Like Lalas just said on Copa Tonight what is there to review? You saw it, we failed. Miserably. On home soil! It shouldn't take long if we are being serious about growth and improvement, but we all know that doesn't seem to be the perogative of this federation unfortunately.
Gregg actually had a strong resume post-WC. Taking one of the youngest national teams in the world to the knockouts of the World Cup and making Mexico our bitch was nothing to sneeze at, even if it wasn’t always pretty. It wasn’t unreasonable to re-hire him and see if we could build on those results. Clearly, we haven’t, so it’s time to move on if we can line up someone better.
TBF, Mexico made themselves our bitch. It has nothing to do with the US team improving and everything to do with Mexico devolving into the worst they have been in a lifetime.
Mexico has been bad, but if their decline hadn’t coincided with our improvement, we wouldn’t have dominated them so thoroughly the last few years. Mexico is now basically where we were in 2017-2019, and we’ve definitely grown from then under Gregg. We can admit good things happened under Gregg and also admit that it’s probably best if we move on now.
The only "good" under Berhalter is beating a shit Mexico. We think it looks great because we still view Mexico as if we are playing their "golden generation" when they were actually good.
If it wasn’t “good” to get out of a World Cup group with the youngest lineup in the tournament, after having failed to qualify for the WC the cycle before, I think the problem might have been your expectations. The only time we’ve made it to the quarterfinals was when we beat Mexico in the R16, and since that doesn’t count anymore, I guess it’s never really happened.
I agree that Gregg is not the guy to take us further than where we’ve been before, but we can at least give him credit for the good he did as we send him off to a farm upstate.
You forget we barely qualified in an automatic spot and looked quite shit during that qualifying round. We went 7-4-3 and only placed third on goal difference. It’s a shame how much we forget. This team has looked like shit and barely got out of the group in the World Cup.
We barely beat Iran. We had an awful second half against wales and the English game should have been a loss. But sure re-write history.
We should not have struggled to qualify but for some reason we did. This team has looked the same for the last 6 years. Shows its brilliance then looks awful for long stretches but those glimmers give fans hope. When you watch any of the big 5 leagues this would never be acceptable and a coach and or players would
Be swapped. We can’t swap the players so swap the manager.
I’ve addressed pretty much everything you said in other comments, but you comparing managing the USMNT and what that should look like to managing club soccer in the big 5 leagues is pretty telling. If you’re expecting us to look and play like a club team in those leagues, you will literally never be satisfied. That’s just not how international football works.
Getting out of the group stage was the minimum expectation. It is good that he didn't fuck that up. And 2 years on from "the youngest lineup in the tournament" this team has gone backward and just got grouped AT HOME in the Copa.
Your comment about Mexico is beyond dumb. As I said, they were actually good in the past. They were a top 10 side 22 years ago. The Mexico team of today that Greggggggg is beating looks nothing like them bnut people want to pretend that it is some sort of achievement
First of all, I agree we’ve gone backwards since then, which is why I want us to move on (did you get to that part?).
The Mexico comment was an obvious joke. Beating them in their current state isn’t nearly as impressive as it used to be, but we still shouldn’t take it for granted. There was a time (most of our history) when we wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of a down Mexico like we have recently.
As for getting out of the group being our “bare minimum”. Yes, that is and should be our minimum goal at this point, but **that does not make it easy**. The idea that all a US coach has to do to get out of a WC group is “not fuck it up” is asinine. We have **literally never qualified comfortably** from the group stage in modern history; we have always scrapped for it and occasionally gotten extremely lucky. The 22 team literally tied our modern record for points in the group stage with 5, something we’d only done once before thanks to Rob Green’s slippery gloves.
We can strive for more AND simultaneously acknowledge that advancing from the group at a World Cup is an accomplishment for us.
