Gordon Bradley, Who Nurtured U.S. Soccer, Dies At 74

Gordon Bradley, a native of England who was a pioneering figure in American soccer and the first to sign with the New York Cosmos, as a player and as a coach, died Tuesday in Manassas, Va. He was 74.

Gordon Bradley, circa 1976.

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His death was confirmed by his son Paul, who said his father had Alzheimer’s disease.

Bradley, who was born in Sunderland, England, knocked around the lower divisions of English soccer in the 1950s before emigrating to Canada in 1963. While playing in the Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League, he traveled south to play in the German-American League, a semiprofessional circuit in the metropolitan New York area.

Bradley is perhaps best remembered as the first to sign with the Cosmos in 1971, their first year in the North American Soccer League, joining the team as player-coach.

“He, and indeed everyone else in the club, spent more time propagating the gospel of soccer than in simply being coach of a pro team,” Clive Toye, the Cosmos’ first general manager, said in an e-mail message. “If you could take the soccer DNA of many of today’s outstanding U.S. players, you could trace it back to the Cosmos and Gordon Bradley.”

Bradley took the Cosmos to their first league championship, in 1972, and remained with the club until 1975, when he was fired after two losing seasons. A year later, he was back on the bench coaching as the Cosmos were beginning to emerge as the N.A.S.L.’s marquee team, having signed the Brazilian star Pelé in 1975 and soon afterward the German star Franz Beckenbauer. The team drew big crowds to Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

Pelé and Beckenbauer joined a star-studded roster that included Giorgio Chinaglia and Carlos Alberto. But the team struggled early in the 1977 season, and Bradley was dismissed midway through it. The Cosmos rallied and went on to win the championship under Bradley’s replacement, Eddie Firmani.

Afterward, Bradley coached the N.A.S.L.’s Washington Diplomats for three seasons. He was also a player-coach of the United States national team in 1973, but lost that job when the team lost five straight games. (While coaching the Cosmos, Bradley drafted a little-known goalkeeper, Bruce Arena, who went on to a coaching career, including a successful stint as the national team coach.)

After ending his professional coaching career, Bradley settled in the Washington area. In 1985, he became the coach at George Mason University. He retired in 2000 with a 183-113-35 record. In 1996, he was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta, N.Y.

Besides his son Paul, of Haymarket, Va., Bradley is survived by his wife of 49 years, Vera; another son, Doug, of Leesburg, Va.; and five grandchildren.

Shep Messing, a goalkeeper who once played for Bradley’s Cosmos teams, said in a telephone interview Wednesday, “The greatest thing about Gordon is that whether he was talking to 5 or 6 girls on a field in Massapequa, N.Y., 10 boys at a clinic in New Jersey, 20 college players, or Pelé or Franz Beckenbauer, he was always the same inspirational leader.”

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