Michael Bradley set to return to Toronto as opposing coach

During his time as Toronto FC captain, Michael Bradley firmly embraced living and working in the city, raising a young family with his wife Amanda in the Canadian metropolis while reaching spectacular heights on the pitch.  

More than a year and a half after his retirement, Bradley is coming back to the place where he became a beloved sporting icon as TFC’s most influential player of all time. But Bradley's return isn’t about reminiscing over the good old days while catching up with his former Toronto FC teammates. There’s serious business to take care of for “The General.”  

Last month, Bradley, 37, officially took charge of New York Red Bulls II of MLS NEXT Pro, his first head coaching gig since hanging up his cleats at the conclusion of the 2023 MLS campaign. The former U.S. international, who earned 151 caps for his country, started his tenure as the fourth coach in the team's history with a 2-1 road win over Carolina Core FC, before suffering back-to-back home losses to FC Cincinnati 2 (via penalty shootout) and Huntsville City FC.  

Now the Red Bulls will hit the road again when they pay a visit to York Lions Stadium on Friday night for a clash with TFC 2.

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Sure, Bradley won’t be on the touchline at BMO Field, the site of so many memorable moments in his amazing playing career, which included hoisting the 2017 MLS Cup on a chilly December night. Nevertheless, it was clear from the big grin that flashed across Bradley’s face when speaking to reporters via Zoom call this week that Friday's match is special to him, offering him a chance to visit the city that he still holds in very high regard.  

“I’m excited to come back to Toronto, for sure. I haven't really been back now in this last year and a half, and I'm excited,” Bradley admitted. 

During his tenure as Reds’ captain, Bradley took the time to get to know everybody at the team’s training ground, whether it was security staff, the janitors, the cooks in the cafeteria, or the grounds crew. He also got to know TFC 2 coach Gianni Cimini and his staff. Friday’s contest offers Bradley a chance to reconnect with them, too.  

“Excited to just to maybe see a few people from the club. I had really good relationships with everybody at TFC 2 – Gianni, [goalkeeper coach] David [Monsalve], Frankie [Russo], the equipment guy. All of these guys are great, great people, and I had really good relationships with all of them, so I'm excited to see them. If there's an opportunity to see a few others around the club, I'll look forward to that, too,” Bradley said. 

At the same time, TFC fans shouldn’t expect to see Bradley strolling through Toronto’s streets or visiting BMO Field while taking his team on a tour of the city to visit some of his favourite haunts when he lived here.  

“We're not going anywhere. We're playing. It's all business. … Toronto is a great city. There's a lot of good things to do. I don't know what I would do; [sightseeing] hasn't even crossed my mind at the moment because we're thinking about the game,” Bradley asserted.  

After playing in Europe for several years, Bradley signed with Toronto FC on January 13, 2014. In 10 seasons with the Reds, he made 308 appearances in all competitions, scoring 19 goals and tallying 23 assists. He was a key figure in helping turn TFC around – they never made the playoffs prior to his arrival – guiding them to four Canadian Championships (2016, 2017, 2018, 2020), an MLS Cup and the Supporters’ Shield (both in 2017).     

Current Toronto coach Robin Fraser was an assistant under former bench boss Greg Vanney during the club’s glory years, and he worked closely with Bradley when he was captain of the team. Even then, Fraser could tell the former midfielder was destined to get into coaching.    

“He was a very thoughtful player; a very thinking player. And I think those are the ones who end up becoming coaches and make the best coaches. You see some guys who you played with or against or have coached, and they show up and they switch on for 90 minutes, and then they leave, they switch off until the next practice. Those are the guys who kind of stumble into jobs, and aren't really prepared for them,” Fraser recently said.    

“And when you have someone like Michael who never turns it off. It makes sense that [coaching is] a direction that he would go in.”    

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Of course, coaching is in Bradley’s blood. His father, Bob Bradley, was a coach of some repute at both club and international level, so it was inevitable that he would get involved in the family business.  

But while Bradley was always carried himself as coach on and off the field during his time as TFC captain, he’s had to adjust his approach and adapt how he speaks to players in his new role. 

“It's one thing to be a leader in a team and a captain now, [who] tries to help the group and help younger players and take a big role in all those ways. It's a completely different thing to be a coach and now to have the responsibility every day to lead the group. To make sure that everybody's going in the right direction, to manage and lead your staff. Manage the players and find the right ways to put all that together,” Bradley explained.  

“In some ways it can be a natural progression. But when you now have the chance to step to the other side, and now you see what it is, what it all is, what it all really entails, you are living and learning every single day.”  

Bradley worked under a number of high-profile and successful coaches during his playing days. He played for Bob Bradley both at TFC and the U.S. national team, so it’s natural that his dad is one of his biggest influences.  

The family connection isn’t the only thing that is influencing him as he begins a new chapter in his career.  

“You try to take all the experiences that you've had in the game and now help them shape how you see football, how you want to coach, the environment that you want to create, how you want to speak to players, all of these things,” Bradley offered.  

“And so, for sure, I was lucky. I had a lot of really good experiences in the game. In different countries, different cultures, different clubs, a lot of different coaches, and in every way you take those experiences and now try to use them so that when you have your chance, the vision for the football that you're trying to bring to life every day and the environment that you're trying to create that part is exactly what you want.”  

One of the many experiences that Bradley will draw upon was last month's stint working under Jesse Marsch during the Canadian men's team's training camp in Halifax.

Although Marsch revealed there were never any discussions about Bradley joining his staff on a full-time basis, he's not surprised by path that the former Toronto captain has taken to start his coaching career. 

“I think he's going to be a great coach. Clearly, it's in his blood. He's just a smart, analytical person who has always thought carefully about football, both as a player and more from a 30,000-foot perspective. So, I'm excited to watch his teams. He seems to be excited about the things that he's learning about what the system that we've created here is and how he can apply it to the things that he wants his teams to be about,” Marsch said during last month's Concacaf Gold Cup. 

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Bradley described his Red Bulls II squad as an interesting mix of young players, with a combination of talented young internationals mixed with a core of players that have come up through the team’s academy system. 

He’s keen to build upon the progress the side made under former head coach Ibrahim Sekagya, who was promoted to an assistant coach with the first team in MLS, while maintaining the principles of the Red Bulls’ philosophy that applies to their family of teams spread out around the world.  

“[We want] to continue to build a team that has a really good mix of ideas; a team that is aggressive and dynamic; a team that you know goes after the game in every way; a team that plays with intensity; a team that now is going to press and step up and try to win the ball as quickly as we can, but also a team that has football ideas," Bradley said.  

"A team that creates chances, a team that when people watch they think, ‘yeah, that team plays really good football.’ So, we're trying to put all the ideas together and find a really good mix of being competitive and winning games, but also developing and improving every guy, developing players for the first team”

New York currently sits atop the Eastern Conference table in MLS NEXT Pro with an impressive 10-3-3 record. TFC 2 (6-6-3) is ninth in the East, 13 points adrift of New York, and one point and one spot below the playoff line.  

Friday’s game is the first of two meetings between New York and Toronto – they’ll meet again on Oct. 5 in New Jersey on the final week of the regular season. A home win for TFC 2 against New York would give Cimini’s side a big boost as it looks to stay in the playoff hunt as the season enters the home stretch. 

“Gianni’s a good coach. They have some interesting young players when you look at them closely. Maybe not every result this year has been exactly what they would want. But actually, when you look closer, even with some of the underlying statistics and everything, they've been unlucky. They have a good team, interesting ideas, and so we expect a really good game on Friday night,” Bradley said. 

(Top photo courtesy of Red Bulls Communications)

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