If there’s one thing we’ve learned following Gregg Berhalter’s firing as manager of the United States men’s national team, it’s probably this: When a respected coach says he needs a year off from the endless work of his job, that’s probably exactly what he wants.
It’s understandable that Jurgen Klopp would turn down US Soccer’s offers, given that it hasn’t even been two months since his emotional departure from Liverpool. Still, in the federation’s eyes it was worth a try.
The German is as ambitious a player as the federation could recognise. He is a consistent winner at the highest level of club football, a culture-builder who is tactically flexible within a clear guiding ideology. He is also unemployed, removing any buyout costs, and US Soccer was willing to open up its salary budget.
The point is this: if you take Klopp’s announcement that he was leaving Liverpool in January as true, it wasn’t the case that the coach needed a new challenge. He made the decision with a year left on his contract. He seemed to be stressed out by the constant ups and downs of managing one of the world’s most prominent clubs.
Even if Klopp had decided that trying his hand at international management would be a relief enough for him, as he admitted he was “running out of energy”, it would have eased two years of American football’s misery.
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I’m not sure USMNT fans would have fully understood the vast difference between risk and benefit if Klopp had replaced Berhalter.
The best-case scenario is obvious: an ambitious appointment that will improve the federation’s image, a great coach who will make Schwarzwaldian lemonade from the lemons he inherited, possibly a trip to the 2026 World Cup semi-finals and some fond memories when he returns to club football or retires altogether.
The worst-case scenario would be that the constant headache problem turns into a migraine. One scenario would be that Klopp was right: that he doesn’t have the energy and the wherewithal to understand the nuances that differentiate international football from the club option. The other scenario would be that he won’t be able to handle the crash-course adaptation to international football, that he can achieve more individually but can’t bring it on collectively by World Cup time. Call it the ‘Luis Enrique’s Spain’ scenario if you like.
Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp turned down USMNT offer (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
In either case, the result will be disappointing — and costly. After the World Cup, U.S. Soccer will be back at the hiring desk, financially strapped, looking for a long-term replacement.
So, while it’s great to photoshop Klopp into a USMNT hat, the reality is that this gamble is far more expensive than a subscription to the Adobe suite.
When a federation can’t bring in the best unemployed manager in the game, what sort of ‘best’ appointment would that be? That’s a question Matt Crocker and US Soccer will try to answer in the coming weeks, in order to find the right coach for the World Cup by September. Names will keep spinning like an endless conveyor belt in the rumor mill. Some of my colleagues highlighted some of the most talked about options, among them Klopp.
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Perhaps rushing to meet Klopp’s asking price with some combination of wages, sponsor considerations and NFTs was a costly measure that won’t address the bigger issues.
Is this a process-driven appointment, one that Crocker insisted on when he rehired Berhalter in 2023? Does this appointment respond to issues that cropped up during Berhalter’s brief second tenure and set the program in a better position? Or was this a grand rush that could have been better planned and executed after Klopp gave it months’ notice?
Does US Soccer really know what it wants from its next men’s manager? Has he had enough time to figure it out?
“There has been progress, but now it’s time to turn that progress into wins,” Crocker said Wednesday after Berhalter’s dismissal.
Winning! That’s a great start. American sports fans love to win.
The point is, if wanting to win was that easy, the USMNT would be 22-time World Cup champions.
To say after six years that it’s time to win, uh, everything they’ve just done under Berhalter is a veiled admission of failure. If you set a modest budget to buy a handful of citrus trees, wait six years for them to bear fruit in hopes of an occasional bumper crop, then rip those trees up to import the equivalent of an entire Brazilian orchard before a big event… are you any better at growing citrus? And what was the point of nurturing that little plot in the first place?
Gregg Berhalter was sacked on Wednesday (Eduardo Munoz/AFP via Getty Images)
Crocker has repeatedly sworn that Berhalter’s second appointment was the result of rigorous interviews, research and data-driven evaluation. If that process is thrown out the window in exchange for a “spend big on famous club coaches” model, it admits to failure beyond just one appointment. As they say, trust the process — but please, keep updating the process based on new information.
To convey a message of accommodation and ambition, there may be a temptation to skew the coaching search and prioritize candidates who are not from the United States. This may be an overstatement if a domestic option enters with a clear vision to get things back on track. At this point, all options must be considered with a clear vision.
Berhalter was hardly the first native son to coach the USMNT. The program has been heavily biased domestically with all but one appointment since the 1994 World Cup, when the team was led by Serbian coaching nomad Bora Milutinovic. The lone exception, Jurgen Klinsmann, bears an asterisk because he put down roots in California years before being appointed, so that remains on the federation’s mind whenever Bob Bradley is removed.
At times, being coached by someone from the US paid off. The program’s best runs in the modern era were overseen by Bruce Arena and Bradley. Both had an intimate knowledge of the player pool at a time when scouting and talent identification wasn’t as easily global. Both had clear ideas about how they wanted the team to produce results, noting their group’s strengths while noting weaknesses.
Neither was afraid to embrace stereotypical national ideas about ‘grit’ and playing direct football. Both used parts of their DNA to their advantage. Arena led the USMNT to the 2002 World Cup quarter-finals and Bradley led the team to a runner-up finish in the 2009 Confederations Cup, beating the all-time Spanish giants on their way to the final.
As Crocker figures out what is ‘best’ to hire next, the final appointment could actually be a homegrown one. Steve Cherundolo and Pat Noonan are former US internationals who are finding success in MLS, while Jim Curtin is familiar with many of the players in the pool and offers a fresh perspective. If any of these or other options are hired, they will feel pressure to perform better as the fan base moves on from another Berhalter era.
The ‘best’ hire can also be international. Milutinovic helped make a generation of USMNT players legends of the program and brought a fresh approach to preparing the team for success on home soil. He also brought ample coaching experience at the international level, having led Mexico when it hosted the 1986 World Cup.
The USMNT, who will host the 2026 World Cup, were knocked out of the Copa America in the group stage (Michael Reeves/Getty Images)
His CV is comparable to that of Herve Renard, another nomadic international manager who most recently led the France women’s national team. Renard is no celebrity coach, even though his face is on the list, but he has plenty of achievements to his name: two Africa Cup of Nations titles (with Zambia in 2012 and Ivory Coast in 2015), leading Saudi Arabia to the World Cup of the century against Argentina in 2022 and leading a troubled French team to the quarter-finals of the 2023 Women’s World Cup just months after taking the job. He checks a lot of boxes for a potential stopgap solution, with a lot of upside and a low floor.
The ‘best’ option might actually be Klopp. However, getting the best version of him might require a year of patience as well as a handsome salary – two resources US Soccer can’t afford to waste. Again, risk and reward.
After all, the need to get this appointment right extends beyond the field. You don’t have to scroll too far into our comments section to know the extent to which morale has plummeted among USMNT fans. Depending on how you value the Gold Cup, the team won’t play another meaningful high-level match until the World Cup group-stage opener in 2026. This appointment is one of the few remaining opportunities to excite fans and rebuild morale to garner maximum support ahead of hosting the World Cup.
Crocker and the federation leadership did not ask Tim Weah to twist his hands behind a defender’s head. However, they are responsible for rehiring a coach who did not prepare his team to compete in the Copa America. Whoever is ultimately appointed, the federation must make their selection with full confidence that it is the ‘best’ option for the next two years – and they must have a clear definition of ‘best’ to justify that selection.
(Top photo: Wolverhampton Wanderers FC/Wolves via Getty Images)
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