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Report: Berhalter closing in on deal with USMNT

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Columbus Crew head coach Gregg Berhalter has been one of the lead candidates for the U.S. Men’s National Team job. After months of speculation, the former defender may soon be taking over the team he used to play for.

U.S. Soccer is closing in on a deal to hire Berhalter, according to a report by Yahoo Sports. The report also stated that former FC Dallas coach Oscar Pareja has also been interviewed for the job, and that Berhalter and Pareja are two of four coaches who were interviewed for the position.

Berhalter won 44 caps with the USMNT during his playing career, which saw 15 years in Europe and two in MLS with the LA Galaxy.

After retiring from playing, Berhalter served as an assistant with the Galaxy before being named manager of Swedish outfit, Hammarby. Since taking over as Crew coach in 2013, Berhalter has posted a 74-50-69 record.

The USMNT concluded its 2018 schedule with defeats to England 3-0, and Italy 1-0 earlier this month.

Comments

  1. He’s going to teach them to kick and run, zero tactical footballing awareness. More of the same, anti-footballing stuff.
    Come on boys, let’s do this for Team Murica! Thank god USMNT gets to play Turks and Caicos and Barbuda to qualify for the WC…then again, the epic failure last time around is oh too fresh..

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  2. I am not convinced that any MLS coach would be the right choice. Marsch is probably a few years away from deserving it; Arena and Bradley, both more experienced and proven coaches are better than Berhalter but are non-starters, as is Sigi Schmidt. Kreis might be comparable to Berhalter, but likely not quite as good. Tatu already has a job and he is not going to change.

    I am disappointed that Ernie did not find a better coach outside of MLS who would take the job.

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  3. sorry but no top 30 national team other than us would give berhalter the time of day. maybe you’re smarter than everyone else but more likely you’re gonna turn USSF into the same sort of half baked moneyball outfit as the Crew. teams with money don’t take risks and skip resume creds. they pay for proven.

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  4. i’ve decided berhalter fans aren’t thinking clearly because they are exhausted from moving the goalposts between conversations. he’s a winner, except you point out people who have actually won titles. well, he punches above his weight, except you point out there are other coaches who do more on a budget. well, he doesn’t have their academy, blah blah blah. thing is i swore we were hiring a coach who added their own demonstrable value — above and beyond their circumstances — and not xeroxing the crew.

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    • The Crew had the second or third lowest payroll depending on who you ask this season only your Houston Dynamo were lower. Yes, Red Bull was one spot above but that was almost 1 million dollars more in spending, 6.9 million to 7.7 million. Maybe that’s not much too a NBA or NFL Franchise but that’s a lot in MLS. When you include the total amount spent by the organization on academies and reserve squads its apples and oranges. So you are the one actually changing the bar, you know that winning percentage shows little in MLS because of parity rules so you move it to championships but Arena proved that winning MLS Cups is pretty worthless. So then you try to go with Crew spends about what NYRB and SKC spend, but you only count salary and not the millions spent in other areas. There are three prescribed methods of success in MLS spend big money on known DPs (Toronto, LAG), develop your own players from within through your academy and reserve side and spend moderately to fill holes (NYRB, SKC, Real), or a combo of both (Seattle). Precourt has chosen to spend modestly and invest nothing. You can say what you want but in professional sports no matter the sport or country if you aren’t spending a ton of money you aren’t winning. Take Bayern this year their biggest signing is Alphonso Davies who isn’t even eligible until January, and they are in 5th place. If you actually watch games Berhalter is a good manager respected and loved by his players and the fans in Columbus. He is passionate about winning and his teams play attractive proactive soccer. He plays a formation that he can and frequently does adapt to his opponent. He is not afraid to stand up to players who do not put the team first and he gets more out of his strikers than other managers do with the same player. He understands MLS and its players but realizes its limitations and is well aware of the benefits of players in Europe.

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      • sorry but the whole berhalter analysis tends to be more an exercise in negative dismantling the creds of others as opposed to positive showing the crew have truly done anything. short of friedel i think he is one of the worst choices from the domestic oriented stone tweet or the available international coaches. if you believe the crew are that limited then he needs to move to LA or a resourced team and show he can in fact coach a winner. Mourinho won Europe with Porto, SAF with Aberdeen (the last non Old Firm SPL winner). flynn’s rule has been that you had to win a league to coach our team, and i see that as expecting that sort of success from a US coach. i feel we are wandering back towards the 70s-80s formula of indifferent NT coaching and a league more concerned with brand names and ticket sales than a space for domestic players. you can connect the dots on how we used to fare in qualifying in that era.

