US Men's National Team needs a new coach - and a reality check
It's time to move on from Gregg Berhalter - but that's not going to solve US Soccer's problems
I’m not a dummy. The numbers very clearly show that the people who subscribe to this newsletter don’t care much for international football and they care even less about the United States national team. But it’s my newsletter and I got thoughts on the USMNT so I get to express them here if I want. Not for you? Just x out of this one. I promise we’ll be back to regularly scheduled programming for our next post.
The US Men’s National Team failed to get out of their group at the 2024 Copa America after a pathetic 1-0 loss to Uruguay to close out the group. While it was one of the worst reffed games I’ve ever seen, that hardly matters. The US needed to win and in order to win you need to score. Knowing the stakes they managed just eight shots worth a paltry 0.49 xG. It brought back memories of when Manchester United needed to beat Real Sociedad by two goals to win the Europa League group and Erik Ten Hag’s side managed just four shots all game.
No matter how you slice it that’s just not good enough. However the truth is the US didn’t fail to get out of their group because they didn’t beat Uruguay - that game was always going to be a difficult one to get a result in. The US failed to get out of their group because they didn’t beat Panama in their second game and they didn’t beat Panama because Tim Weah got sent off for doing something incredibly stupid 18 minutes into the game forcing the US to play 70 minutes a man down.
1That’s it. Sometimes football really is that simple. If Weah doesn’t get a red card the US more than likely win that game and go through. That’s the thing about tournament football, anything can happen because one bad bounce can change everything.
Fans have been quick to juxtapose the US’s result with that of Canada, who hired American coach Jesse Marsch about a month before the tournament and made it out of their group. What they neglect to tell you is Canada only scored one goal in the entire group stage and played about 90 minutes over two games up a man.
One team gets to play a third of their minutes up a man and only scores one goal. Another has to play nearly 70 minutes down a man in the most important game. It’s impossible to suggest that those red cards didn’t play a role in which team went through and which didn’t.
International football is ridiculous in this way. We make big decisions on managers based on three game group stages where one bad bounce or bad decision can swing the whole thing. Even worse, sometimes we factor in knockout games. It’s ridiculous. If Chris Wondolowski finishes that chance against Belgium in 2014 the US goes to the quarterfinals, does that change how good of a coach Jurgen Klinsmann was? No! It’s outcome bias on steroids.
American fans hate Gregg Berhalter so they’re going to look past that red card and lay the blame squarely on him because, well because they’re always looking for things to blame on him. I’ve never been a fan of him but I think more often than not the criticism of him from fans has been extremely over the top.
Since taking over in 2018 Berhalter has done a ~fine~ job with the USMNT. You have to remember where this team was. They had just missed out on the 2018 World Cup and were bringing through a completely new generation. They hadn’t won a competitive match against Mexico since 2013. They hadn’t beaten Mexico in a tournament since 2009!
After losing his first Gold Cup final to Mexico, over the next four years all Berhalter did was defeat Mexico in a Gold Cup final and twice defeat them in the nations league final while also qualifying for the 2022 World Cup where the US got out of their group.
These may come off as ‘bare minimum things’ but the bare minimum hadn’t been getting met for years before Berhalter came in!
If you asked someone in 2018 what the next USMNT manager needed to achieve they would have said:
1. Win the Gold Cup
2. Qualify for the World Cup
3. Win the Nations League
4. Advance out of the group stage at the World Cup
Gregg Berhalter did all those things! How much better could you possibly have expected him to be? You can only play what’s in front of you. Yet every step of the way fans were calling for his head - just like they were always calling for Jurgen Klinsmann’s head.
The US failing to get out of their group isn’t a failure from Gregg Berhalter. It’s bad luck. You shouldn’t be sacking your manager because a player did something stupid and you had to play 70 minutes with 10 men2.
Berhalter should be sacked because after five-ish years he’s still married to this dumb system that the US really doesn’t have good enough players to play.
When they have their best XI players available and play an opponent at their level or worse it could look really good. If any of their players are missing, it’s a nightmare and creates matches that dull as can be.
The system heavily relies on a striker, which up until Folarin Balogun came along last year the US simply didn’t have. When he can’t play it doesn’t work. Sergino Dest’s injury has shown how important it is to have a right back who has close control of the ball. If you only have one player in the entire squad that can actually play at each position then that’s not a good system and you need to change it. If you won’t do that, you should be the one that gets changed.
