U.S. soccer team relaxed following Wednesday’s drama

PRETORIA, South Africa – Bob Bradley was an absolute barrel of laughs today. A real riot.

Well, for Bradley anyway, he was on a real roll.

It seems clear that the U.S. camp has had a little weight lifted. There’s not an enormous difference in the players, who were always fairly relaxed here anyway – especially compared to some of the other tightly coiled bunch of cinch-butted teams here in South Africa.

But the players were quite relaxed, as you might expect, during Thursday’s media availability. Landon Donovan, who has been so stoic here over the last two weeks – even giving Bob Bradley a run in terms of businesslike disposition, dare we say – was a little more relaxed and revealing on Thursday.

At one point, he mentioned his wife, Bianca Kajlich, whom he credited with Wednesday’s goal. He clarified their relationship, a little anyway, allowing that they aren’t yet divorced.

Several players mentioned that stirring scene on the bus ride into the stadium. (Read on for more ...)

Bradley had mentioned it Wednesday night, how very inspirational it was for everyone. Team captain Carlos Bocanegra on Thursday mentioned the distance, the time and expense that he understands is involved. At that moment, he said, people screaming and slapping the bus while outfitted in all shades of red, white and blue became brilliant motivation.

"That was crazy," Jozy Altidore said. "Did you guys see that, or no? It was like a mile long, coming in. Bunch of fans, rockin’ the bus, throwing stuff … I mean good stuff, not rocks or anything! There was one kid who ran with the bus for maybe a mile. He looked fit! Sign him up! He had his face painted and everything. It was really great."

But Bradley was in especially good humor, as revealing and insightful as ever. Bradley always tries to provide thoughtful responses. And he isn’t without a sense of humor; he just rarely shows it in public. Still, in general, he’s all business, all day. So it was fairly revealing when he loosened up a bit Thursday.

For instance, he talked about the celebration, about whether he worried that Donovan might get hurt as players went flying and tumbling onto the massive human pile. After answering with something about these things not being planned, he said: "I moved over in the direction of that corner, but I didn’t get there. I think of all my staff did though… which shows how much they listen to me."

Back to business, he mentioned that getting out of the first round was always the initial U.S. goal, but not the only one.

"It’s important to understand that," he said. "The way we always discussed it was with the understanding that first you have to get out of your group; that’s three games and I think we’ve seen in this World Cup that results don’t always go as expected.

"We feel good about the way we handled the first round, the different challenges and the way we responded along the way," Bradley said. "But now we get to the knockout phase, it’s an opportunity to see how far you can take it. You can feel good about getting there, but you have to put that behind you and focus on your next opponent and that’s where we are."