    • I am not exceptionally wild about Berhalter. But if he’s the guy, I’ll give him my full support until he shows me the he can’t handle it. That goes through the Gold Cup for now. On another note, Voice talking about moving goalposts…. just classic.

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      • from me he will get the same honeymoon as any other coach, here’s a few games, let me see you turn this ship around. by GC or LoN i will expect a system laid down and commitment to either trialing players or gelling a team. we should have beat england in 2010, and beat italy in 2012. i now have to listen to the dumbing down of expectations like we were never at their level. i don’t accept it. 10 years ago we were a top 8-16 team. i expect more. if this coach doesn’t get us right back to that level this process is a regressive disservice.

        re your other comments, if i say a and b i believe both, and just because one post says a and i reply with b later (or said b in another thread) doesn’t mean i moved the goalposts. i feel like i am the opposite, i believe what i see and tend to be stubborn about my analysis. i feel like i am a decent analyst so i make no apologies. i am open to facts like how robinson has played.

      • Let’s be honest England is much better now than they were in 2010 and we were top 8 only in the computer world. We can compete with top countries if things fall our way like tying France this Summer, but we have to have better players at almost every position if we are going to realistically call ourselves a top 10 nation.

  5. Does he have successful managing experience? Yes, he hasn’t won an MLS Cup here are the winners of the last few anyone want one of them Vanney, Schmetzer, Porter, Arena, Vermes, Kreis, Sigi, Kinear.
    ————————
    Does he have international experience? As a player yes, not as a manager. He’s experienced away games on CONCACAF, he’s experienced the demands of playing in Europe and then flying to NA for matches.
    —————————-
    Does he understand the American player? Yes, and he speaks multiple languages and lived in Europe.
    ——————————
    Does he have tactical awareness? Yes, both Martini and Torrent have talked about how he is Great tactician.
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    Nepotism? Jay is not in charge of the hiring process, Gregg has to be approved by the advisory committee and the board.
    ———————————
    Everyone wants to get on record so it goes bad they can say I told you so. If this the hire I have no idea why it took so long but quit whining. He is neither Arena or Klinsmann and that is likely a good thing. How our young players manage their own development and club situations will have a much larger say in this next cycle than the manager.

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    • “Nepotism? Jay is not in charge of the hiring process, Gregg has to be approved by the advisory committee and the board”

      The man way up the NT food-chain… who hired Stewart is Jay Berhalter. Can you really say with a straight face this has no influence???????

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      • A six-person selection committee selected Stewart, which was approved by Cordeiro so no Jay Berhalter did not hire Earnie Stewart. Jay was one member of the committee but he was not the highest ranking member and was not the committee chair. Berhalter is not on the hiring committee and has no vote to select the next manager.

      • To keep my response simple: Any organization with any semblance of professionalism, competence and integrity that was hiring someone who is the brother of someone as visible and influential in the organization would have gone WAY out of their way to have a process that clearly, transparently demonstrated they aggressively pursued all of the best candidates available.This is definitely not that. Appearance does matter. Particularly in the context of the last 2 years. They’ve certainly made Berhalter’s job much more difficult from the gate. Fortunately for him our fanbase is rather more anemic/dispassionate than most. If this ends up being the result- I really truly will be pulling for him. He and the players certainly have the capability to qualify this cycle, but……. one would hope that someday our aspirations will grow greater than just that. Cheers.

  6. not only is there a clubby logrolling aspect re stewart that has to be considered, but i feel obliged to mention that since stewart was hired our record is 1W 1D 4L. since i am hearing spiritualist happy talk — if you just have faith in the process — how about some cold numbers. that would be like .67 ppg. almost 2 GAA for those 6 games. we haven’t rounded the corner in any visible way and look worse. this was the guy who GM’d Philly to like 1 very short playoff season in several years. who looks like he will hire a coach who peaked in 2015 and even that year couldn’t win a championship game at home.

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      • you mean if a team plays for wins i can’t judge them for failing to earn them? they didn’t try my way, so i can point out the failings in theirs. it is a running irony that the more we play to win the less it happens. maybe we need to quit selecting on rep and start finding people who actually play.

      • I don’t rember the exact number but I believe the average age of the players called in for the last round of friendlys was 22 years and something months. And only 2 of our starting 11 against Italy had more then 10 caps so to say that Sarachan was prioritizing winning over player selection, trying out new tactics, etc is ridiculous. You don’t trot out a bunch of 21 year olds in Europe to take on Italy if your main goal is winning the game.