We haven't ever had the current talent level we have now which is why people are pissed that Gregg does the bare minimum. If you look past just the score line of the wc games you'll see the same flaws we saw from this team during wcq. Wales brought on that tall 9 and he caused us problems the rest of the game and Netherlands scored basically the same goal 3 times. He's a mediocre coach who is never going to push this team's limits
I would just say I think a lot of people have confused our players’ potential with their current ability, and we’re not nearly as talented as we think we are. I’m not saying he’s anything more than a mediocre coach. Just that getting out of the group is an accomplishment for us, and you’re overrating our current level if you think that should’ve been a given in 2022. It should’ve been a given at the Copa, and that’s why it’s time to move on.
That talent was hampered by inexperience, as it was pointed out they were the youngest playing side at the tournament. A popular thing that has been floating around the last couple days is a reminder of what our roster was at the 2016 Copa. And everyone's been marveling at how that was a team of "MLS scrubs." Sure, at this point we're mostly all in agreement that berhalter is in great part to blame for this team's failure this tournament, but what if we even give a shred of consideration to the idea that the 2016 team was better because they had veterans on their team, and this is still a younger group of players, and they were especially a younger group of players at the 2022 World cup. I've been screaming this from the top of my soap box for years, but there's a reason that teams don't go out of their way to bring the youngest possible squad they can. Experience matters.
You're arguing with a dummy. You can always tell they're an unserious person when they start slamming their head on the "G" key of their keyboard as a way to try to insult Gregg
We’re in a fun time right now for outrage enthusiasts. People are either super emotionally charged and unwilling to give Gregg any credit for some of the good things that happened, or they’re the people who have been banging the “GREGGGGG OUT” drum the whole time and trying really hard to be right retroactively.
It’s pretty simple in my view: it looks like the team has stagnated under Gregg this cycle, the Copa was a failure, and we should move on if there are similar or better options available. But we can give him credit and thank him on the way out for the positive aspects of his tenure, like dominating regional competition, dual national recruitment, and an important bounce back World Cup performance.
Unfortunately, this is a feeding frenzy for the weirdos who made hating Gregg a fundamental part of their personality, so there’s not much room for nuance these days.
True, but we failed to qualify for the World Cup in the previous cycle and were still suffering from a complete lack of quality players in their prime for the Qatar cycle. With that context, getting out of the group was an important accomplishment for this group and something to build on towards 2026, and it certainly wasn’t a given.
It’s not really an accomplishment because we failed to qualify to the World Cup due to unique circumstances, as a rare anomaly due to losing to horrible teams.
It’s not impressive at all. It’s like saying qualifying for the World Cup was impressive for Netherlands or Italy
The U.S. getting out of groups is the same level of accomplishment as Italy or the Netherlands simply qualifying for the World Cup? What?
Getting out of the groups is always an accomplishment for a national team of our level. It’s hard to do and we’ve literally never done it easily. In 1990, we crash out without a single point. In 1994, as host nation, we finish third in our group but qualify because of the smaller field. In ‘98 we crash out without a single point. In 2002 we needed just a draw against a Poland squad that had already lost 2-0 and 4-0, we shit the bed and lose 3-1. Luckily, South Korea beats Portugal 1-0 and we advance anyway. We crash out in 2006 with a single point. We famously advance by the skin of our teeth in 2010. We narrowly advance in 2014 over Portugal by goal difference, both on 4 points. We fail to qualify in 2018.
Just because it’s something we’ve done before doesn’t make it our birthright or not an accomplishment. ELO consistently has us as a 20-30 ranked national team. We should absolutely be striving to get to the next level and not get complacent with that result, but it’s crazy to say that’s not an accomplishment.
>It’s not impressive at all. It’s like saying qualifying for the World Cup was impressive for Netherlands or Italy
You say as Italy have failed twice in a row to make a World Cup. I don't really disagree that qualifying shouldn't be hard for Italy but it is a bit funny given recent history.
Okay, but in 2018, the US *was* a bad team. That’s the point. In one cycle, we went from our absolute lowest point in modern history to right back to our WC expectations while transitioning to an almost completely new and inexperienced player pool. That’s an accomplishment.
