US Soccer announced late on Wednesday afternoon that head coach Gregg Berhalter had been relieved os his duties with the US Men’s national team. Berhalter had been with the club since 2018 and led them back to the World Cup in 2022. A lackluster set of results and a slew of controversies following the World Cup in Qatar, forced the hand of Sporting Director Matt Crocker to make the move ahead of a key period before the 2026 World Cup.
“Our immediate focus is on finding a coach who can maximize our potential,” said Crocker after the news broke yesterday. “We have already begun our search process.”
The process itself is something that many have questions around. Last time US Soccer went on a coaching hunt, they came back around to Berhalter, despite saying that they interviewed many candidates. While there have only been rumors as to who went through the process, the fact that Berhalter remained on for a second cycle was puzzling and put unnecessary stress on his stardards moving forward.
Many of the players showed support for Berhalter but the controversy around the World Cup situation with Gio Reyna and his father Claudio Reyna threw a dark cloud over his ability to coach one of the more talented players in the pool. Both sides have said that they have moved beyond the situation, however it does ask whether Berhalter ever really recovered the locker room following the incident.
To their credit, players have been taking responsibility for the lack of results. Captain Christian Pulisic took to social media admitting that the results weren’t good enough and that fans deserved better. Other players like Matt Turner have also voiced their opinion on the blame not sitting totally with the head coach. Still, coaches are the first to bare the brunt of criticism and it has ultimately cost Berhalter his job.
“We’ve got to win,” said Crocker during a conference call with reporters. “We didn’t achieve that from our perspective. When I do look at the work and the effort that Gregg has put in and other staff have put into the program over the last five years, I wanted to make sure that I really took my time and was decisive with my decision-making that at the time I felt was right and not being driven by anyone else.”
From a fan perspective there is massive frustration. The US has touted their current player pool as a sort of “Golden Generation.” The entirety of the roster for Copa America consisted of players currently playing for European teams. While many of them were no longer starters, the feeling is that the talent level has never been higher. Unfortunately, the results aren’t showing that, especially in one of the few high profile tournaments that the US will participate in before the 2026 World Cup.