      • you weren’t watching too close, then. the whole team has gone young. just noting that thus says nothing. the deal is he actually was going back to the same set of players — though young — and has actually given out few recent first caps. he literally called the same 3 keepers — before injuries — all fall. his field player selections are basically a rotation of about 25-30 players. he didn’t hold players like Brooks, Miazga, Trapp, and others accountable for how they played. new players like Amon come in, play well, disappear. what you miss is that this by its nature will be an era of young players — the old ones aged out in bulk after TnT — so it then becomes do you actually look very far for them. the mere fact that a coach who lost 3/4 of his old team is playing younger players doesn’t say much because he had no choice. what says much is does he fall back on Bradley or Guzan, and does he keep looking for and incorporating Amons. i think on defense and in the midfield he actually just rotates a set of players many of whom are already as frustrating as what cost us last cycle.

  7. Like Bruce said “we are on the right track nothing needs to change”. I was hoping for Tab Ramos but I’m sure they know what they’re doing. LMAO.

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  8. At this point who cares that its going to be Gregg it is what it is. Lets just hope for healthy players and development

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  9. “I don’t need to see his identification.”

    “These aren’t the droids we’re looking for.”

    “Move along.”

    Won nothing, no international managerial experience, very little managerial experience and only managed in small time MLS and Swedish second division. And “allegedly” the soccer media and fans will sell you on this the the best hire we could make and he is the right guy for right now, blah, blah, blah.

    Please tell me guys we aren’t buying this load of crap anymore…

    I want my federation back.

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  10. “Sorry both Berhalter brothers are well qualified for their jobs and Jay will not have any say over his brothers employment so I’m not sure of this conflict……..”- Johnnyrazor

    Really? the #2 in USSF, will have no say in his brothers employment. Keep living in your candyland house. Wahl confirmed that it was Jay who was directly contacted about Lopetegui. and we passed immediately for the mighty Gregg.

    So much for progressive thinking in USSF.

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    • yeah something about not looking for new candidates at this stage, when the stage was trying to decide who to hire. absurd. if zizou or wenger or conte came in late would they have also gotten we’re no longer considering new candidates? for that matter any supposed process that results in berhalter isn’t even good enough for picking MLS coach of the year much less USMNT head coach.

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    • i mean to me it’s like if i come up with berhalter at the end of my process i call the bigger names and ask them what i’ve done wrong. do i need to offer more money? get rid of silly requirements like moving to chicago, working in an office, or reporting to a soccer boss? or where did my search go wrong. sure as heck not oh well guess we’ll settle sign here.

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  11. For those clamoring to give the job to Tab Ramos, that movement only gained traction in the past wee, after his successful U-20 tournament. That’s not to say Tab hasn’t always been on most people’s shortlist of 5-6 potential candidates, but this newfound certainty that Tab is THE right man of the job is a bit shortsighted.

    I do agree that USSF has done Berhalter no favors by dragging out this process. It’s going to be a huge letdown when he’s finally announced. I’m confident he can get the USMNT back to the World Cup, but I don’t think we will go any deeper than in 2014 and 2010.

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    • Ordinary coach for an ordinary player pool. No trodding on mls here. I just don’t see the talent in the player pool. Regardless of the gaffer.

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      • Agree somewhat, but only because most of the squad is so young. Pulisic, McKinnie, Adams Weah Sargeant and the rest of the young guns could either become the next round of American disappointments, all light up Champions League or, most likely a combo of both. I do feel like this crop gives us a better chance of turning up a larger core of international level players than in the past when we had, at best, one strong field player (whether it was Donovan or later Dempsey) and a good goalie.

        We’re not going to have a starting 11 that can win the whole thing by 2022, but if we have 4-5 international caliber players, then maybe we can become a quarter-final type of team and backfill the rest of the squad with role players.

    • I am not sold on Ramos, but at least he has led 2 teams through the U-20 WC qualifying successfully. It is a role not dissimilar to the national team coach. Berhalter has been an average coach for an average team that did little to advance young US players. Vermes and Marsch are pretty clearly better choices than Berhalter, Ramos just bring some different experience (and Marsch has experience with the full US national team under Bradley so…)

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      • ideally he needs to coach an adult pro team to success as well but he has more demonstrated traction than does berhalter. it’s one of those things where if you are dismissive of him or tata that should promote an upward move and not eff it let’s settle for berhalter who’s never won anything including mls cup at home.

    • you’re suggesting the u20 coach only seemed to have momentum at the isolated instance where he gets to coach his team? but then we don’t care if berhalter dumps out of money time 2 rounds early for MLS.

