There’s been a common refrain in the past 24 or so hours from some of the… less-reasonable… corners of the soccer internet: “Who cares who the USMNT coach is, it took too long!”
I touched on this a bit yesterday, but it really is an important piece to hammer home: the process stunk, the timeline of the process stunk, and maybe Gregg Berhalter would have taken the job if offered a year ago. Alas, unless you’ve got Doc Brown on speed dial, there’s nothing that can change the way the way the process played out, in timeline or otherwise.
Now, what’s left to care about is the result of said process, and Gregg Berhalter will be the United States Men’s National Team coach. Would he have been considered (yes) or gotten the job (maybe!) if his brother weren’t in a high-ranking (albeit non-technical) position in US Soccer? I understand the questions being asked, for sure. But that doesn’t change the outcome, and to imply that Berhalter himself – or his tenure, before it even really begins – is somehow tainted by that process is unfair to a guy who didn’t choose to be selected and hired in that way.
A few notes on the process
As noted above, it was far from ideal. I’m not in excuse-making mode here, but I think there are some reasonable arguments that is wasn’t quite as bad as it’s been portrayed. Again, I’m not defending it in the big picture here. Still, some things to consider:
- Oct. 13: Bruce Arena resigns as USMNT head coach
- Dec. 4: Sunil Gulati announces he will not seek USSF Presidential re-election
- Dec. 10: USSF announces establishment of National Team General Manager positions
By the time Arena resigned, essentially nobody (in the public, at least) was behind Gulati anymore. If he’d hired the new head coach while effectively a lame duck – or actually so after Dec. 4 – there would have been riots in the streets. Maybe not literally. Who would have been leading those riots? In many cases, the same folks who are up in arms about how long this process took. The General Manager position was established (and actually wasn’t selected by the president, but rather a six-member committee and approved by the Board of Directors), but the sentiment would have been the same.
- Feb. 10: Carlos Cordeiro elected president of US Soccer
- Feb. 28: USSF gives an update from CEO Dan Flynn on GM hiring process, the first since Cordeiro’s election
- June 6: Earnie Stewart hired as USMNT General Manager
- June 13: United Bid for 2026 World Cup defeats Morocco in FIFA congress
- June 14-July 15: FIFA World Cup 2018
- Aug. 1: Earnie Stewart begins in GM role
- Oct. 22: The Washington Post‘s Steven Goff reports that Flynn will retire from his position
- Nov. 11: Crew SC eliminated from MLS Cup Playoffs
- Dec. 2: Gregg Berhalter’s hire announced
This is the stretch where some actual complaints can be made (which, uh, given that it’s under the “new and improved” US Soccer, is not encouraging for the future). The selection process for a General Manager should have been expedited. Certainly, Cordeiro was occupied with the United Bid for the 2026 World Cup, but based on publicly-available information, at least, it was Flynn, Sporting Director Ryan Mooney, and a search committee involved in the GM search: a bit of division of labor would have allowed the search and the United Bid’s lobbying to happen concurrently.
Then, when Stewart was hired away from the Philadelphia Union, he still spent two months – including during the World Cup, which might have been a nice time to scout coaches or at least network, if he’d begun the position immediately – cooling his heels before taking over the role officially.
The length of time it took Stewart to hire “the guy he was always going to hire anyway” is probably unfair to both he and Berhalter. Despite innuendo to the contrary by the pessimistic sections of the fanbase, four coaches were formally interviewed (the only other one publicly known is outgoing FC Dallas coach Oscar Pareja), and several others had less-formal conversations with Stewart. Would you have liked this to happen more quickly? Of course. If Stewart always had his eye on Berhalter, though, the length of time would have been reduced. You can’t want both thoroughness and and expedited timeline. Complaints about the lack of the latter necessarily indicate a willingness to sacrifice the former (and complaints about each are approximately even, and coming from the same places).
The time between Cordeiro’s election and Stewart’s official beginning in the job are major problems to me. The length of time Stewart himself took in making the decision… well, until proven otherwise, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt in that regard (without needing to reiterate my Tata Martino debunk in every post about the USMNT coach). You can also take exceptions – and I take pretty big ones here – about the scope of the GM job, which includes no technical direction through the youth ranks, and seems to be just a one-man search committee for head coaches.
So, is anyone happy about the time this took? Probably not. Does understanding the timeline make it a bit more reasonable? Certainly. Your mileage may vary in terms of which you prioritize.
Back to Berhalter
So: US Soccer has hired the most-capped (44) manager in its history, and a guy who has taken a meager roster spend in MLS terms, and turned it into decent results. One problem here is that there doesn’t appear to be much correlation between roster spend and success in MLS (Berhalter’s 2018 Crew in red):
The trendline is a little skewed by a couple data points. The Red Bulls (top left corner) set an MLS points record despite a similarly unimpressive player budget, while Toronto FC (far right) were below-average despite spending more than half-again as much money as the No. 2 team in budget.
There are explanations for those two outliers: Red Bulls have an awesome academy and are dedicated to building their first team through it, while Toronto had major injuries this year and probably overspends for two of its DPs (Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore) in terms of on-field performance because they’re USMNT stars. It’s going to be way too much work to bash together two databases to calculate spend per minute played for each team: Toronto would still be up there, but with Altidore out most of the year, for example, they’d at least come back to the pack a bit.
Still, even taking those two data points out of the picture, the positive correlation between player salaries and points earned isn’t that strong. Columbus was still above the trendline in either respect, and without the benefit of a strong academy system (and with an owner that spent most of the season trying to undermine his team’s local support and possibly even results, in order to justify a move).
In terms of “doing more with less,” there’s an argument for Berhalter to be a great coach, and underrated when you look only at his teams’ finishes in the standings (third, second, ninth, fifth, fifth in the East) and playoffs (conference semis, MLS runners-up, DNQ, conference final, conference semifinal).
His teams are defensively stout, and he has a reputation as a striker-whisperer (a reputation that was only increased by Gyasi Zardes’s increase from two goals with LA Galaxy last year to 19 this year, and an increase from 4.2 xG to 20.6 xG in the same stretch, according to American Soccer Analysis.
Certainly the former aspect is something that had traditionally been a hallmark of US Men’s National teams (hard-working, great goalie, solid defense), and you’d hope that the latter turns into a bit more of a goal explosion for a side that scored a record-low .91 goals per game in 2018 under interim manager Dave Sarachan.
Berhalter doesn’t have the high-flying offense of Tata Martino (though, in terms of how it translates to the international level, I’d contend that the US doesn’t have the high-flying talent of Miguel Almiron and Josef Martinez), and he doesn’t have the high profile of others that fans were interested in: former Spain and Real Madrid manager Julen Lopetegui (about which: agreed.) or… well, here’s where the lack of transparency in the process has been used against Berhalter. The assumption is that he was the only legitimate candidate, and that puts unfair expectations and even blame on him.
However, in the interest of our enjoyment, let’s give the man a clean slate and let him earn the accolades (or criticisms) he receives, rather than placing external issues at his feet. You may not be happy with the process, or even the result. But that’s not Berhalter’s fault. His tenure should stand on its own merits.
Stay tuned in the coming days for much more on Berhalter’s product on the field.
Club and Country 