Gregg Berhalter OUT As Manager Of The USMNT
After the disaster that was Copa America 2024 for the U.S. Men’s National Team, the USSF have fired Manager Gregg Berhalter. The USSF have stated that they’ve already begun its search for a new manager and reports have come out that former Liverpool Manager Jurgen Klopp has been contacted. Now I am assuming that Klopp is just one of a long list of potential managers that the U.S. will reach out to. These are not confirmed names but I would also assume the likes of; Wilfried Nancy, Steve Cherundolo, and Pat Noonan will all be contacted as well. Personally, I’d like to see the USSF go international with their next hire, but we will have to wait and see.
Ultimately the right decision was made to move on from Gregg Berhalter as the leader of this group. His formations, tactics, and ideology seemed to have gotten stale within the group, even with a group that overly supported him. Gregg did a great job in building his group of players that consisted of some of our best talents; Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Tyler Adams and many more. He also was able to recruit and bring him some highly touted dual nationals from the global stage such as Folarin Balogun and Sergino Dest. But in recent results since his re-hire in 2023, Berhalter’s groups have fallen flat on the field. I think what is needed right now is a manager who will push these talented players to be better, not sit comfortably with mediocre performances.
Berhalter finishes his time with the USMNT with a record of 44 wins, 13 draws, and 17 losses. He has won three major trophies in CONCACAF during that time as well taking home the 2021 Gold Cup as well as the 2019/2020 and 2023/24 Nations League titles. In my opinion Berhalter got us out of the lows of missing the 2022 World Cup. He brought the U.S. back to where we were during the 2010-2014 era of soccer in this country. But ultimately, the lack of growth across a decade of soccer isn’t (and shouldn’t) cut it anymore. Gregg Berhalter has recorded many wins during his time as U.S. Manager, many against smaller CONCACAF nations. I am not going to knock him for that, we should be winning those games and good for him for handling business. But, where I have the issue is results against top nations around the world. We clearly were sitting outside of the Top 10 in FIFA rankings for a reason, we could not compete with the likes of England, Brazil, Uruguay, Belgium, and others during his tenure. Gregg did a lot of good and has proven that he is a great U.S. soccer coaching mind, but his time has come to a deserved end.
