If there’s one thing we’ve learned from Gregg Berhalter’s firing as head coach of the U.S. men’s national team, it’s probably this: When a respected coach says they need a year off from the monotony of a never-ending job, they probably mean it.
Jurgen Klopp’s rejection of the US Soccer Association’s overture less than two months after his emotional departure from Liverpool was understandable, but in the federation’s eyes it was likely worth a shot.
The German is as ambitious a target as the federation will allow: a serial champion at the highest level of club soccer, a culture builder with tactical flexibility with a clear guiding philosophy, and because he’s unemployed there would be no buyout cost, and the U.S. Soccer Federation seems willing to make its salary budget public.
Here’s the thing: if we take Klopp’s announcement to leave Liverpool in January at face value, this isn’t a case of the manager needing a new challenge. He made the decision despite having a year left on his contract. He seemed troubled and strained by the stress of constantly adapting to the constant change that comes with managing one of the world’s biggest clubs.
Even if Klopp had decided that dabbling in international management would provide him with a much-needed break after admitting he was “out of steam,” it would have saved U.S. soccer a headache for exactly two years.
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I’m not sure USMNT fans fully understand the huge difference in risk and reward if Klopp were to replace Berhalter.
The best-case scenario is clear: an ambitious hire that boosts the federation’s reputation, a genuinely good coach who can make some strong Black Forest lemonade out of the bitter experiences he inherited, perhaps a run to the World Cup semi-finals in 2026, and fond memories as he leaves to return to club football or retire altogether.
The worst-case scenario is that the constant headaches turn into diagnosable migraines. One is that Klopp is right: he’s out of steam and incapable of mastering the nuances that distinguish international football from club football. The other is that he simply can’t handle the crash course in international football, extracting more from the individuals but not enough to bring the team together in time for the World Cup. A Luis Enrique Spain scenario, if you like.
Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp turned down an approach from the US national team (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
Either way, the end result will likely be a disappointing and costly solution that will leave the U.S. Soccer Federation back at the recruiting desk after the World Cup and in financial straits as it searches for long-term alternatives.
So while Klopp looks great in a USMNT hat in Photoshop, the reality is that this gamble is far more expensive than a subscription to Adobe Suite.
If the association can’t land the best unemployed coach in soccer, what is the “best” possible way to hire? Matt Crocker and the U.S. Soccer are going to answer that question over the next few weeks in hopes of having a World Cup-worthy coach by September. There will be a never-ending conveyor belt of names bouncing around in the rumor mill. Several of my colleagues have named some of the most talked-about candidates, including Klopp.
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Perhaps the rush to meet Klopp’s asking price through a combination of salaries, sponsorship considerations and NFTs was an expensive Band-Aid that didn’t address the bigger problem.
Is this a hire driven by process, an approach that Crocker emphasized when he re-appointed Berhalter in 2023? Does this hire address issues that arose during Berhalter’s brief second tenure and build the program on a better foundation? Or was it an extravagant scramble that could have been better planned and executed given Klopp’s months of notice?
Does the U.S. Soccer Association really know what it wants from its next men’s coach, and have they had enough time to figure it out?
“Progress has been made,” Crocker said Wednesday following Berhalter’s firing, “but now it’s time to translate that progress into wins.”
Victory! What a great start. American sports fans love to win.
The thing is, if it were as simple as just wanting to win, the U.S. Men’s National Team would have won 22 consecutive World Cups.
Regardless of what has been done in the last six years under Berhalter, saying it’s time to win is a veiled admission of failure. If you buy a few citrus trees on a shoestring budget, wait for six years for occasional fruit in the hope of a bumper crop, and then uproot the trees before a big event and import the harvest from a Brazilian orchard…how do you think you’ve gotten better at growing citrus? What was the point of growing that little plot in the first place?
Gregg Berhalter was fired on Wednesday. (Eduardo Munoz/AFP via Getty Images)
Crocker has repeatedly asserted that Berhalter’s second appointment was the result of rigorous interviews, research and data-driven evaluation. To ignore that process and adopt a “spend big bucks on a big-name club coach” model would be to admit failure beyond one hire. As the saying goes, trust the process, but update it as new information comes along.
It may be tempting to skew the coaching search in favor of a non-U.S. candidate to send a message of alignment and ambition, but that may be an overreaction if a domestic candidate comes in with a clear vision and gets things back on track. At this point, all options need to be calmly considered.
Berhalter is not the first home-grown talent to lead the U.S. men’s national team. The team has employed all but one home-grown talent since the 1994 World Cup under Serbian coach Bora Milutinovic. That exception, Jurgen Klinsmann, comes with a caveat: he was based in California years before taking over, hoping to impress the federation whenever Bob Bradley was fired.
In many cases, being coached by a coach from the United States helped. The program’s best results in recent years were managed by Bruce Arena and Bradley. Both had in-depth knowledge of the player pool at a time when scouting and identifying talent was not as easy. Both had clear ideas about how they wanted their teams to perform, taking advantage of the pool’s strengths while also taking into account its weaknesses.
Neither was afraid to embrace stereotypical ideas about national “grit” or straight-ahead soccer play. Both used parts of that DNA to their advantage: Arenas led the U.S. men’s national team to the quarterfinals at the 2002 World Cup, while Bradley led the team to a runner-up finish at the 2009 Confederations Cup, defeating an all-time great Spain on the way to the final.
As Crocker ponders what is “best” for his next personnel move, his final hire may indeed be a domestic player. Steve Cherundolo and Pat Noonan are former U.S. national team players with MLS experience, while Jim Curtin is familiar with many of the players in the pool and offers a fresh perspective. If these players or other replacements are hired, the pressure to exceed expectations will increase as the fanbase moves past the second Berhalter era.
The “best” hire might be an international one. Milutinovic helped shape U.S. men’s national team players into team legends and brings a fresh perspective on leading the team to domestic success. He also has extensive international coaching experience, having led Mexico to the 1986 World Cup.
The United States national team, which will host the 2026 World Cup, was eliminated in the group stage of the Copa America (Michael Reeves/Getty Images)
His résumé parallels that of Hervé Renard, the equally wandering international coach who most recently ran the France women’s national team. Renard has the face to be catalogued, but he’s not a household name. But he has an impressive track record, including two Africa Cup of Nations titles (with Zambia in 2012 and Côte d’Ivoire in 2015), leading Saudi Arabia to a World Cup victory of the century in 2022 (against Argentina), and leading a turbulent France team to the quarterfinals of the 2023 Women’s World Cup just a few months after taking over. He ticks many of the boxes for a potential stopgap solution, with very high potential and a low floor.
Klopp may be the “best” option, but bringing out the best in him may require a big salary plus a year of patience — two resources U.S. Soccer simply can’t afford to waste. Again, there’s a risk and reward at stake.
Ultimately, the need to get this hire right extends beyond the field. You don’t need to scroll through the comments section to know morale among USMNT fans is at an all-time low. Depending on how you view the Gold Cup, the team likely won’t play another high-level, meaningful match until the first match of the World Cup group stage in 2026. This hire is one of the few remaining chances to inspire fans, revitalize morale, and garner maximum support ahead of the World Cup.
Crocker and the federation’s executives did not tell Tim Weah to hit a defender in the back of the head with his arm, but the federation is responsible for rehiring a coach who did not prepare the team to compete in the Copa America. Whoever is ultimately hired, the federation needs to be confident that their choice is the “best” choice for the next two years, and they need to be clear about what their definition of “best” is in order to justify that choice.
(Top photo: Wolverhampton Wanderers FC/Wolves via Getty Images)
