Bob Bradley Speaks About CONCACAF Gold Cup

By Noah Davis

In advance of this summer's CONCACAF Gold Cup taking place in 13 stadiums around the United States from July 3 to July 26, U.S. coach Bob Bradley offered some thoughts about the tournament.

The coach -- whose team plays Grenada in Seattle on July 4th, followed by a match with Honduras in Washington D.C. four days later, and closes out group play in Foxborough, MA on July 11 against Haiti -- is widely expected to field a team with little international experience. The U.S. will also participate in the Confederations Cup in late June and World Cup qualifying throughout the summer months, both of which are seen as higher priorities in preparing for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Bradley, however, reaffirmed his desire for the U.S. to win the Gold Cup for the third straight time. "We are proud of having won the last two championships, and will certainly seek to defend our title," he said.

He did allude to bringing a younger squad with him to the Gold Cup, saying, "We have a challenging summer ahead of us with three major international competitions going on, so it will be an excellent opportunity to further scrutinize our player pool as we continue to build our team towards qualifying and competing in the 2010 FIFA World Cup."

Most likely, the Gold Cup roster will be comprised almost entirely of domestic-based players, while the European-based contingent will travel to South Africa. (Landon Donovan is one notable exception.) Players from Major League Soccer who receive calls should include Kenny Cooper, Chad Marshall, and John Thorrington, while Robbie Findley and Davy Arnaud could be difficult to ignore if their early season form continues.

Bradley relishes the opportunity to lead his troops into Seattle's Qwest Field, which has provided an excellent home field advantage for Major League Soccer's newest team, the Sounders, "The city has a great soccer tradition, and it has been very exciting to how the community has embraced the Sounders," he said.

While the USMNT is relatively new to Seattle, having only played at Qwest once before, the squad has found great success at the two other venues. Last September it defeated Cuba 6-1 in Washington and won two matches in the 2007 Gold Cup competition in Foxborough.

The match against Honduras should be the toughest of the opening round and the American coach was pleased to be playing the match in a familiar stadium. "RFK has a tremendous history and has been an excellent host for the National Team throughout the years," he said. "The knowledge and passion of the fans make it one of the best soccer environments in the country, as we saw in the World Cup qualifier against Cuba last year."

Bradley had similar good words about the final venue: "Foxborough has a long tradition of hosting the U.S. in the Gold Cup and we have been extremely successful, so we are pleased to be playing such an important game there."

Noah Davis covers the Untied States National Team for Goal.com.

Follow all the latest on the squad at the Goal.com U.S. Team page.