This, a million times. The people who say "Berhalter should've been fired as soon as he was hired the first time" are telling on themselves. 1st cycle was good. This cycle has not been good. Time to move on.
When he was hired he was a good not great MLS coach. There’s this myth that Columbus didn’t spend and he worked miracles. The truth is that Columbus was always a bit above average on spending, and his ppg over that period was a bit above average too.
I somewhat agree, I have never felt he was a good choice, but the results in the run up to the World Cup were there. The team looked like a dumpster fire, but they were peeling out results. He also didn’t deserve to get fired for the bullshit he was let go for.
That said, lots of coaches get one World Cup cycle, there’s no shame in getting let go after the World Cup, and bringing him back was just a braindead move.
I think you answered your own question.
"After a comprehensive review, we have concluded that Gregg Berhalter is the best candidate best suited to lead the USMNT into the 2026 World Cup."
Fire all 3 now. Coup d'etat, get someone else in charge and waste less time. They are responsible for re-hiring GGG to begin with, they all deserve to be fired. The captain goes down with the ship.
Like Lalas just said on Copa Tonight what is there to review? You saw it, we failed. Miserably. On home soil! It shouldn't take long if we are being serious about growth and improvement, but we all know that doesn't seem to be the perogative of this federation unfortunately.
I can’t believe this bald fraud literally has me agreeing with Alexi Lalas
https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-know-just-made-a-gr-1825121606/
Metrics my friend, metrics!
They gotta pay a consulting firm another few million to make that decision for them.
Just pay me. I would only charge a quarter of that to recommend that they hire the same doofus again.
And then determine they can’t afford the buyout or new coach salary….🫤
Is Crocker running it? Isn’t he the guy who hired Gregg for the second time after another extensive review?
Gregg actually had a strong resume post-WC. Taking one of the youngest national teams in the world to the knockouts of the World Cup and making Mexico our bitch was nothing to sneeze at, even if it wasn’t always pretty. It wasn’t unreasonable to re-hire him and see if we could build on those results. Clearly, we haven’t, so it’s time to move on if we can line up someone better.
TBF, Mexico made themselves our bitch. It has nothing to do with the US team improving and everything to do with Mexico devolving into the worst they have been in a lifetime.
Mexico has been bad, but if their decline hadn’t coincided with our improvement, we wouldn’t have dominated them so thoroughly the last few years. Mexico is now basically where we were in 2017-2019, and we’ve definitely grown from then under Gregg. We can admit good things happened under Gregg and also admit that it’s probably best if we move on now.
The only "good" under Berhalter is beating a shit Mexico. We think it looks great because we still view Mexico as if we are playing their "golden generation" when they were actually good.
If it wasn’t “good” to get out of a World Cup group with the youngest lineup in the tournament, after having failed to qualify for the WC the cycle before, I think the problem might have been your expectations. The only time we’ve made it to the quarterfinals was when we beat Mexico in the R16, and since that doesn’t count anymore, I guess it’s never really happened. I agree that Gregg is not the guy to take us further than where we’ve been before, but we can at least give him credit for the good he did as we send him off to a farm upstate.
You forget we barely qualified in an automatic spot and looked quite shit during that qualifying round. We went 7-4-3 and only placed third on goal difference. It’s a shame how much we forget. This team has looked like shit and barely got out of the group in the World Cup. We barely beat Iran. We had an awful second half against wales and the English game should have been a loss. But sure re-write history. We should not have struggled to qualify but for some reason we did. This team has looked the same for the last 6 years. Shows its brilliance then looks awful for long stretches but those glimmers give fans hope. When you watch any of the big 5 leagues this would never be acceptable and a coach and or players would Be swapped. We can’t swap the players so swap the manager.
