There's one thing you learn quickly with Bob Bradley. Seasons end, but the soccer never stops.
Following one of the final LAFC training sessions of 2018, Bradley met with reporters to reflect on the Club's inaugural season and look ahead to next season.
"We’ve continued with a bit of training. We’ve reminded everybody that the football ideas that began this year, it’s not that at the end of the season they go away," Bradley said from the LAFC Performance Center. "It’s a continuation of things that we think make guys better. It’s a continuation of the football that we work on every day and a reminder that if you don’t love showing up here with the weather, the field, and now getting some really good football in, then you need to rethink what you’re doing."
Players training at the LAFC Performance Center this week included those under contract for 2019 with a few exceptions. Luis 'Buba' Lopez and André Horta are both away on international duty. But even with the smaller numbers, the expectations on the pitch remain the same.
"To become a really good player, the understanding of the game, the understanding of the things you do well, the thinking part, this is all so important to become a top player. Even in these training sessions at the end of the year, I say that we don’t need crazy intensity, I don’t want injuries at the end of the year. But I want ideas. I want football thinking," Bradley said. "I want players that from the time they walk out in the morning are still alert to the details of the game.
"That’s what I mean when I throw out examples like Xavi. If he showed up tomorrow, I would bet on the fact that the game would be better in training. That there would be all these simple little plays. Nothing fancy, but just all these plays in terms of the right timing, the right move, the right pass, the right weight of the pass, and everybody would benefit from what he would do just showing up."
The final training sessions of 2018 are scheduled for Thursday and Friday of this week. From there, players will disperse and be expected to keep up the individual programs assigned to them by the coaching and performance staffs. Although they'll be on their own, players will still be in close contact with both staffs in the offseason.
"Are they on their own? Yes. Are we in touch with them? Yes. Do we track things? Yes. Do we communicate? Yes. That’s what I mean," Bradley said. "The days of guys just going off on their own and doing their own thing or doing nothing? No. You’ve got to continue to work in smart ways. The best players are developed over the course of years, not just one season.
"I think we’ve established a lot of good habits and now we just have to build on those. And as I said, if that’s done properly, then we start next year where we pick up on a lot, we don’t have to go backwards."
News & Notes
- Walker Zimmerman was another player not at the offseason training sessions. The center back joined the U.S. Men's National Team earlier this week in London ahead of friendlies with England and Italy. Zimmerman was not in the squad for the 3-0 loss to England on Thursday but will likely see time against Italy on Nov. 20.
- Rookie Tristan Blackmon was back at the LAFC training facility this week. The defender started and played the full 90 minutes on loan with Phoenix Rising in the USL Cup final last week. Despite losing 1-0 to Louisville City, Blackmon called the experience "incredible" and looked forward to taking his experiences with Phoenix into next season.
