Bob Bradley's coaching career has taken him on a long, meandering path, but it has Ohio roots.

Reach back to before Bradley became the first American to manage an English Premier League club. Push beyond his successful stays in Norway's top division, the Eliteserien, and France's second-division Ligue 2.

It's where he laid the groundwork for eventually finding success in charge of the Egyptian men's national team under the backdrop of the Arab Spring.

Even before Bradley guided the U.S. men's national team to some of its greatest achievements and oversaw the prime years of some of the program's best-ever players.

That's where you'll find Bradley at Ohio University in Athens in 1981. There, he was studying for his master's degree in sports administration and coaching the Bobcats' soon-to-be-disbanded men's soccer program.

"OU, baby," Bradley said during an exclusive interview Thursday with The Enquirer. "You ever been to Athens? I want to get back there."

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Almost 40 years have passed since his time on the OU campus, but recalling his stint there can still stir Bradley from a chair like the one he sat in rigidly on the back patio of the lavish training complex for his current club, Los Angeles Football Club.

Something else that gets Bradley fired up is talking about Ohio soccer. As the decades have rolled along and Bradley continued to excel professionally in soccer around the world, the game started to grip the Buckeye State.

The birth of MLS gave rise to what's known today as Columbus Crew SC, but Bradley had ample time to experience the Crew tradition during coaching stints with four MLS clubs.

What's new to Ohio from a soccer perspective, as well as to Bradley's own vantage point, is FC Cincinnati, the upstart franchise that's taken the game by storm and garnered international attention at a young age.

Bradley used to recruit the Cincinnati region as a 20-something-year-old college head coach. In those days, the area was a soccer desert.

But on Thursday, Bradley was prepping for an MLS match against an expansion team from Cincinnati.

Could he ever have imagined the sport growing to this extent in Southwest Ohio?

"Ah..." Bradley said to begin his response to that very question.

What his full answer revealed was a deep respect for what FC Cincinnati's accomplished in a short period of time, and that Bradley, like so many others, was drawn to the club during its 2017 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup run.

"I've paid attention the last few years, so when they had success in the Open Cup, everybody took notice. So, the push to then get into the league and the way the city has responded and the excitement level – I certainly know that Cincinnati is a great sports city," Bradley said. "You know, I'm old, so I can throw names out like Oscar Robertson, Johnny Bench, and Pete Rose and plenty of guys.

"Look, it's a great sports city and what FC Cincinnati has done, to see what's going on there with regard to them and their first season in MLS, it's fantastic... I've seen the support and the fan base, so to have some home games early, that base of support is excited. That gives any team energy and commitment and that's very clear."

Bradley's LAFC side would go on to defeat FC Cincinnati 2-0 on Saturday at Banc of California Stadium.

Cincinnati gave LAFC plenty to think about as they stayed competitive with the hosts through the final whistle.

You can probably count Bradley as unsurprised the match played out that way based on the praise he heaped on the club ahead of the match.

Where some MLS coaches have tried to poke holes in FC Cincinnati's approach in the formative days of its life as a club, Bradley said he saw a "disciplined and committed."

"All teams are still putting finishing touches on everything you're about. You need home games. You need away games. You need critical moments," Bradley said. "We see an athletic team. We see an organized team."