Gregg Berhalter will no longer be the coach of the United States men’s national team because it was becoming unthinkable that he would remain in the position. The clamor had become too loud. The team’s two main fan groups, the American Outlaws and Barra 76, issued statements demanding a new manager after the United States’ disgraceful elimination in the group stage of a Copa América on home soil. During the 1-0 defeat to Uruguay that ultimately doomed the campaign, the American fans could clearly be heard chanting “Fire Gregg!”
This well-organized fan effort to oust the coach was as unprecedented as it was effective, fueled by concern about the team’s trajectory less than two years before the men’s World Cup in the United States, co-hosted with Mexico and Canada. In one sense, it was a sign of growth in American soccer: A large number of die-hard fans were deeply engaged, and many fans took notice and asked tough questions. American soccer had to listen and act. We’ve never really seen this level of concerted engagement within the national team before.
On Wednesday, the news that seemed inevitable finally became official. “Gregg has earned the respect of everyone within our organization and has been instrumental in building a young team and advancing the program,” U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker said in a statement. “Our immediate focus is on finding a coach who can maximize our potential as we continue to prepare for the 2026 World Cup, and we have already begun our search process.”
Yet something about the timing and reasoning of this decision is disturbing.
First, let’s think about Berhalter. He’s an accomplished coach who devoted an enormous amount of time and energy to a job he clearly loved. I spent the last two years talking to more than 100 people in and around U.S. Soccer for a book chronicling the history of the USMNT. Along the way, I got to see Berhalter at work up close, in meetings with players and coaches. And it’s not hard to see why people within the federation have such faith in him. He rebuilt a culture that was shattered after a disastrous 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign and created an uncommon cohesion in a young team that he built almost entirely from scratch. He has posted an overall record of 44-17-13 and 29-9-7 in official competition since taking over in late 2018. He has won the CONCACAF Nations League twice, while his assistant B.J. Callaghan, following Berhalter’s playbook, won it a third time. Berhalter also won the 2021 Gold Cup. More importantly, he guided a group of rookie players through the 2022 World Cup, putting together a series of impressive performances and reaching the round of 16.
Ultimately, his tenure was marred by a series of missteps. His starting right winger, Tim Weah, punched an opponent in the second Copa America game and was sent off before his teammates lost on a late goal. And a questionable, near-offside goal in the final group-stage game sealed Berhalter’s fate. But the animosity toward Berhalter had been building for years, and the last few weeks have only confirmed the doubts that already existed. He did a lot of things right, but never quite convinced some of the more vocal parts of the fan base that he was the right man for the job.
Crocker, who made the final decision to fire Berhalter, gave him credit in a conference call with reporters, according to ESPN, but agreed with the widely held view that the team had stopped improving. “I think five years is a long time, and a lot of the building blocks have been put in place,” he said. “This was a very, very young group, originally, and progress has been made, but now it’s time to turn that progress into wins. There’s been progress in the group, but that progress hasn’t translated into enough wins in the Copa.”
In that same call, Crocker said that a year into his current role, he felt more confident in his ability to make decisions when it came to hiring a new coach. And that the federation would have the budget to hire a top-notch manager, who could cost several times the roughly $2 million plus bonuses that Berhalter was making. Crocker won’t limit himself to domestic options — the U.S. hasn’t named a head coach of the senior men’s national team without a U.S. passport since Bora Milutinovic in 1991 — but he didn’t specify whether a candidate would have to be fluent in English, a requirement that previously precluded highly qualified options.
As Crocker prepares to hire a men’s head coach for the second time in his tenure, it’s worth considering what will happen to the rigor he promised to bring to the process the first time around.
The fact is, that first hire was made by Berhalter himself, and Crocker didn’t explain how the rationale for bringing the coach back for a second go-round fell apart so quickly in the face of results. After the 2022 World Cup, Berhalter was out of work for six months while U.S. Soccer investigated a domestic violence incident during his freshman year of college, sparked by a falling out with the Reyna family. By the time Berhalter was cleared of any further wrongdoing, Crocker had replaced Earnie Stewart as the head recruiter and made the decision to stick it out with Berhalter.
The decision wasn’t made on a whim. The federation touted its “rigorous process,” which included a laundry list of responsibilities and skills the new head coach had to possess before candidates identified through “advanced data analytics, sophisticated metrics and cutting-edge recruiting methods” were subjected to “a battery of practical and psychological tests.” Berhalter was the big winner in that process, Crocker reported.
But just a year later, Berhalter was fired largely because of the vibrations.
The time to part ways with Berhalter should have been after the 2022 World Cup. There were plenty of excuses to find a new coach. The last four permanent coaches of the U.S. men’s team all got new contracts after their first World Cup cycle. None had success in their second stints. Only Bruce Arena even qualified for a second World Cup in 2006, and he was eliminated in the group stage. Plus, Berhalter now had a heavy burden.
By bringing Berhalter back for another go-round, only to drop him after a year, the team suddenly finds itself facing time constraints.
Now, whoever the new man is, will not only have to replace a coach who remained beloved by his key players to the end, but will also have to do so without any major tournaments to forge his team into the cauldron of competition ahead of the 2026 World Cup. Aside from another CONCACAF Gold Cup — not exactly the most prestigious or difficult competition — there will be no real tests next summer. As hosts, the Americans will automatically qualify for the World Cup. It will be difficult to book truly elite opponents for friendlies, as they will be tied up in qualifying and other competitions.
Despite everything, expectations will be high for this team, which maybe A golden generation, but one that has also sparked debate over whether we’ve simply overblown their image. The current USMNT squad appears to have the talent to reach a mythical next level, but they’ve yet to produce a standout performance on the biggest stage. Oh, and they probably have a discipline problem: four red cards in key games in just over 12 months!
Two years may seem like an ocean of time, but that is not the case in international football. At most, the new head coach will have a dozen internships to shape something coherent from his squad. And that is assuming Crocker has appointed a new manager by the September international window – when the United States hosts friendlies against Canada and New Zealand – as he has said.
There was a perfectly coherent argument for sacking Berhalter after the Copa. The results were mixed. The attack was often ineffective, the defense error-prone. Berhalter long stuck to playing tactics that didn’t suit enough of his players. But all that was true a year ago, too.
But there were also arguments for keeping Berhalter. Clearly, his team had bad luck at the Copa America. There is not enough time for a replacement to properly prepare for the World Cup. It is not even clear who that replacement will be. Is there any guarantee that the United States will find a better coach?
And more to the point, what happened to all those analyses, tests and “psychometric data” – whatever they were – that established Berhalter as the best man for the job? Are they now obsolete because of a series of unfortunate setbacks? That conclusion does not stand up to logic.
Either you go with the flow or you stick to a process. You can’t do both. Crocker said he would go with rational analysis, bringing science to his coaching research. But now that the flow is bad, Berhalter is gone, his vaunted rigor abandoned at the first sign of resistance.
Certainly, the negativity surrounding Berhalter had become a problem. Had he been retained, the narrative around this team would likely have taken an apocalyptic turn over the next two years. When you host a World Cup in hopes of advancing your sport, you have to harness enthusiasm. That’s hard to do when your coach has lost popular support.
One thing is for sure: No matter what Crocker does, or how he claims to make this decision, US Soccer has done no better at deciding who to hire. Or when to leave.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is a regular contributor on football for The ring. The long term gameHis book on the U.S. men’s national team will be published by Viking Books before the 2026 World Cup. He teaches at Marist College.