Let the record state: Michael Bradley played his last game as a professional last night.
Bradley played for the USMNT 151 times from 2006-2019, third most of all time behind Cobi Jones and Landon Donovan. His 17 goals for the USMNT are t-10 all time, alongside DMB and Earnie Stewart.
Bradley was drafted by the MetroStars in 2004 at age 16 in the low rounds of the draft, thought by some to be a nepotistic pick by his father Bob. However, he earned a transfer to Heerenveen by the end of the 2005 season. In 2006-07 he was the understudy to Paul Bosvelt and moved into the starting lineup the following year after Bosvelt retired. This was Bradley's big breakout, when he scored 19 goals across all competitions. Heerenveen had a really fun team that year and Bradley feasted on late runs into the box.
Bradley was off to Borussia Mönchengladbach the next season, where he spent 2.5 years, plus another half a season on an ill-fated loan to Aston Villa. Having fallen somewhat out of favor with Gladbach, he moved to Serie A with Chievo for a season, before getting the move to Roma. In his second season, the arrival of Kevin Strootman pushed him down the depth chart to a rotational role, and in January he moved to Toronto FC in what was then a very shocking move for $10m.
Bradley went on to spend the final ten club seasons of his career at Toronto, where he's a club legend. His arrival coincided with Toronto's only successful period in their history. Along with Sebastian Giovinco and Jozy Altidore, who arrived in 2015, the team made the playoffs for the first time in the club's 9th season in the league and went on to set the league points record in 2017. In 2018, the club went on an epic run in CONCACAF Champions League in which they eliminated both Tigres and Club América, but tragically fell just short of a lesser Chivas team in the final and failed to become the first MLS team to win the tournament.
For the USMNT, Bradley played in two World Cups, the Confederations Cup, five Gold Cups, the 2008 Olympics, and a U-20 World Cup. He was also part of the team that lost in Couva in 2017.
At the start of his NT career, Bradley was seen as an all-action player with a hothead streak and, in the online USMNT fan universe, his role in the USMNT was heavily debated with many accusations of nepotism. His role with the team varied over the years. Beginning as as a box-to-box midfielder, Klinsmann deployed Bradley as a 10 for a while through the 2014 World Cup. Later, Bradley transitioned to becoming a 6 for club and country. I always thought he was at his best as an 8, the way he played in the first half of his career, but perhaps he didn't have the legs for that as he aged.
In any case, Bradley has his fans, but was clearly less beloved than most of the other stars with so many caps to their name and who played central roles for the team for as long as Bradley did. In part it's because for newer fans, Bradley is mostly associated with the debacle in Couva. In part, it's because a lot of Bradley's NT career coincided with a time when the NT pool was weak, so his reputation was somewhat tarred by association. In part, maybe it's because his peak wasn't as long or as high as a Dempsey or Donovan. In part, it's because his public-facing persona in interviews and such is (IMO) very guarded and uncharismatic.
Bradley has discussed going into coaching like his father. I'll be curious to see how it goes. Based on some aspects of how his career has gone, I'd worry about his ability to get buy-in from and man-manage the squad. Many players have hinted or outright said that they find him to be an obnoxious know-it-all who doesn't often listen to others. On the other hand, he's adopted a monk-like approach to being a student of the game at times in his career; in particular, I'm thinking of his spartan apartment adjacent to Gladbach's stadium.
Anyway. The occasion merits someone noting it.