Yes, Berhalter can easily be a top candidate for the USMNT job.
Another factor is that although Berhalter isn't the best coach in the world, he may be better than you think.
Can I just ask what it is that you think makes Gregg Berhalter a good manager? I agree that using the criteria set up by US Soccer GGG might have been the best available and willing option. But that doesn’t make him good. Feel free to disagree with me on anything below. That’s the beauty of the game- we’re free to see things differently.
Things I think he is good at:
Team culture- there is no doubt that he has been instrumental in building a brotherhood. Many players came out in support of Gregg and brought up this togetherness as a reason. That being said, he’s not perfect as the Gio situation showed. I do think those fences will be mended, but it put players in an uncomfortable position of having to comment on this as well violating “what’s said in the locker room stays in the locker room” code.
What I think he has improved at:
General tactics- Gregg has gotten better at the overall tactical approach for the USMNT over time. It’s been slow, but he has changed and he has improved. Sometimes we forget how the team tried to the play when GGG first took over, especially that Mexico game. Van Gaal spoke about how impressed he was with the drilling of the USMNT which I think is an extension of this. Broadly speaking, he has a vision for the US should play and gets the team to play that way. I do expect this to improve and change over time (though improvement in general can’t be just assumed). It’s still a work in progress though and I can’t say for sure that he will ever be good at this.
Things I think GGG is not good at:
Alternate and in game tactics- this is both in having any sort of effective Plan B if Plan A isn’t working and in game alterations. Often his substitutions come too late or don’t make a difference. I don’t consider the Honduras game any proof to the contrary as that game was simply cleaning up his own mess. Gregg has been a one trick pony and has shown no indication of changing. I believe Van Gaal also mentioned this predictability in his post game presser too. We know how the US will attack and defend. Sometimes it’s like beating our heads against a brick wall. It’s not going to work, but we’re just going to keep doing it anyways.
Attacking creativity- obviously the players need to shoulder some of the blame here too, but all too often the US was easily forced out wide and dumped in easy to defend crosses. I’m sure folks will defend him by saying that he didn’t have a striker, but again we can’t just assume things will get better when GGG has a track record of poor attacking creativity. His club in Sweden gave that as a reason for canning him too. Gregg has said that he doesn’t need his 9 to score goals but rather to fit into the system. Beyond that, Pepi has been scoring and was readily available for the World Cup. But even so, when I watch the US I just consistently see a team with no attacking identity, a team that’s easy to defend, a team that doesn’t score goals, and a team that finds it difficult to create chances.
Things I am still annoyed about that others can rightfully disagree with:
The decision to play that frigid game at home against Honduras. It still feels like an unnecessary risk against an inferior opponent that could have helped level the playing field and put both players and fans at risk.
The constant “road games in CONCACAF are hard” refrain. Even if that is true, GGG saying it and players repeating cannot have a positive impact going into these games. It just is a defeatist attitude to me, and this coming from a coach who was so concerned about what players heard and how it impacted their psyche that he called the performance in the Canada loss “dominant”.
In terms of results, the team won the Nations League and Gold Cup. I think the results glossed over some uneven performances but YMMV. But wins are wins and that Nations League final was epic. Ultimately the only things that matter to me are qualifying and World Cup performances. In qualifying the USMNT finished third, ahead of the play-in position of 4th only on goal differential. Based on talent alone, at the very least I thought the US was better than Mexico and probably better than Canada as I think Herdman has gotten more out of his squad than Berhalter has out of the US. In the World Cup the US got out of a decently easy group before losing 3-1 in the knockout rounds to a world powerhouse. The performances again were uneven, but I thought that US looked really good against England. All in all, with a very talented but very young team this gets a “met basic expectations” or, if I were still a teacher, a C. I would have expected the US to do better in qualifying especially with a weakened Mexico and a very inexperienced (in terms of high level soccer) Canada finishing higher. I think anyone would have considered finishing behind Wales or Iran to be a failure. So in the end I’m not seeing how GGG positively impacted performances. To me, he’s merely ok.
To be fair, we don’t know who the other options were. We know Bielsa was out there to be hired because Uruguay signed him. I haven’t seen the full details of that contract but in the past the USMNT coach has had a higher salary than Uruguay. I’m not a huge Bielsa fan but I’d take him over Gregg 11/10. A couple of other names who might have been available, just to show my Spanish bias, are Luis Enrique and Julen Lopetegui. Enrique managed what I’m on record as saying is an overrated Spanish national team for the last cycle and was bounced out of the World Cup by Morocco. He does have experience working with younger players and identified the strengths of players like Gavi before their clubs did. Again, I’m not super high on him but would easily take him over Gregg. I was always high on Lopetegui. Spain were undefeated with him at the helm from 2016-18. He was fired for a monumentally dumb career decision just before the World Cup, but in terms of international success as a manager he’s tough to beat as he definitely got a lot out of that team. He’s under contract at Wolves for one more season but has made rumblings about getting out early (my gut was that this was a signal to US Soccer as this job was one he wanted in the past). I would think that Low was a possibility too, but I’m not sure. Whatever the case, based on the criteria set down by Crocker, I imagine that all of these managers were weeded out. So my problem is likely more with the criteria than anything.
Look, I do agree that once the field was narrowed that GGG was likely the best option. Vieira, Marsch, and Henry don’t do it for me. I just find it hard to believe that a data-based worldwide search of all the managers in the world spit out Gregg as the best option. He’s ok. He might get better. But for me he’s a gentleman’s C of a manager and I don’t doubt for a second that we could have found someone better if everything that US Soccer said was true. I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong.
