Former U.S. coach Bob Bradley important to Egypt’s qualifying Group A EGYPT
Mohamed Salah was a quiet teenager who had made only one appearance for Egypt when Bob Bradley took over as coach of the country’s national team in the summer of 2011.
Now Salah is Egypt’s leading scorer among active players and the talisman on a team about to play in the World Cup for the first time in 28 years. And his is not the only career that blossomed under Bradley, a former U.S. national team coach and current Los Angeles Football Club manager who took Egypt to within a game of the World Cup in his only qualifying campaign there.
“Most of the players that are playing now, and the starting players, Mr. Bob is the first one who chose them,” said defender Omar Gaber, who as one of those players unfailingly uses the honorific “mister” when referring to Bradley.
But Bradley didn’t just rebuild the Egyptian team. He saved it. And that, more than anything that happened on the field, is what made this World Cup qualification possible.
During Bradley’s two years in Egypt the country endured rebellion, revolution and a counter-revolution, with the promise of the Arab Spring giving way to a dark, cold winter. Every segment of Egyptian society was affected.
When the country’s firstdivision league was shut down, taking the players’ paychecks with it, Bradley took the national team on a barnstorming tour of the Middle East. When Egypt played its first competitive game for the coach, it did so in front of an empty grandstand behind the locked gates of a military stadium. Another home game was played on the road, also without spectators.
Through it all the team persevered, grew closer, got better.
But Bradley did more than coach. After the Port Said massacre, in which 74 spectators were killed inside the stadium following clashes between rival fans, Bradley marched with the people in protest. After an accident involving a bus and train killed dozens of children, he mourned with their families. And the more he met with the families and victims of violence, the more he did to quietly raise money and support to help.
Bradley may have come to Egypt as a foreign-born manager, but he left with a far more important title.
“He’s an Egyptian,” said Hassan El Mestikaway, a well-known sports commentator.
Truth is, Bradley should have been in in the first place.
After a successful World Cup with the U.S. in 2010, he signed a four-year contract extension and seemed safe in the job until his team blew a two-goal lead in a 4-2 loss to Mexico in an emotional 2011 Gold Cup final.
Bradley was fired never Egypt month later and six weeks after that he was headed overseas, agreeing to take over an Egyptian program that had qualified for the World Cup once since 1934.
On the field the timing was right. Egypt was beginning a soccer renaissance, three times winning the African Cup of Nations from 2006 to 2010 and only narrowly missing the World Cup after losing a playoff to Algeria. The country rebounded with a big performance in the U-20 World Cup, and the core of that roster — Salah, Gaber, Mohamed Elneny and Ahmed Hegazi — was about to move up to the senior team as Bradley arrived.
Off the field, however, the timing couldn’t have been worse. Nine months earlier, popular demonstrations had driven Hosni Mubarak from power and violent, often deadly, street protests were soon to come. Bradley’s players soon scattered.
The coach’s job was to restore normalcy and order, and Bradley did that, in part by getting his players to concentrate on the World Cup. If the country could survive a revolution, surely its national team could survive a little
United behind that goal, Egypt went on a stunning run, winning all six of its games to advance to a twoleg playoff, where it was stopped by Ghana, again one win short of the World Cup.
Bradley soon moved, coaching in Norway, France and England before taking over LAFC for its inaugural MLS season. But the team he left behind finally grabbed that elusive World Cup berth last year, and Salah, who became a national team regular under Bradley, broke the English Premier League scoring record this year while leading Liverpool to the Champions League final. (He suffered a shoulder injury in that game but is expected to play in Russia, where he’ll be supported by Hegazi, Elneny and midfielder Ramadan Sobhi, all of whom also played in the EPL.)
“Mr. Bob,” said Gaber, who followed Bradley to LAFC, “did a great thing for Egypt. In this period the situation was not so good for football. A lot of problems. We had bad moments and bad situations. [But] we kept focused and we kept fighting.
“This generation, have big ambitions, dreams to achieve.”
Bradley declines the credit, deflecting it to Argentine coach Hector Cuper, the man who finally got Egypt over the World Cup finish line. But he’s no less proud.
“During a very difficult time in the country, we always tried to be strong and united in our work together,” he said. “For me those experiences mean a lot. And when I see these guys, so many of them now having a chance to play in the World Cup, I’m so proud.” qualifying tournament. we big FIFA world ranking: Last World Cup: Best World Cup finish: How qualified: Key players:
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