Federation Rehires Berhalter, Hurts USMNT For Its Own Selfish Purposes
Bringing the scandal-tainted Berhalter back reveals that winning games isn't USSF's highest priority
The 3-0 defeat of Mexico in last night’s Nations League final was wild, comprehensive, and satisfying. The match presented USMNT fans with the best play they’ve seen from this national team in a long time. It was a fantastic display of talent and desire. We saw our best players play their best soccer in the most important game of the year.
The coaching was solid too. Despite widespread anticipation that newcomer head coach BJ Callaghan would make mistakes, he barely put a foot wrong. There was no controversy to the lineup. The best players played. A dominant US side demonstrated its full ascendancy over its longtime rival.
To be sure, the second half was fiery. Four red cards were brandished and the match boasted all the chippy play we’ve come to expect in this heated rivalry. But in general, we witnessed fun, free-flowing, attacking soccer and classy, dominant possession by a cohesive American side. Most importantly, all the best players available were on the field. Honestly, we’d have to say that in comparison to the perpetual low expectations fans cultivated during the Gregg Berhalter years, Callaghan managed this match with near perfection. My only quibble personally would be that perhaps he didn’t guide the players to be more disciplined when the Mexicans’ frustration turned violent late in the game.
This was a stronger, more stylish, and more complete victory over our rival than we ever saw under returning head coach Berhalter. It seems clear now to all who are watching closely that, well, anyone but Berhalter can see how best to set this team up. First, Anthony Hudson did it. Now, assistant-to-the-assistant BJ Callaghan too simply played the best players, deployed straightforward attacking tactics, and let the players play freely.
Callaghan even made good substitutions at appropriate times in the match. The right backups—Luca De La Torre, Ricardo Pepi, and Joe Scally—entered the match and played well. This was something we rarely saw in 2021 or 2022. It reminded me that… no, it’s not crazy to expect that the best players will start and that reasonable substitutions will be made at appropriate times. Under Berhalter this just never happened. It drove fans insane, particularly during the World Cup in Qatar. There were always a handful of boneheaded moves during every match under Berhalter, who is the brother of an MLS vice president.
Undercut at the Worst Moment
Unfortunately, this dominant victory was cruelly undercut by the United States Soccer Federation (USSF). Rather than celebrating the coach and players’ performances, the federation inexplicably released news literally at kickoff of the biggest match of the year that Callaghan was done and that the scandal-plagued Gregg Berhalter was coming back.
This prevented many fans from truly celebrating our most comprehensive victory ever over our rivals.
Why did the USSF announce that particular news then? What news cycle required they drop this bombshell at 10pm on a Thursday night? There is no coincidence here. The USSF deliberately undercut the players and the current coaching staff right at the moment of their biggest test.
With this news slowly overshadowing affairs during the match, it was impossible to miss the strong play from Gio Reyna, Ricardo Pepi, and Joe Scally—three players whom Berhalter ostracized or antagonized when he was in charge in 2022 and who likely don’t want Berhalter back.
With Anthony Hudson and now BJ Callaghan at the helm here in 2023, we’ve seen better lineups, better tactics, better results than under Berhalter. It’s not that they suddenly became great coaches; it seems that literally anyone can coach this team well.
Imagine how good we could be with an actually accomplished international coach.
Winning not a Top Priority
We are not to imagine such a thing. The USSF has other ideas. We can only conclude that the USSF doesn't truly care about winning. At least, winning isn’t the USSF’s top priority. The federation seems to have forced out Anthony Hudson just weeks before this match to bring in someone with an even weaker resume. Then the federation in their infinite wisdom deliberately undercut that replacement coach on the day of his first match.
It’s almost as if… they wanted these weak coaches to fail to make Berhalter look good.
But instead, a weak coach, and then an even weaker coach, succeeded!
They couldn’t have it. They forced out Hudson, and then they undercut Callaghan on the biggest night of his career.
The reasons to bring Berhalter back are thin on the ground if one assumes winning is the USSF’s highest priority. We underachieved throughout 2021 and 2022. We barely qualified for Qatar, trailing Mexico and Canada and only tying Costa Rica for third in the qualifying table. We scraped into Qatar on goal-differential. At that World Cup, placed in one of the weakest groups, Berhalter was outcoached in every match except the England match (where Gareth Southgate made so many errors it overshadowed our own poor coach’s choices). The matches against Wales and the Netherlands were particularly embarrassing from a coaching perspective. We did get out of the weak group after escaping with a tie against Wales and barely defeating an obviously inferior Iran side. The 1-0 win over Iran was the Americans’ one victory in Qatar. The loss to the Dutch in the round of sixteen was lopsided, comprehensive, and humiliating.
Lest anyone forget, we almost never won matches away from home under Berhalter. Worse, there were always weaker players playing ahead of stronger players under Berhalter, who happens to be the brother of former USSF Communications Director Jay Berhalter. Gregg’s strange choices created endless controversies about who was starting and who was left at home. Berhalter obviously played favorites but never admitted it.
Today, with these results in 2023 staring us in the face, with the obviously higher level of play we’ve demonstrated under interim coaches, and with countless candidates with more coaching talent than Berhalter showing interest (e.g. Patrick Vieira, Pellegrino Matarazzo, Jesse Marsch, Luis Enrique, etc.), it’s time we admit that there is something else going on.
The National Team as a Showroom
One logical conclusion is that the American federation and the American league have realized they can make more money than they do by winning matches by using USMNT matches as sales showcases for middling MLS players. A single MLS player sold to a European club can bring MLS a check of $5 million or more.
USSF and MLS brass are connected at the hip, and I believe this is the root of the problem. Also, since MLS is a single-entity business, it makes money directly from the sales of any league players to overseas clubs. Thus, it seems that the USSF and MLS want a yes-man in charge of the national team more than they want a winner.
The federation doesn’t want to lose, of course, as winning always looks better than losing—and leads to more matches—but they don’t want someone in charge of the team who might have his own vision for achieving excellence that might compromise their ability to use the USMNT as a showroom. The federation and MLS want someone who will, sure, try to win, but, whenever possible, do so using MLS players who can be sold overseas. It also behooves MLS brass to send the message to our best young players that they can and should stay in MLS—or return to MLS—as the big names help to market the league. With Berhalter in charge, as we’ve seen for years, players pay no price for staying at the lower level of MLS rather than pushing themselves and trying their luck at higher levels. This coach doesn’t strongly favor players playing at the highest levels in the world.
This approach is literally the opposite of their language about hiring someone who can “take us to the next level” and “progress this program.” Did they even read those words in their own press release?
Competing to win a World Cup requires that a nation have 30-50 players playing at the highest levels in the world. This is what it takes to go toe-to-toe with the best: Several dozen players playing for clubs in the world’s top five leagues—the Spanish, English, German, Italian, and French leagues. We are actually approaching that level. We dominated Mexico precisely because we fielded players playing professionally at a full level higher than their players do.
Rehiring the scandal-tainted, nepotism-boosted Berhalter—a man who is a decent MLS-level coach at best—is literally the opposite of progress. Worst of all, it sends the odd message to players that winning games isn’t the highest priority.
The rehiring of Berhalter may or may not make MLS and the USSF more money, but it surely will result in a national team permanently mired in mediocrity on the world stage.