Quick lowdown on U.S. presser with Bradley, Donovan

PRETORIA, South Africa – The first U.S. opponent here is England, of course. So, the questions lobbed at U.S. manager Bob Bradley and his players are increasingly slanted toward the match and the opponent – as opposed to the larger-sweep questions over the last month about their own performance, injury status, lineup choices, etc.

During Thursday’s press conference near the U.S. team hotel, several of the 60-70 writers, photographers, TV reporters, etc., were British. English, I presume, but I wasn’t checking IDs.

Landon Donovan was the only player made available, and there wasn't much "hard news," as we say in the business, coming out of this one.

A foreign journalist asked Bob Bradley about Oguchi Onyewu and whether he would play? He prefaced it by offering that he was “not a Fabio Capello spy.”

Later, a U.S. journalist prefaced his question by saying that he, too, was not a Capello spy.”

After someone else jumped on the increasingly lame joke, a team press officer headed off the trend by asking flatly, “Is anybody in here a Capello spy?”

Big laughs from everyone, including Bradley and Landon Donovan, when several British journalists cheerfully raised their hands.

So Bradley spent significant amount of time talking about his own experiences and interaction with English Premiership managers and with Capello, mostly back when he guided Italian clubs. Bradley, going back to his days at Princeton, has always been engaged in the instructional exercises of gaining from peers.

More on that later, probably on SB Nation’s soccer site, or on one some other Steve Davis soccer platform … and there are multiple of them bad boys these days.

Donovan was fairly subdued during Wednesday’s press availability. He refused to be drawn into any potentially incendiary talk about England or about Ashley Cole in particular. Cole, you might remember, was injured in February in a tackle with Donovan.

“Certainly, there’s a lot to the game other than one-v-one battles going on,” Donovan said early in the proceedings, probably hoping to ward off other similar little bunny trails that questioners might be hoping to guide him down. “We’re all extremely excited for Saturday.”

At one point, a British journalist asked Donovan – again! – about his experiences at Everton. And he asked about whether Donovan planned to go back this summer? “My experience there was very helpful,” Donovan said, perhaps just a wee bit curt. “ … and I’ll worry about that after the tournament.”

Here was maybe the best from the U.S. star attacker, when asked about his growth over four years as it related to his readiness for South Africa 2010: “I’m prepared,” he said flatly. “I know the qualities I have as person and as an athlete. I’m prepared for this moment. I wasn’t prepared in 2006. When you feel this prepared, you don't worry abotu whether it is going to go right on the day -- is this going to happen, is that not going to happen? I know I am going to play well on Saturday."

Finally, Donovan answered several questions en Espanol. I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating: plenty of big-time athletes can barely speak their own language. Any athlete who speaks a variety of them gets a higher rating in my book.

U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati made an appearance after Donovan and Bradley did their thing. More on that later. The quick 411 on his time at the podium: He talked about how much water cooler chat the U.S.-England match was generating, and how everyone in the U.S. camp understood what the game meant back home.