Reality check
There are a large number of football fans who really just want to have a moan about something. That number is even higher when we’re talking about international football. To those fans, it always seems like everything can just be solved by sacking the manager - and if you believe that, you’re in for a rude awakening.
After the match usual loudmouth Alexi Lalas gave a rather poignant monologue of the loss. I can’t embed it here because Twitter and substack hate each other but I highly encourage you to click the link and give it a listen. There was one line early on that really stuck out to me.
“I think what we have learned over these cycles is… that this team is not able to do anything better than was done in the past. And that, that hurts. That hurts to say because that was not what was promised.
You can tell that this really bites at Lalas and it’s easy to see why. Lalas was part of the generation that pushed soccer in America and really brought it to the forefront. If his generation didn’t constantly do more than what had previously been done soccer in this country wouldn’t be what we know it today.
It also lacks some very important nuance.
In 1989 the US qualified for their first World Cup in something like 50 years. In 1991 Alexi Lalas made his debut as the US prepared to host the World Cup in 1994 - where they made it out of the group stage for the first time. In 1998 they qualified again3 making that step up to a team that consistently expects to be at the World Cup. In 2002 they reached the quarterfinals of the World Cup.
Those are all very big steps but the thing is for every step you take the next one is exponentially harder and as you get closer and closer to the top, the margin for improvement is less and less attainable.
As a national team, how do you improve on reaching the quarterfinals of the World Cup? The answer is NOT reach the semifinals next time out. Only four teams in the world reach that stage every four years! No, the next stage is simply making it back to the quarterfinals, then doing that again and establishing yourself as a team that perennially expects to be in the last eight.
Since Lalas’s playing days, the US has gone from an afterthought who one time made a cinderella run to a perennial top 20 - probably even top 16 - team in the world4. Where do you go from there?
Obviously the next step is to be one of the Top 8 teams in the world. Do you know how hard that is? Who are the Top 8 teams in the world right now? Germany, France, Spain, Argentina. That’s four right there and we haven’t even mentioned Brazil (who right now are a bit dicy), England (yea they’re one of the eight best teams in the world even if their Euro 2024 performances have been dreadful). Then there’s a bunch of other teams like the Dutch or Portugal, maybe even Uruguay battling it out for those final spots.
It’s not easy to crack that list and reaching the quarterfinals or the semifinals of one tournament doesn’t put you there. You have to do it consistently and guess what, once you do finally get there it’s not a guarantee of anything!
Spain haven’t won a knockout game at the World Cup since 2010. Germany haven’t gotten out of their group in either of the last two World Cups. Argentina sandwiched two finals appearances with a round of 16 elimination - though that came against the eventual champion France, you can’t discount how much of a role “luck of the draw” plays in here either.
Slip ups happen. That’s tournament football. A bad bounce here, a super strike there. It’s that quick. What separates the top 8 teams from the rest is when they suffer that bad bounce they come back at the next tournament just as strong. Oh also they have really really good players.
There is this notion that Gregg Berhalter has been wasting the best generation of talent the US has ever produced. The media - who love a buzzword - have been quick to call it a “golden generation.”
There’s a difference between a golden generation and the best generation a country has ever produced. This current US crop is definitely not the former and probably isn’t even the latter5?
The reality is this current just really isn’t that good. When the group started coming together around 2018-2020 they certainly had the potential to be the best generation the US ever produced. If all these players developed up to their full potential, look out.
That hasn’t happened. Of course it hasn’t. That’s just not how player development works. Most players aren’t going to reach their full potential because player development is super hard. Any number of things can derail a players growth such as making the wrong decision about a club, a change in club coach, an off the pitch issue, or just the ability to stay fit. If you’ve got six potential superstars you’re lucky if one becomes a superstar. You’re incredibly lucky if one becomes a superstar and another becomes really really good. It’s rare.
Christian Pulisic is the best player the USA has ever produced. At 19 years old he looked like he could be one of the top players in the game. At 25 years old he’s “merely” a really good player on the best team in Italy who has trouble staying fit. That’s good, but it’s not the superstar that can carry a team through a tournament.
After Pulisic left Borussia Dortmund it looked like the Germans simply replaced him with another American potential superstar as 17 year old Gio Reyna burst onto the scene. Over the next four years Reyna hasn’t even combined to play as many league minutes as he did during that 17 year old season. He’s started just three club games since January 2022.
Folarin Balagun might become the best striker the USMNT has ever had, but right now he hasn’t even been able to win the full time starting job at his club.
