Tag: Swansea City

Eight ways Swansea City can achieve Landon Donovan’s dream of becoming “America’s club”

The ultimate goal every Welsh club should have

Landon Donovan sitting with Swansea City’s other American supporters (SwanseaCity.net)

Landon Donovan has taken an “advisory role” with Swansea City as they are now under American ownership and he has a clear vision for the Welsh side: Become America’s team.

He explained his hope for the club in an interview with their official website:

“I think a lot of clubs are trying to reach out into the American market, or the Chinese market, the Indian market or the South American market,” Donovan says.

“And I think Swansea City are certainly becoming more known in America.

“We have an advantage if we do things right because we have people involved who are American and people who genuinely care about the club.

“I think the Swansea name will get bigger and bigger in America and elsewhere.

“I think most likely every pre-season should be in America. That makes sense for a lot of reasons. You have to keep building the profile and promoting it.

“Eventually the hope is that this becomes America’s club one day.”

It will obviously take more than just a few preseason trips to the United States for Swansea to become America’s club. Here are some ideas to put them over the top:

  • Hire an American manager—Er, actually, maybe skip this one.
  • Change the club’s nickname from The Swans to “The Baconator Freedom Eagles”—Think of the T-shirt designs this would lead to! Every Walmart in the U.S. would sell out of them immediately.
  • Move the club to St. Louis—America’s club…in Wales? Come on. They’re already outside of England, so why not move a little further away and set up shop in America’s heartland to prove their commitment to the fans?
  • Refuse to be relegated—Swansea are currently in the Premier League’s relegation zone and are in serious danger of going down. But America doesn’t have promotion and relegation, so this isn’t gonna fly. If they do finish in the bottom three, Swansea must refuse relegation on the grounds of adhering to their American principles. Leave that stuff to a club aiming to be Croatia’s team like Burnley or Hull City.
  • Sign a star player from MLS—Want to get America’s attention? Then you need to make a statement signing. Someone like Chicago Fire legend Bastian Schweinsteiger or New York City FC icon Andrea Pirlo. The only way to truly capture American fans is to sign one of their own to a massive contract.
  • Do Moneyball—I’m not entirely sure what this means, but I saw the movie with Brad Pitt and the guy from Superbad and both of their characters were a lot smarter than everyone else in the film, so it must be a pretty good thing to do.
  • Raise the ticket prices for locals and let Americans in free—The move to St. Louis will take some time, so while that’s being arranged, Swansea will have to entice American fans to come watch them at Liberty Stadium (this is a good name for a stadium, but “Statue of Liberty Stadium” would be better). Free tickets for anyone who can prove they are American is a great way to do that. And to ensure there’s space for them, they should make locals pay five times whatever they’re paying now. You have to prioritize.
  • Start playing in Liga MX—If you want to be popular in America, you should play in the league that gets the highest TV ratings in the U.S. The travel would be difficult, but, hey, becoming America’s club is very important for 18th-place Swansea.

Bob Bradley is strangely certain that Swansea players don’t know who Ronald Reagan is

Even short relationships can have messy break-ups


Since getting sacked by Swansea City, Bob Bradley has been talking to anyone who will listen to his endless supply of bitter words. Shortly after he got the boot, bastion of dubious claims the Daily Mail, reported that Swansea players had nicknamed Bradley “Ronald Reagan” for his antiqued training methods.

Now, presidential nicknames aside, accusations of faulty training methods are fairly common when a manager is abruptly dismissed. It’s the kind of justification that the press and public can’t argue against since training is something that largely goes unseen by anyone outside the club. And in Bradley’s case, it reinforces the notion that the American was out of his depth. In other words, whether right or wrong, it was the perfect story for the club to push.

https://whatahowler.com/bob-bradley-was-not-the-victim-of-an-english-conspiracy-bfbb375b135a

But Bradley has now responded to this insult with one of his own. From the Guardian:

Bradley, who took eight points from 11 matches, was reportedly given the nickname by insiders, who felt he was old-fashioned in his methods — a throwback to the 1980s when Reagan was US president.

But in an interview with the Times, Bradley said: “Trust me on this, not one of those players knows who Ronald Reagan is.”

Yes, take it from the man who knew these players for a whole 85 days—exactly none of them are aware of a person who was leader of the free world and part of the west’s pop culture within their lifetimes.

It’s a strange thing for Bradley to be so certain about if he isn’t just trying to retaliate against a public slight, so it seems that’s the most likely explanation for his comment. That said, it creates an amusing headline that does little to reinforce the image he has of himself as a top level manager who should be taken seriously as such. It probably would’ve been better if he ignored the claim all together.


But ignoring jibes is something Bradley simply could not do. As the first American manager in the Premier League, he was always going to have snickering doubters making snide remarks about his pedigree and he fell into the trap of debating every criticism or joke tossed at him instead of ignoring it and letting his work do the talking.

The press exposed an underlying insecurity within Bradley and in a business where projecting confidence is arguably the most important job requirement, his endless rebuttals just might poison his chances at another top level job. But, hey, at least he wasn’t nicknamed Max Headroom.


https://upscri.be/16bb19

Bob Bradley gets first Premier League win in “stupid” 5–4 thriller against Crystal Palace

The American makes history and blows the mind of a BBC writer in the process

(Swansea City)

It took six matches, but the first American manager in the Premier League finally became the first American manager to win in the Premier League as Bob Bradley led Swansea City to an absurd 5–4 victory of Crystal Palace.

If Bradley was ever going to get a win with his abysmal Swans, it was going to be against Palace, who had lost all of their previous five matches. But Wilfried Zaha opened the scoring for Palace in the 15th minute. Gylfi Sigurdsson equalized in the 36th minute and Leroy Fer put Swansea up 3–1 with two goals in two minutes after the break. James Tomkins got one back for Palace in the 75th minute and then the match took a hard turn into the depths of madness.

A Jack Cork own goal made it 3–3 in the 82nd minute and Christian Benteke put Palace up 4–3 in the 84th minute. At this point, a last-place club that just squandered a 3–1 lead thanks in part to an own goal would’ve rolled over and died, but Bradley’s squad didn’t do that. And what happened next blew the mind of BBC minute by minute writer Saj Chowdhury and everyone else who saw it.

(BBC)

(BBC)

(BBC)

He’s right about Yohan Cabaye’s hair, too.

https://www.gettyimages.com/license/625920264

After the match, Bradley was full of praise for his players.

“It’s been a difficult season so far, there have been a lot of things that just didn’t bounce the right way and we have just come off that crazy late goal at Everton.

“But the players still show up every day with a really good mentality. I love working with them and I couldn’t be happier for them.”

Swansea City are exceptionally bad, but you can’t say they’re boring.


https://upscri.be/16bb19