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Gregg Berhalter did just about everything possible to establish himself as a desirable candidate for the position of United States men’s national team coach except to somehow arrange to be born and raised in Europe. He played professionally in England and Germany and was a key player in the greatest U.S. World Cup run. He got a job managing one of the top clubs in Sweden.
OK, so he grew up in New Jersey and coached a half-dozen years in Major League Soccer. Did we mention all those European stamps on his passport?
This is how it is for an American coaching this American team, how it has been for most of the three decades soccer has been relevant in this country. Bruce Arena led the U.S. to the 2002 World Cup quarterfinals, Bob Bradley to winning a 2010 World Cup group in spectacular fashion, but the desire to inject an overseas influence led to the wild inconsistency of Jurgen Klinsmann’s too-long tenure. Maybe that made it clear to U.S. Soccer the best coach for the job could be in the neighborhood, but Berhalter never has been a popular choice.
MORE: Here’s what happened in the Gold Cup final
How do you like him now?
Late Sunday, Berhalter coached the USMNT to a victory over rival Mexico in a championship game for the secod time in the past three months, Miles Robinson’s header off a Kellyn Acosta free kick in extra time providing the margin in a 1-0 victory in the Gold Cup final. The U.S. players got to raise a trophy again as Mexico’s players watched, the first coming in June in the CONCACAF Nations League.
“When you look at the game today, we did not stop. It was relentless from us,” Berhalter said in his press conference. “And that is the mark of a good team. We thought we had enough quality in the squad to get it done. And sometimes it looks a little different, and sometimes the shape changes and the personnel change, but we have guys that are committed to winning and take great pride when they step on the field to represent the country.”
That is something many saw missing in the fall of 2017, as the U.S. lost twice in its final four qualifying games for the 2018 World Cup and missed the tournament for the first time since 1986. Authors Steven Mandiss and Sarah Parsons Wolter, in an academic but fascinating dive into the national team’s history, referred to that sort of commitment as the “Spirit of ‘76”, an underdog mentality Americans have valued dating back to the Revolutionary War and that saw its sporting apotheosis with the U.S. hockey team beating Russia at the 1980 Olympics.
They contend that spirit was lost as the U.S. became more successful and the drive to make the national team more European accelerated. Berhalter had positioned himself as capable of coaching the build-from-the-back style that is most commonly associated with Barcelona and Spain albeit from an American perspective, but critics of his appointment often pointed to the fact his brother, Jay, was chief commercial officer of US Soccer at the time. The federation declared Jay was excluded from a role in the hiring process, and he since has left that position, but the presumption persists.
I’m not going to say it was my idea to hire Berhalter as the USMNT coach, but you’re free to give me the credit or blame. I believe I was the first person in the U.S. sports media to publicly suggest he’d make an excellent candidate for the job, albeit in a simple response tweet sent to veteran soccer journalist Andrea Canales in the fall of 2015.
Berhalter then was approaching the end of his second year as head coach of the Columbus Crew, a season that would end with a loss to the Portland Timbers in the MLS Cup final. The Crew were nowhere near the top of the league in payroll, and yet they won plenty and scored goals with an attack that looked different from most MLS teams.
Canales was asked on Twitter if there were any MLS coaches she might consider to replace Jurgen Klinsmann after the U.S. crumbled in that summer’s Gold Cup. She named four, including, presciently, Jesse Marsch, who went on to coach in Champions League with Red Bull Salzburg and now is charge of RB Leipzig in the Bundesliga.
“Watch out for Berhalter,” I wrote. “New to the job, but his team plays pretty soccer.”
Indeed, the U.S. has played attractively at times under Berhalter. That is not what occurred over the three weeks of the Gold Cup, though. The Americans were ugly. With nearly all their best players preparing in Europe for important club seasons and needing to remain relatively fresh for this autumn’s World Cup qualifiers, they lacked the talent and experience to regularly generate artistic statements on the field.
Thing was, no one who lined up against them had any fun at all. Haiti, Canada, Jamaica, Qatar and Mexico scored a combined – well, they didn’t score at all. Mexico, long considered the region’s dominant power and fielding the best team it could muster, had 120 minutes to try, including extra time, and never pulled it off. The USMNT’s opposition in this tournament scored no goals during the run of play in 570 minutes.
A lot of that was the brilliance of developing goalkeeper Matt Turner, but the most important component was that “Spirit of 76” mentality the players carried into camp and Berhalter fostered. Together for a shorter period, the U.S. team that won Nations League behind stars Christian Pulisic, Geo Reyna and Weston McKennie also showed that same fight.
The USMNT will play 14 games against seven CONCACAF opponents between Sept. 2 and March 30. The top three teams out of eight will qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Nothing Berhalter has accomplished will matter much if the Americans are not among those three, and he is fully aware of this, no matter how good it feels in the moment.
The Gold Cup, though, allowed the coaches to discover Turner, who could be their best goalkeeper, Robinson (above) is a legitimate option at center back, Acosta could fill multiple roles in midfield when necessary and the overall depth of the program is as good as it has been in a while, even with the majority of the players still in their early 20s.
“We had a fantastic group in the Nations League that was able to win a trophy, and to turn around and do it again with this group is a great accomplishment,” Berhalter said. “I can’t say enough about their spirit and their hard work and their dedication.”
His job is nowhere near finished, but what’s done is done well.
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