switzerland], that's when the Europeans come in and the Mexicans come in, and suddenly the whole picture changes, and then we will work on the final pieces.”
