After a little over a week of deliberation from the USA Soccer Federation, the decision was made on Wednesday to move on from USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter.
It has felt like an eternity since the USMNT failed to make it out of group play in Copa América and fans started calling for Berhalter to be removed.
In 74 matches (5 years) with the USMNT, Gregg Berhalter had a 44-17-13 record. Almost all of his wins came against CONCACAF competition. In fact, Berhalter only coached against non-CONCACAF teams 7 times. In those games his record was 3-3-1. His record against non-CONCACAF teams in the top-20 in FIFA rankings was 0-2-1.
In other words, he struggled against good competition. Now to be fair to Berhalter, he can only play who is in front of him. His record against top-30 ranked teams was just abysmal though.
Berhalter did some good things during his tenure with the USMNT. He led the team to two CONCACAF Nations League finals and one Gold Cup. He also led the team to the knockout stage of the 2022 World Cup. However, since Berhalter was rehired last summer the team’s performance has been unacceptable. They lost to Trinidad & Tobago in November and then needed a last-second goal against Jamaica in March. They followed that up with a 5-1 friendly loss to Colombia in June. Their poor performance in the Copa América was the tipping point.
The USMNT went into Copa América with big ambitions. They were expected to make a far run, but instead could not even make it out of a group with Panama and Bolivia in it.
Copa América went to a single host country for the tournament back in 1987. The U.S. became the first host country since that started to be eliminated in group play.
Pathetic.
The team had just lost their identity under Gregg Berhalter and it was time to move on.
The attention now turns over to USA Soccer Sporting Director, Matt Crocker, who has to get this next hire right. With the 2026 World Cup in America on the horizon, this is without a doubt the most important decision he has ever had to make since taking the job.
Crocker flubbed the situation last time by electing to bring Gregg Berhalter back, despite domestic violence allegations. However, Crocker absolutely knocked the USWNT hire out of the park by bringing in Emma Hayes to lead the women’s team. Crocker has to go big with this hire as well.
“I think now we’re in a better place to have much more of a targeted search where I’ll be more inclined to go hard and go early with specific candidates that I feel meet the criteria that we’re looking for,” Crocker said in an interview with a small group of reporters on Wednesday. He said the aim is to have a coach in place in time for the September window. He has a contingency plan in place, he said, if that isn’t possible, but the plan is to aggressively go after candidates with that goal in mind.
Crocker told the media that he spoke with the heads of all departments within the men’s national team program, as well as the player leadership group to inform them of the announcement.
There are a ton of great, big-name coaches that are out there that Crocker could bring in.
I know it’s very unlikely, but the USA Soccer Federation needs to aggressively pursue Jürgen Klopp. I don’t care what anyone says. Give him Delaware or one of the Dakota states and let’s do this.
Please stop settling for average. Go out and make a HUGE signing and catapult soccer to the moon in this country.
DO IT, YOU COWARDS!!
Ohio Sports Radio 
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