Ex-USA stars call for coaching change after loss: 'Gregg Berhalter hasn't been good enough'
Should Gregg Berhalter be fired?
That was the most pressing issue surrounding the embattled United States men's national team and its manager the moment the final whistle sounded on their 1-0 loss to Uruguay on Monday, completing a stunning group stage elimination from the 2024 Copa América tournament on its home soil.
While FOX Sports lead soccer analyst Alexi Lalas thinks there is plenty of blame to go around among the current team, he still believes Berhalter has ultimately failed in his second go-around as the team's coach, and the current USMNT is not prepared to take advantage of the immense opportunity it has when the U.S. co-hosts the 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup in two years.
"I know there's sport in firing coaches in all professional sports, and I know the knives are out — and they should be, because this is not good enough for Gregg Berhalter," Lalas said on "Copa América Tonight" after Thursday's match. "With 2026 barreling down the pike … we can't afford to waste it. We can't afford to be embarrassed, and we can't afford to arrive in the summer of '26 with a team that has not progressed, that has not evolved, that has not improved.
"I'm sure if Gregg Berhalter was here, he would say, 'Oh, but you don't see what's happening inside.' I don't give a crap what is happening inside. I don't care about the dynamic. I don't care how much your players love you. I don't care how ‘Kumbaya’ it is, all I care about is if I see a U.S. men's national team that is better than before. We haven't seen that, and that's a problem going forward."
Lalas reiterated that he is of the mind that national teams should change coaches every four-year World Cup cycle, and since Berhalter led the team through the previous cycle and at the 2022 FIFA Men's World Cup, a change should have been made then. He also restated his belief that if the U.S. Soccer Federation had already decided to re-hire Berhalter after the World Cup, as was reportedly the case, the early 2023 controversy involving Gio Reyna's parents should not have stood in the way of that decision.
Alexi Lalas' reaction to United States' elimination from Copa América
Berhalter was ultimately re-hired by new USSF director Matt Crocker in June 2023, six months after his first USMNT coaching contract ran out.
When asked point-blank on "Copa América Tonight" whether Berhalter should remain the USMNT's leader heading into 2026, Lalas' fellow USMNT legend Clint Dempsey said he did not believe so — but he is also concerned about the time it may take to go through another search process for Berhalter's replacement.
"I don't think we've progressed enough since the last World Cup," Dempsey said. "We're not on the right track. It took too long to even do this search to then have him back. … How long is that process going to take if you do get another guy to come in? Because you see how long it took last time, we don't have time. And who is someone that's good enough that can take us forward, that's out there waiting in the wings? Those are questions that the federation needs to figure out. But for me, [Berhalter] hasn't been good enough."
After the team's Copa América disaster, Lalas said Crocker also deserves some blame for how the risky choice to bring back Berhalter did not ultimately pay off.
"This is on Matt Crocker, because he ultimately came to the decision that not only are we going to hire Gregg Berhalter, but we're going to rehire Gregg Berhalter after all of [the Reyna controversy]," Lalas said. "And nobody would have said anything if they had gone in a different direction."
Gregg Berhalter: Do the USMNT need to find a new manager?
One of the factors in the decision to re-hire Berhalter was reportedly private and public words of support for him from team captain Christian Pulisic and others. FOX Soccer analyst Carli Lloyd, who won three World Cups with the U.S. women's national team, said that was not necessarily a positive sign in her eyes.
"My concern is just how comfortable these players are with Berhalter," Lloyd said. "We won championships, and we hated our coaches. I'm not saying you have to hate your coach, but I question how comfortable it is inside that locker room. Are [the players] being pushed? Are they being held accountable? It just doesn't look like that from the outside looking in."
Almost simultaneously to Lloyd, former USMNT defender Jimmy Conrad made a similar point while co-hosting "FOX Soccer Now" alongside Melissa Ortiz, Wes Morgan and Conrad's former USMNT teammate Maurice Edu. Like Lalas, Conrad believes Berhalter should never have been brought back after the 2022 World Cup in the first place.
"I think the players needed to hear a new voice," Conrad said. "I'll die on that hill. I think the players just need to hear one coach for one World Cup cycle for four years, [then] you get someone else that's new. That's no guarantee that the grass is gonna be any greener just because you do that, but I think it's important for the players to stay on their toes and that nobody feels ultimately comfortable that they're entitled to a starting position, even though obviously some players are undeniable in that way."
While Edu disagrees with Lalas's and Conrad's one-coach-one-cycle philosophy, he also says that Berhalter cannot hide behind any excuses for the U.S.'s poor Copa América performance.
"Gregg Berhalter is going to be the one that's going to have to answer for a lot of this," Edu said. "A national team is very different than a club team — a club team, if you're not happy with the results, you can change players. With a national team, you don't have that luxury to be able to make wholesale changes. The only change you can really make that can have a large impact on the team is the manager.
"[Berhalter is] the first person that has to answer for these results. You can point to various different things that happened along the way. You can say refereeing, and you can say [Tim Weah's] red card last game threw the team off, and they couldn't respond. These are all things that you've got to manage — if this is a World Cup, are you going to make that same excuse? Are you going to point to these same things as reasons why you didn't find a way to still get results against Panama to put you in a better position to go into this final game? … Ultimately, as a whole, the players, Gregg, we showed that we still can't win against elite teams."
When Berhalter was asked after the match whether he believes he is the right person to lead the United States men's national team to the 2026 World Cup on home soil, he firmly answered, "Yes."
Whether his bosses agree remains to be seen in the coming days.
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