USA national team coach and Aston Villa head coaching candidate Bob Bradley is set to meet with USA soccer federation officials this week in a meeting designed to “simply discuss the future” of the two parties. Bradley will meet with federation president Sunil Gulati and secretary general Dan Flynn for the private discussion.
And at the moment there doesn’t appear to be too much to discuss other then the potential dismissal of the coach. Bradley has shown keen interest in landing an EPL job and it appears that several respected teams have recently considered hiring the coach. Aston Villa’s job remains open due to the surprise exit by Martin O’Neill the week before the start of the season and Bradley appears to be a finalist for the head coaching job. The USA coach was also linked to the job with Fulham a month or two back, but the club decided to go with former Manchester City coach Mark Hughes instead.
It appears the USA soccer federation will have to wait and see what develops with that Aston Villa opportunity for the American-born coach and if offered the shot to coach across the pond then they will have to look for an immediate replacement for the coach whose contract runs out in December. Discussing a potential extension at the moment seems pointless considering Bradley’s desire for the challenge of coaching in England.
So I would not expect any news of an extension coming from this upcoming meeting, but perhaps the federation would desire to choose a coach that doesn’t seem tied up in potential jobs overseas. If that were the case then perhaps this meeting could be about the potential decision to go another direction. After all there will be a lot of coaching opportunities coming up as the EPL season progresses and even if Bradley doesn’t get the Villa job there will be plenty of chances for the national team coach to accept an EPL position at the midway point of the season in December.