This US team lacks a direct and creative passer in midfield. This was a big issue in their 3-1 loss to the Netherlands at the 2022 World Cup as the lack of midfield passing prevented them from being able to take the game to their opponent. Right then and there it became obvious that if the US was going to have any chance of taking a step forward, those young midfielders were going to need to develop that in their games.
That just hasn’t happened. Weston McKennie is a crash the box midfielder who spends more time at Juventus filling spaces for other players than being a dominant on ball player. It’s an important role if you’re playing against quality opponents, but his lack of on ball skills are a detriment when you have more of the ball.
Yunus Musah got a move to AC Milan but is just a squad player there. Tyler Adams was the best hope of the lot but he’s struggled to stay on the pitch - playing just 121 minutes in the Premier League last year. You can’t develop if you can’t get on the pitch, and the national team can’t move forward if their players aren’t developing.
The US has more players than ever playing in Europe. And unlike previous generations they’re not playing on the outskirts of Europe, they’re playing for major clubs in Europe’s top five leagues. But that doesn’t mean the squad is filled with game changers who win you tournaments. Most of their players are squad players or just solid reliable players - not the superstars who carry you through tournaments.
The fact that there’s more players in Europe doesn’t necessarily mean the US suddenly has better players. It could be a sign that teams are just more open to signing American players than they used to be.
Best US team ever?
Christian Pulisic is the best American player to ever play the game but who are the top three? Pulisic, Landon Donovan, and Clint Dempsey.
Two of those guys played at the same time! Behind them was Michael Bradley. Are any of the current midfielders better than Michael Bradley?
I think the 2015-2017 version of Bradley has made a lot of people forget just how good Bradley was from 2009-2014. Yes he flopped at Aston Villa but was good at Borussia Monchengladbach and had a very good spell at AS Roma before pissing everyone off by returning to MLS in 2014.
Balogun is likely (hopefully) going to be better than Jozy Altidore but right now is he better than Altidore was at his best?
I think that US team can get forgotten simply because the World Cups came around at the wrong time. Jermaine Jones didn’t really join the group until after the 2010 World Cup while Clint Dempsey didn’t become that lethal goalscorer until Klinsmann moved him centrally in 20116. By 2014 Altidore had lost his scoring touch in Europe while Donovan was dropped from the team. This generation really hit their peak around 2012-13.
Dropping out in the group stage certainly stings. But fans believing that we’re wasting the best generation of American players because of Gregg Berhalter need a reality check.
The hope was that these guys would develop into the best team ever but it just didn’t happen. A new coach isn’t suddenly changing that.
More importantly, who exactly would that coach be? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but people aren’t exactly lining up for this job. It doesn’t pay well and there’s no competitive matches until the World Cup in two years. Plus you’d be working for a federation that’s more interested in making money than their national team.
Following the 2022 World Cup US Soccer took six months and hired an external firm to help them find their next coach only to settle on the same guy. That’s extremely indicative of the quality of candidates that are out there. There aren’t many.
US Soccer needs to move on from Gregg Berhalter because he’s too damn stubborn with his system and we don’t have the players for it. That’s it. Bringing in a guy who is more adaptive to the talent at hand will give the US a better chance against the top team, but it’s not going to vault them into the top eight sides in the world.
The reality is, this current crop of players are good, but they’re not that good.
The notion that Canada’s group is more difficult than the United States is laughable. Peru are terrible - dead last in CONMEBOL qualifying. Chile are also terrible. This isn’t your older brothers Chile that won back to back Copa America’s 8 years ago. This is 2024 Chile, who haven’t qualified for a World Cup since 2014, finished 7th at the last Copa America, and are currently 8th in World Cup qualifying. They’re awful.
And because one goal was probably conceded because your goalkeeper was injured and that injury was picked up from a collision with an opponent that somehow wasn’t whistled.
Where they promptly embarrassed themselves
Even when they were bad in 2016-17 they were still a top 20 team in the world, making their non-qualification to the 2018 World Cup so damn shocking
Golden Generations tend to have one (and usually at least two) players who are legitimately one of the five best players in the world. The US does not have that. Also have you ever noticed that the term is only used around teams that didn’t win anything? I’ve never heard someone refer to Spain as their “Golden Generation” I just hear them referred to as “THAT Spanish side.
22 goals in his first 77 caps. 35 goals over his last 64 and 30 in his 53 appearances under Klinsmann
Wow, I’m here for this, excellent big picture insights. That’s not even getting into the pay to play system in the US. I feel like there’s enough talent in the NYC metro area to make a World Cup winning team, but how do you access that talent. I’ll have to hit you up on your thoughts on that.