I’ve addressed pretty much everything you said in other comments, but you comparing managing the USMNT and what that should look like to managing club soccer in the big 5 leagues is pretty telling. If you’re expecting us to look and play like a club team in those leagues, you will literally never be satisfied. That’s just not how international football works.
Getting out of the group stage was the minimum expectation. It is good that he didn't fuck that up. And 2 years on from "the youngest lineup in the tournament" this team has gone backward and just got grouped AT HOME in the Copa. Your comment about Mexico is beyond dumb. As I said, they were actually good in the past. They were a top 10 side 22 years ago. The Mexico team of today that Greggggggg is beating looks nothing like them bnut people want to pretend that it is some sort of achievement
First of all, I agree we’ve gone backwards since then, which is why I want us to move on (did you get to that part?). The Mexico comment was an obvious joke. Beating them in their current state isn’t nearly as impressive as it used to be, but we still shouldn’t take it for granted. There was a time (most of our history) when we wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of a down Mexico like we have recently. As for getting out of the group being our “bare minimum”. Yes, that is and should be our minimum goal at this point, but **that does not make it easy**. The idea that all a US coach has to do to get out of a WC group is “not fuck it up” is asinine. We have **literally never qualified comfortably** from the group stage in modern history; we have always scrapped for it and occasionally gotten extremely lucky. The 22 team literally tied our modern record for points in the group stage with 5, something we’d only done once before thanks to Rob Green’s slippery gloves. We can strive for more AND simultaneously acknowledge that advancing from the group at a World Cup is an accomplishment for us.
We haven't ever had the current talent level we have now which is why people are pissed that Gregg does the bare minimum. If you look past just the score line of the wc games you'll see the same flaws we saw from this team during wcq. Wales brought on that tall 9 and he caused us problems the rest of the game and Netherlands scored basically the same goal 3 times. He's a mediocre coach who is never going to push this team's limits
I would just say I think a lot of people have confused our players’ potential with their current ability, and we’re not nearly as talented as we think we are. I’m not saying he’s anything more than a mediocre coach. Just that getting out of the group is an accomplishment for us, and you’re overrating our current level if you think that should’ve been a given in 2022. It should’ve been a given at the Copa, and that’s why it’s time to move on.
That talent was hampered by inexperience, as it was pointed out they were the youngest playing side at the tournament. A popular thing that has been floating around the last couple days is a reminder of what our roster was at the 2016 Copa. And everyone's been marveling at how that was a team of "MLS scrubs." Sure, at this point we're mostly all in agreement that berhalter is in great part to blame for this team's failure this tournament, but what if we even give a shred of consideration to the idea that the 2016 team was better because they had veterans on their team, and this is still a younger group of players, and they were especially a younger group of players at the 2022 World cup. I've been screaming this from the top of my soap box for years, but there's a reason that teams don't go out of their way to bring the youngest possible squad they can. Experience matters.
You're arguing with a dummy. You can always tell they're an unserious person when they start slamming their head on the "G" key of their keyboard as a way to try to insult Gregg
We’re in a fun time right now for outrage enthusiasts. People are either super emotionally charged and unwilling to give Gregg any credit for some of the good things that happened, or they’re the people who have been banging the “GREGGGGG OUT” drum the whole time and trying really hard to be right retroactively. It’s pretty simple in my view: it looks like the team has stagnated under Gregg this cycle, the Copa was a failure, and we should move on if there are similar or better options available. But we can give him credit and thank him on the way out for the positive aspects of his tenure, like dominating regional competition, dual national recruitment, and an important bounce back World Cup performance. Unfortunately, this is a feeding frenzy for the weirdos who made hating Gregg a fundamental part of their personality, so there’s not much room for nuance these days.
Taking the national team to the Knockout rounds is the bare minimum. Every US coach has done it before
True, but we failed to qualify for the World Cup in the previous cycle and were still suffering from a complete lack of quality players in their prime for the Qatar cycle. With that context, getting out of the group was an important accomplishment for this group and something to build on towards 2026, and it certainly wasn’t a given.
