Bradley, Former U.S. and Egypt Coach, Joins Norwegian Club Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters Bob Bradley, who most recently coached Egypt's national team, now heads for top-level European soccer. The career of Bob Bradley, the former national team soccer coach for the United States and Egypt, took another interesting turn on Friday when he was formally introduced as the manager of the Norwegian club Stabaek. The two-year deal makes Bradley, 55, the first American head coach of a top-tier European team. "My feeling is that we all know how far the game has come in the United States," Bradley said. There is still a part where for players and coaches, earning respect in Europe is a challenge. When I was with the national team, every time we played against a big European team, we would talk about how that was a chance to show people we were a really good team, for them to show that they were top players. For me, this was a big part of wanting to now make the next step in Europe. He said he saw his decision to take on a club job in Europe in a similar vein, adding, "To be the first one, if it helps in any way for coaches and players down the road, for me that's an important step." There have been other American head coaches in Europe. The former national team defender Gregg Berhalter coached Hammarby in Denmark from 2012 to 2103, and another former United States player, David Wagner, is coaching Borussia Dortmund's under-23 team in Germany's 3. Liga, a lower division. Bradley will be the first American coach in a top division. Bradley's most recent post was as coach of the Egyptian national team, a job he took a year after he was fired as United States coach despite leading the team to the second round of the 2010 World Cup. Bradley led the Pharaohs for two years and to the final round of African World Cup qualifying, but the team missed out on a trip to Brazil when it lost a two-leg playoff to Ghana. While the team failed to advance to the World Cup, it was the off-the-field leadership from Bradley that garnered the most attention. During his tenure, Egypt was mired in political and social unrest. Hosni Mubarak was ousted as the country's president in 2011, and violence continued there in subsequent years. A stampede at a soccer game in Port Said killed nearly 80 people in 2012, leading to the suspension of Egypt's domestic league. Despite the violence, Bradley remained in Egypt to coach, and the national team's successes in the earlier World Cup rounds and his shows of support for the antigovernment protests made him a popular figure there. At Stabaek, Bradley will inherit another team facing challenges. From 1996 to 2009, it was among the most successful teams in Norway, playing in European competitions seven times. It won the Norwegian Cup in 1998 and the top league, the Tippeligaen, in 2008. In 2011, however, the club faced serious financial difficulty. It was forced to leave its new domed arena and return to its previous aging stadium. In 2012, the club sold most of its top players and was relegated out of the Tippeligaen after a last-place finish. Last year, Stabaek completed a quick return to the top division by posting a second-place finish in the second tier using mostly young players. Bradley's first test will come in his new team's season opener, on March 29, when Stabaek hosts Sogndal. Bradley, who coached soccer at Princeton, got his start as a professional head coach in 1998 with the expansion Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer, after serving as the top assistant to Bruce Arena at D.C. United. He led the Fire to the M.L.S. Cup title that year. In 2003 he joined the MetroStars and in 2006 he was hired to coach Chivas USA. After the United States team's disappointing World Cup in 2006, U.S. Soccer tried unsuccessfully to hire Jurgen Klinsmann as Arena's replacement. When he declined, Bradley was hired on an interim basis in late 2006. In early 2007, he was given the job on a permanent basis and the team began to put together a series of impressive performances. Under Bradley, the United States won the Gold Cup in 2007 and impressively beat Spain on the way to reaching the finals of the 2009 Confederation Cup, which it lost to Brazil. That year Bradley's team finished alone atop the Hexagonal World Cup qualifying standings. At the 2010 World Cup, Bradley led the United States to its first first-place finish in a group stage. In the Round of 16, the Americans lost to Ghana in overtime. Bradley was fired by U.S. Soccer in 2011, and finally replaced by Klinsmann, after a lopsided loss to Mexico in the final of the Gold Cup.