International managers beware: the USMNT job isn't as easy as it looks
They're coming. They're swarming from everywhere and every situation, from extraordinary success and woeful failure and everything in between.
The United States men's national team job is still open, for now, and that buzzing sound tickling your eardrums is bees homing in on the honeypot.
Until U.S. Soccer appoints a successor, after firing Gregg Berhalter in the wake of the team's messy exit from the Copa América, a silly season will well and truly be upon us, a breathless stretch where agents become salesmen, coaches become optimists, fans become experts and the USMNT's World Cup future potentially hangs in the balance.
Get this one wrong, U.S. Soccer, and the greatest opportunity the sport in this country has seen for three decades will pass on by, less fulfilled than it should have been. Merely co-hosting a World Cup will undoubtedly grow American soccer, but having a home team that can actually do something productive there would work wonders for the program.
Out there, somewhere, is the right person for the job. Out there, everywhere, are a bunch of coaches who think they are the right person for the job.
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The USMNT post is the shiny new thing in the soccer gossip-scape. It is where agents want their guy's name thrown into the mix, even if they have to do the aforementioned hurling themselves.
Once we got past the Jürgen Klopp foolishness, we have seen countless names linked with the role. One brings a recent track record of the highest order — Luis de la Fuente just won the Euros with Spain, for goodness’ sake, and the fact that he did surely rules him out of a Stateside switch for now.
Gareth Southgate's newly-minted free agency put him on the radar, Mauricio Pochettino is a big name sweepstakes entrant, and hey, Pep Guardiola once said he'd like to coach a national team.
Then there is Rafa Benitez, yes, a former Champions League winner with Liverpool, but most-recently fired from relegation-threatened Spanish club Celta Vigo, as detailed by the Netflix cameras on "La Liga: All Access."
Benitez, 64, is interested in the USMNT job, according to reports. I bet he is. Quite why the USMNT would be interested in him based of recent achievements is another matter.
Reports about Patrick Vieira supposedly being "in negotiations" for the role also seem to have a bit of mischief about them, unless the U.S. Soccer hierarchy wants to abandon sporting director Matt Crocker's assertion that the best candidate must be a "serial winner."
There are plenty of reasons why the USA job is a good one, and, in its own way, a really big one.
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Taking over at world No. 16 USA isn't the same as, say, No. 15 Switzerland. It has more elements to it than that, the potential for more money, more gravitas and more opportunity given that the World Cup is coming.
It is a rare option in some ways. Crocker, as reported by FOX Sports' Doug McIntyre, has a strong preference for a foreign coach. With most nations, passport color is an immediate potential eliminator. If Julian Nagelsmann leaves, for example, Germany will hire a German.
The American gig is one plenty of coaches might like their chance of landing, with a more open criteria than most. Contrast that with England, who will either go for someone within their own system already, or for a mega-name candidate.
Berhalter's replacement will also face less pressure than most other national team coaches, even with the innate expectation a World Cup brings. There is not a baying public and media and a unified sense of outrage when it comes to soccer matters here. No one was very impressed with the Copa América exit. It didn't spark a national sense of soul-searching.
The standard for achievement is also more manageable. Spain's campaign would have been a failure if had lost in the final, which is why de la Fuente was putting the feelers out.
England's campaign was seen as a disappointment, despite Gareth Southgate making it to the Euro final for the second straight time.
No one is expecting the USA to be in any kind of contention win the 2026 World Cup, as Bruce Arena optimistically might be feasible way back in 2017. Just before his team failed to reach the 2018 tournament.
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Furthermore, it is accurate to consider this a job with a high chance of coming out the other side with reputation enhanced. The perception of the team right now is probably a bit lower than the truth.
For a coach to add to his resume that they took a squad from the grim ashes of Copa America embarrassment, to a World Cup quarterfinal, would be seen as a monumental success. Even getting to the last 16 again, like in 2010, 2014 and 2022, but doing so by winning a knockout round game in the expanded 48-team format, would be considered a win.
If you don't count the very first staging of the World Cup in 1930, the U.S. has only won one knockout round game in its history, when the 2002 team made the quarters.
The choice for U.S. Soccer might need to be necessarily populist. Getting the fans behind a new appointment will be key; this is a program is serious need of some goodwill and hope.
That's not going to happen with Steve Cherundolo, despite his outstanding efforts with LAFC in Major League Soccer. If Cherundolo's time comes, bouncing off of a home World Cup feels like a more natural fit than going into one.
There is no suggestion here that the USA is a leading soccer power on the men's side. If anything has come out of the past month, it is the realization that there is a ton of work to do for the men's team to be anywhere near the world's best.
But coaching jobs are quirky things. A combination of factors, including salary, timing, opportunity — and the ever-present carrot of hosting the world's best tournament — make this highly appealing.
Which is why the coaches will continue to swarm until a shortlist is created and a decision is made. Hopefully, somewhere in amongst the pack, is the right choice for 2026 and beyond.
Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports. Follow him on Twitter @MRogersFOX.