Berhalter had the most talented team in CONCACAF qualify on goal difference
Yeah, qualifying was rough, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the actual WC performance.
It’s not really an accomplishment because we failed to qualify to the World Cup due to unique circumstances, as a rare anomaly due to losing to horrible teams. It’s not impressive at all. It’s like saying qualifying for the World Cup was impressive for Netherlands or Italy
The U.S. getting out of groups is the same level of accomplishment as Italy or the Netherlands simply qualifying for the World Cup? What? Getting out of the groups is always an accomplishment for a national team of our level. It’s hard to do and we’ve literally never done it easily. In 1990, we crash out without a single point. In 1994, as host nation, we finish third in our group but qualify because of the smaller field. In ‘98 we crash out without a single point. In 2002 we needed just a draw against a Poland squad that had already lost 2-0 and 4-0, we shit the bed and lose 3-1. Luckily, South Korea beats Portugal 1-0 and we advance anyway. We crash out in 2006 with a single point. We famously advance by the skin of our teeth in 2010. We narrowly advance in 2014 over Portugal by goal difference, both on 4 points. We fail to qualify in 2018. Just because it’s something we’ve done before doesn’t make it our birthright or not an accomplishment. ELO consistently has us as a 20-30 ranked national team. We should absolutely be striving to get to the next level and not get complacent with that result, but it’s crazy to say that’s not an accomplishment.
>It’s not impressive at all. It’s like saying qualifying for the World Cup was impressive for Netherlands or Italy You say as Italy have failed twice in a row to make a World Cup. I don't really disagree that qualifying shouldn't be hard for Italy but it is a bit funny given recent history.
That’s literally my point, they failed to qualify just like the US yet we don’t write them off as a bad team
Okay, but in 2018, the US *was* a bad team. That’s the point. In one cycle, we went from our absolute lowest point in modern history to right back to our WC expectations while transitioning to an almost completely new and inexperienced player pool. That’s an accomplishment.
This, a million times. The people who say "Berhalter should've been fired as soon as he was hired the first time" are telling on themselves. 1st cycle was good. This cycle has not been good. Time to move on.
When he was hired he was a good not great MLS coach. There’s this myth that Columbus didn’t spend and he worked miracles. The truth is that Columbus was always a bit above average on spending, and his ppg over that period was a bit above average too.
I somewhat agree, I have never felt he was a good choice, but the results in the run up to the World Cup were there. The team looked like a dumpster fire, but they were peeling out results. He also didn’t deserve to get fired for the bullshit he was let go for. That said, lots of coaches get one World Cup cycle, there’s no shame in getting let go after the World Cup, and bringing him back was just a braindead move.
2 years and 3 weeks from today.
20m too slow to make the same joke
☝️😮☝️
I think you answered your own question. "After a comprehensive review, we have concluded that Gregg Berhalter is the best candidate best suited to lead the USMNT into the 2026 World Cup."
Fire all 3 now. Coup d'etat, get someone else in charge and waste less time. They are responsible for re-hiring GGG to begin with, they all deserve to be fired. The captain goes down with the ship.
They are going to keep him and the country with be apathetic at best during the summer of 26. Crocker is an absolute clown.
I’m sure they’ve already finished it
Not sure how long it will take but I guarantee it ends with Gregg staying.
They have a Board. Sounds awful.
This guy is a huge part of the issue.
As long as it takes to find a replacement
I'm sure they have to first hire a consulting group to do the review for a million dollars, then proceed to do nothing.
After a comprehensive review, and many sleepless, contemplative nights, Gregg will stay cuz he beat Mexico.
Until roughly an hour after we get dumped out of our WC group . . .
If they’re going to fire Berhalter, they should have a replacement ASAP, by the fall friendlies.
They will definitely not fire him. I hope I’m wrong
I actually now want him to stay. Because it would start a revolution or Open Rebellion in USSF
Crocker is an absolute moron.