Gregg Berhalter’s return as USMNT manager is official

Gregg Berhalter’s return to the U.S. men’s soccer team became official on Friday, and his welcome-back news conference featured pointed questions and extensive answers.

“Before this process, I didn’t know Gregg, but what I did find is during the process, from the first moment that I met him through till the end of the process, what came through in abundance was his passion, his knowledge, his leadership, and his growth mindset,” U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker said.

President Cindy Cone called the process “exhaustive and exhausting.” She turned to Berhalter and said she has “all the confidence in you to lead us not only on the field, but continue your leadership off the field and helping U.S. Soccer grow the game.”

Crocker said his list of potential candidates was “in double digits,” and ran through a slew of the kinds of tests he put before them.

“On every step of the way, Gregg scored phenomenally,” he said. The reward was a contract through the end of 2026, the year the U.S. will cohost the next men’s World Cup with Canada and Mexico.

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We’ll never know who else he considered, save for reporting by The Athletic and ESPN that Jesse Marsch and Patrick Vieira were among the candidates. Union manager Jim Curtin never formally was, sources with knowledge of the matter told The Inquirer.

“There has been zero restrictions on who I’ve spoken to, whether they’re in contract or out of contract, what leagues they’ve come from,” Crocker said. “It’s been a worldwide search. … Not at one point during the process did I think we needed, or we could only focus on, a smaller pool of U.S. talent, for example.”

CEO JT Batson said the final decision was made “a couple days ago.” He also pointedly said “we had clear alignment from our board to go find the best coach, and then we figure out how we pay for it.”

That was a response to critics who complained that returning to Berhalter isn’t just a lack of ambition, but cheap. But still, why did the process take six months just to return to the old guy?

“Being able to conduct a worldwide search to land with Gregg — it’s not business as usual. This is an evolution of the program,” Crocker said. “It might look like there’s been a lost period of time, but sometimes you need time to reflect and to move forward.”

Berhalter, 49, described the process as “a series of interviews over a couple of days, and then the [final] day itself was close to 10 hours of different testing and conversations and tasks being prepared.”

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Batson acknowledged that the vote by U.S. Soccer’s board of directors to approve Berhalter’s new contract, the last step in the hiring process, was not unanimous. That’s a rare sign of internal dissent over a major hire.

“We have a very diverse and passionate board, and as a part of good governance, you should have good discussion,” he said. “We had a very vibrant discussion.”

Though Batson didn’t say who voted no, he said there was “one individual who did not vote in the affirmative, [and], we’ve already had conversations today around ideas he has around how we make sure of the most vibrant and diverse staff going forward.”

Berhalter’s most immediate priority is likely to be repairing a fractured relationship with Gio Reyna. The young U.S. star was nearly sent home from last fall’s World Cup for a subpar work ethic, and his parents Claudio and Danielle — former U.S. national team players and decades-long friends of the Berhalter family — sparked an extraordinary scandal by revealing Berhalter’s decades-old incident of intimate partner abuse against his now-wife Rosalind.

“I’d certainly acknowledge that there’s work to do,” Gregg Berhalter said. “Gio is an important player to this team, he’s an extremely talented individual, and I have the obligation and the commitment to coach him like I coach every other player.”

» READ MORE: A timeline of the Reyna-Berhalter scandal that rocked U.S. soccer

Asked about the perception of hiring someone with an abuse incident on his record, Cone referred to the independent investigation that U.S. Soccer commissioned in December to detail the history.

“We take accusations of domestic violence very seriously,” she said. “We trust those findings, and Gregg has our full support.”

Berhalter reflected on one of the highest-profile moments of his tenure, the immediate aftermath of the Americans’ elimination from last fall’s World Cup with a 3-1 loss to the Netherlands. That was the last of his 60 games in charge so far, with a 37-11-12 record from the start of 2019 through the exit from Qatar.

“Walking around and looking at the players’ faces and seeing their heads down, there was real disappointment,” he said. “There wasn’t satisfaction for us going to the second round and losing to a world powerhouse. … They were hungry, and that was the important thing.”

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Some key players from that squad strongly endorsed Berhalter recently, including Christian Pulisic, Tim Weah, and Antonee Robinson. Crocker said he gladly solicited their input, and Berhalter thanked them for their words.

“It’s always nice to hear when players are supporting you, no question about it,” he said. “But I think what’s even deeper is when you hear things like, ‘You know, we can deal with this challenge, because we can face adversity, we know how to stick to what we’ve been doing, and keep going like we’re a family.’ Those cultural things are what really excites me, and really gets me motivated to be back with the team.”

Ventnor native B.J. Callaghan will continue as the Americans’ interim bench boss through the Gold Cup this month and next, even though Berhalter is back. Crocker said “there’s some real big-ticket items around some real strategic stuff over the next couple of seasons that we need to map out first.”

He promised to “push the boundaries” with hires “on the technical front and the high performance front, to bring in a world-class staff and world-class performers to make us better.”

Berhalter said he won’t meet with the players yet, so they can focus on preparing for Sunday’s Concacaf Nations League final against Canada in Las Vegas. The Americans routed rival Mexico, 3-0, on Thursday, and the news of Berhalter’s return got out as the teams were taking the field. They didn’t learn of it until reporters informed them postgame.

“I think the match [Thursday] night showed we haven’t missed a beat,” Cone said, taking a moment to celebrate in the hot spotlight.

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