We’ll never know exactly what process U.S. Soccer head coach Matt Crocker followed in selecting Gregg Berhalter as the new head coach of the U.S. men’s national team. We’ve been led to believe it was a highly mathematical and analytical process, and all that stuff that doesn’t interest us.
However, any formula it contained was flawed.
The young players who primarily make up the USMNT had made significant progress from their addition to the lineup a half-dozen years ago to their success at the 2022 World Cup. Much of that progress was a product of the culture Berhalter had created, and it made sense for Crocker to try to preserve that momentum as players like Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Tyler Adams moved into their primes.
It was a good idea, but a little too fantastical.
Because the chemistry that made the show work had been inextricably altered by the debacle involving Berhalter, Gio Reyna and Reyna’s family after the World Cup, there was no way everything could go back to normal after everything that had happened.
Crocker made the easy choice, but it turned out to be the wrong one. Now it’s up to him to get it right: he must hire a coach who will show the players that only one person can be in charge.
Whether reaching into the stratosphere to corral the genius of Jurgen Klopp or landing somewhere closer to Earth with Jose Pekerman, David Wagner or Wilfried Nancy, Crocker must hire a coach who is not only a leader and strategist but also someone who owes nothing to anyone.
After Berhalter informed Reyna that he would be playing as a substitute at Qatar 2022, and after Reyna reacted to this news by visibly pouting in practice and at a closed-door exhibition game, U.S. coaches considered sending him home but opted to keep him. And after all of this was revealed to the public under unprecedented circumstances, Reyna’s mother reported to the U.S. Soccer Federation a decades-old incident of domestic abuse allegedly perpetrated by Berhalter against the woman who would become his wife.
When the federation decided to launch an investigation into the matter, a necessary measure given the seriousness of the accusation, Berhalter’s relationship with his team was never the same.
At the time, this wasn’t obvious. Once the federation cleared Berhalter’s return, the only concern regarding the roster was whether the coach and Reyna could repair their relationship. That turned out not to be an issue at all. Reyna started regularly in midfield after Berhalter’s return and was named the 2024 CONCACAF Nations League Player of the Year.
The problem was everyone else.
It turned out that a team whose core had an average age of 25 was not mature enough to handle the balance of power that was tilted so firmly in their favour. They had argued strongly for Berhalter’s return and their stance was confirmed. In a very real sense, they had saved their coach’s job, which he owed them.
They paid for it by behaving, all too often, with astonishing immaturity. The first glaring incident was right-back Sergiño Dest, who was sent off from a Nations League match last fall in Trinidad and Tobago for kicking the ball into the stands and shouting at the referee, earning him two consecutive yellow cards, followed by a red. The team’s only veteran, 36-year-old defender Tim Ream, was seen berating Dest as he walked off the field.
That may have worked for Dest, but he has since injured his knee and missed this summer’s tournament. However, forward Timothy Weah revealed that these problems were not limited to just one player, as he received a straight red card for striking a Panamanian opponent less than 20 minutes into a crucial group game this month at the Copa America. That ultimately led to the U.S. national team being eliminated from the tournament.
But it wasn’t just that. Their disinterested play against rising power Colombia led to the embarrassment of a 5-1 defeat before the Cup. Their lacklustre performance in the Nations League semi-finals last March against Jamaica almost eliminated them before a late own goal led to an extra period which they dominated to advance.
Christian Pulisic is the best player in team history, but that doesn’t give him the right to run every set piece when his record of creating dangerous plays is poor. Players who have proven they can’t be trusted to control their emotions can’t be trusted with an automatic spot in the lineup. Forwards who don’t score goals can’t continue to get opportunities when the team is so desperate for offensive punch.
“I think we need more focus, more intensity in every training session, to push each other harder,” Ream told reporters after the loss to Uruguay that ended the Copa America in the United States. “I think we need more players who are willing to step up and take charge of games. It’s a fantastic group, as everyone knows, and one that’s very close-knit, but sometimes the intensity gets lost.”
Berhalter was a better strategist than his most fervent critics would ever admit. Because he was neither European nor South American (and, worst of all, American), he would always face the suspicion that he did not really know the game.
He set out not only to win games and tournaments with the U.S. national team, but also to fulfill the promise his predecessor, Jurgen Klinsmann, had made when he was hired nearly a decade earlier: He intended to change the way Americans played soccer.
And that part of the plan worked. At the 2022 World Cup, the United States ranked 12th among the 32 teams in ball possession. It was in the top half in terms of touches in the opponent’s box and ninth in terms of touches in the attacking third of the field. The program that had relied exclusively on defense-and-counterattack strategies for a quarter-century of World Cup appearances began to control games and dictate play, even at times against powerhouses like England.
Under Berhalter, the USMNT changed the way it played soccer.
But then they changed the way they played. that soccer.
So a change of direction in the program was inevitable. And, finally, welcome.
