When Red Bulls head of sport Julan de Guzman went out to look for a new head coach, he had certain boxes that he wanted candidates to check off. And when all was said and done, there was one name that just made sense for the club.
Michael Bradley.
The U.S. Men’s National Team great and New Jersey native will take the reins of the Red Bulls as their new head coach after leading the club’s development team to an MLS Next Pro championship in October.
“I could not be more excited for the opportunity to be head coach of this club,” Bradley told The Post. “It’s a club that means a lot to me. It’s home. I started my playing career here. … It’s something really special, and I’m honored and couldn’t be more excited to get started.”
Bradley was among five coaches that de Guzman spoke with about the vacant position following the decision to part ways with Sandro Schwarz at the end of the 2025 season. The Red Bulls’ head of sport whittled the list down to three before Bradley was the last person standing.
Part of what de Guzman wanted in his first coaching hire as the man in charge was someone who truly understood the ins and outs of Major League Soccer.
“I think it was really important to really identify a coach who has strong ties with the league,” de Guzman told The Post. “Who understands how MLS works with league rules and player movement, and this takes me back to seeing the most successful coaches in the past had a really strong understanding of MLS as a culture. Michael Bradley, for me, he’s played in this league. He’s been successful, won trophies. He’s led his country as well as the captain. I think that those were two very strong starts based on his career as a player.”
Bradley also fits into the on-field vision that de Guzman seems to have for the first team. Bradley took over as Red Bulls II coach in the middle of the summer – the American star’s first-ever head coaching job – and led the club to a championship.
When de Guzman addressed the media for the first time as head of sport, he pointed to what Red Bulls II was doing as how he envisioned the style for the first team.
And Bradley seems all too eager to install that style of play now that he’s head coach of the Red Bulls.
“We want to find even more ways to be a complete team, to be a team that when we have the ball has real ideas about how to connect passes,” Bradley said. “Real ideas about how to push the other team into their half to play the game there. Different ways to get into the box, to create chances to score goals. Doing that ultimately, because the better that you are with the ball and the better you attack, the better you will be able to press and the better you will be able to defend.”
He added: “Generally speaking, we’re going to be younger. We’re going to have a team that is aggressive. We’re going to have a team that is dynamic. We’re going to have a team that, um, people really enjoy watching.”
Bradley’s coaching experience is limited. He served as an assistant coach under his father, legendary American soccer coach Bob Bradley, at Stabaek in Norway and briefly worked on the staff of Jesse Marsch as a guest coach for the Canadian National Team.
But de Guzman has liked what he’s seen from him during his short time running the second team, with the Red Bulls’ head of sporting noting the on-field success for the development squad in 2025, as well as how he conducts himself on a day-to-day basis.
“It was essentially a breath of fresh air, to be honest,” de Guzman said.
The question will be whether it all translates into success for the Red Bulls in 2026. It was clear in October that de Guzman expects to make the playoffs, and that mandate will be in place with Bradley at the helm.
“The target is definitely, we gotta become that playoff team again,” he said. “Michael wants to win, right? He’s a born winner. That’s what his career represents and that’s the person that he is. He came in as a coach six months ago and he’s already went on to win a trophy, so those things are highlighted as to how we want to go into this new year with him as a head coach.
“We want to succeed and by succeeding, yes, making playoffs is a very big statement as to we are back here again, and this is where Red Bull should be as a minimum standard.”
