Los Angeles Football Club head coach Bob Bradley traveled with his team to Canada on Thursday, seeking points against defending MLS champion Toronto FC as the playoff push intensifies.
Win, lose or draw, though, Bradley won’t board the team’s return flight to L.A. following Saturday’s match.
One of American soccer’s most accomplished and respected coaches has other plans for Sunday morning: breakfast with his family, including his son Michael – Toronto’s captain since 2015 – and a bit of soccer in the backyard with his grandson Luca.
“The way our family works, that will always be special,” said Bob, who will catch an afternoon flight to California with his wife and Michael’s mom, Lindsay. “In everything that’s gone on, we remind ourselves that the love of the game and the things that we’ve shared, no one can ever take that away from us.”
Bob Bradley has coached more than 400 professional matches, but Saturday is the first time the Bradleys will compete against one another in their professional careers (LAFC’s first preseason contest with Toronto in February, notwithstanding) and the stakes are bigger than father-son bragging rights.
While LAFC (12-7-7, 43 points) fights for a top-two spot in the Western Conference and tries to become the fourth MLS expansion team to reach the postseason, Toronto (7-13-6, 27 points) has struggled to ensure its return to the postseason following a hallmark 2017 in which Michael and his teammates lifted the MLS Cup, the Supporters’ Shield and the Canadian Championship.
That success meant a quick turnaround for CONCACAF Champions League play. Focused on becoming the first MLS team to win the tournament (Toronto lost in penalty kicks to close the two-leg final against Guadalajara), The Reds buckled under a heavy early schedule, as well as a spate of injuries.
“It’s not been a season that’s gone by design in any way, but we’re still very much in it, very much fighting,” Michael said.
TFC are six points back of the final Eastern playoff spot with eight games remaining. Unchanged, that would make them the fourth team in MLS history to fail to qualify for the playoffs after claiming the MLS Cup.
Bob has watched every minute of every Toronto FC match since Michael joined the club from Italian stalwart AS Roma in 2015.
Michael has done the same with LAFC, which he, his wife Amanda and their kids adopted as their second team.
“We’ve shared the game in ways that have been special,” Bob said. “Now I see him doing the same with Luca. For me, that’s been awesome.”
Michael, 31, was raised around soccer.
The midfielder polished shoes for players at Halas Hall after Bob became head coach of the expansion Chicago Fire in 1998. He tried to make games with the older boys after training. He watched matches on TV with his dad. And there was always an assortment of balls flying around the house.
“A lot of things got broken,” Bob remembered.
In his teenage son, the coach saw a footballer but not a protégé. Michael’s success was predicated on his desire and work ethic, culminating with two World Cup appearances for the U.S. men’s national team, including the 2010 group led by his father.
“That’s obviously something that stays with you forever,” Michael said. “But then there’s moments that other people don’t know about. The days spent sharing the game in different ways.”
Days like Sunday.
LAFC at TORONTO FC
Kickoff: Saturday, 5 p.m.; BMO Field
TV: YouTube TV; UniMás
Radio: 710 AM, 980 AM
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