Soccer
Bradford: These guys deserve it
NCFC head coach John Bradford speaks to the media after winning the USL League 1 championship
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NCFC head coach John Bradford speaks to the media after winning the USL League 1 championship
It feels, it feels great. These guys deserve it. They've put all the work in all year. The club deserves it for all the support. Coming back from a couple of tough years and doing it in such a great fashion against Charlotte in penalties in front of an unbelievable crowd who could ask for better, not just over the last few years has done for him to get that. It's fantastic. He's from here. He's, he's from this club as a youth player. You know, he's been with us in the hard times in the past. He's grown, he's developed and to get the goal in extra time to put us to penalties. Unbelievable story book stuff for him. This team has competed in it to go down in time. Come back in the biggest moment of the year. What does that say about the I've been asked a lot about this team this week and I keep saying the word togetherness and I keep saying the word belief, you know, and after they scored, obviously, it hurts. But at the same time, the guys continue to believe in what we could do. Fight back, get a goal, get ourselves to penalties. Brooks comes up with an amazing save and all five guys step up and get the job done. So, what is the guys talked a lot about proving people wrong and promising a championship last to first? I mean, from your perspective, sitting here now, you guys actually did it. Do you think that came from? I think last year was interesting. After a couple of months we were in first place or right there and then things didn't continue to go that way, the way that we wanted to. But there's a lot of guys on this year's roster that were there last year that learned from it. And we brought in a lot of guys that had been in the final last year or wanted more success and were hungry for it. So we set goals at the beginning of the year and this is obviously one of them and to have it come true is just a testament to the group to see an academy guy do what he did in this game today. I go to us L championship next year. This path to pro belief that this club has shown over the last three years to see it come to fruition like this on the way back to us L championship as someone who's been involved in the academy side and the youth side and with the pro team. What does that mean to you? It's fantastic. It makes it tangible. It makes it credible and it allows everybody to see that. We have a unique special club here in North Carolina FC. We have the largest youth club in the United States. We have a pro side that has just won league one and now headed back to championship and we have a determination to give young players an opportunity. I think all those things together is pretty special. You work during the week to this moment because penalties, fight and fight if you work with these players, it is every day these players was the best for this moment. Every day. We've done penalties at the end of the training sessions and tried to pick which guys we thought were going to be able to get it done and the guy stepped up and did the job. So what was, uh you heard the message was belief when you guys were down and what were some of those conversations like in between periods? You know, the times you did get to talk to the team there? It was just, it was, it was all the players, it wasn't just the staff that was talking about all the players being able to collectively say to continue to believe and keep going. Congratulations. Thank you guys.