Bob Bradley was hired as Chivas USA coach on Nov. 21 but his first real day on the job was Tuesday.
Sure, Bradley had met with club officials and players and even participated in a scrimmage on Nov. 22 but it was not until this week that he began his new role as coach in earnest. For Bradley, it was a positive sign of things to come.
"You can see that it's a very good group of players with a great mentality and attitude for training," Bradley said. "In that regard Thomas (Rongen) and Hans (Westerhof) have done a good job of establishing how to work every day and how to push each other in training."
Westerhof, Bradley's predecessor and new Chivas de Guadalajara coach, ran boot-camp style training sessions. Fitness was Westerhof's main concern and when the Dutchman took over, two-a-day training sessions were the norm. The club even held a training session the morning of a Wednesday night match against Kansas City.
Chivas USA does not have any two-a-day training sessions scheduled soon. The team will continue training until Dec. 9 and will not reconvene until the league opens preseason in late January. Over the next 10 days, Bradley said he hopes to get plenty accomplished.
"(I will be) getting to know people better on the field, having meetings off the field where I get an idea as to how players thought things went this year, what kinds of things need to be done better and giving them an idea of what I expect," Bradley said. "It's just a good way to begin the process of establishing how we work together."
As far as the roster goes, the club has not made any changes since the week before Bradley was hired. The club shipped Douglas Sequeira and Christian Jimenez to Real Salt Lake for defender Brian Dunseth and released seven players, including Isaac Romo, Hector Cuadros and Armando Begines.
Right now, the roster is almost 10 players short of what it was during the season because of the moves. A more intimate setting could do Bradley good when he and the club try to formulate the 2006 roster.
"It's always going to be a process that you need time when you build a roster," Bradley said. "This is the starting point to get to know guys. Everybody has a chance. Obviously we'll work to look at other players so that the competition is very high to make the roster and at the end of the day gives us a chance to have a group so we could be successful."
Luis Bueno is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