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      • Took his team into Atlanta in front of 67,000 and beat Tata. Went into DC against the hottest team in MLS and won. Got knocked out by the two teams with the best records in MLS history.

    • Columbus just started their academy and they have a fairly poor homegrown area so they don’t have a lot of opportunity for young Americans. Justin Meram and a Ethan Finley were both young Americans brought up by Berhalter that have thrived for him and done nothing when they left.

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    • yeah i ran the numbers at some point and he was not near top in terms of americans in his 11. i think that was someone like vermes. i’ll grant the other guy’s point on their academy but so what if your job is coaching americans. the question is then can you coach our players and not can you cobble together the united nations.

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      • Played the same number of Americans as NYRB in their two playoff games and in their knockout round match against DC. Which is actually deceptive because it’s not counting Meram who has lived his entire life in America but represents Iraq through his parents heritage.

  12. Marsch won me into his camp during his first year at NY, not so much for the Red Bulls success, but because of the time he previously spent as an unpaid assistant coach at PU and the credit a PU player gave to him. During season before Marsch became the Red Bulls coach, the leader in the NCAA in goals per game was PU’s Cameron Porter. Porter credited Marsch’s work with him to help him learn how to make runs and get/stay open. Prior to that season, Porter was a good, but unspectacular player. In Porter’s first professional season, he scored a wonder goal for Montreal, but played only a few games before tearing his ACL sadly, he was never again the same player.

    It was March’s ability to teach a player how to improve to a higher level in a relatively short time, that I thought was remarkable, perhaps more so than his subsequently winning the Supporters Shields. While I don’t know details, I suspect that teaching ability is one of the reasons the Red Bulls were so successful in bring in young players during Marsch’s tenure.

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    • The crop of kids doesn’t need to know the basics. They are better at this age than most other generations of players at the same age. What this group of kids needs is someone that can make them play as a unit. someone that knows how to get the best out of them. Let’s face it, if they needed skill teaching they wouldn’t be where they are at their respective clubs.

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      • Marsch has excelled at getting the Red Bulls to play on the same page. He did that while having the foresight and courage to shed older players like McCarty, Kjlestan, and replaced them with homegrown players Adams and Davis.

        Players at every level tend to stay within their comfort zone and do what worked for them in the past; Marsch seems able to get players to try new things outside their comfort zone while fitting them into an overall set of tactics.

        The tactics the NY Red Bulls are using: high pressure in the opponents’ defending half, is something that the talent pool in the US can do. You can argue that tactic may get picked apart by teams better able to string together 10 passes than most MLS teams; that certainly is a shortcoming. However, it is a tactic that will work well on all but the top half-dozen teams in the world, certainly it would work against CONCACAF teams, including Mexico.

  13. Carlos Bocanegra was extremely underrated. Its crazy we have no CBS that perform like him when they play for the nats. I hope whoever is the new coach will find us a CB pairing that will work.

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  14. sorry but if you were a team at columbus’ level in MLS and you wanted to get better, you wouldn’t hire berhalter to guarantee success, you’d go hire Martino or Bradley or a proven winner. and atlanta is already better than columbus. so why on earth would USSF with a better team and bigger aspirations act like some bottom dweller MLS team that would take the risk on Berhalter. we missed the world cup, we are running out kids, and your solution is a midtable MLS coach? really? flynn apparently had a rule if it was MLS you had to have a Cup championship to be considered, but we’ve apparently watered down the position now.
    worst hire since before Bora.

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  15. Over his time as an MLS coach, Berhalter has not done much his record is barely over .500. He may have helped the Crew not fall apart amid all the team moving to wherever drama, but the product on the field has been barely average (9 of the 23 MLS teams finished above the Crew for the season).

    Marsch is a better coach and Armas is proving that he may be as well.
    Vermes, Bradley, Pareja all had better records and in my view did better with no more to work with; even Ben Olson’s DC United matched Columbus on points this season.

    But why stick to the MLS? Ramos has shown that he can bring together players from various teams (like a national team coach must do) and have them play decent soccer even when he is missing some of the stars.

    It is really odd that Berhalter has gotten so much interest for what I think is a pretty bland record.

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    • to me the whole thing feels about 3 years stale. in 2015 he was the flavor du jour even though columbus got beat at home by Portland for the title. since then he has not approached that level. as you point out, there have been “sensations” since then like armas who are the new flavor of the month. he is not the best coach nor the hot flavor of the month. his initial success has not been repeated. he does something with little but Pareja, Vermes, Ramos, Armas, Marsch, and others do more. and i think that whole line of argument is really crocked. i don’t want hopeful, i want an objective resume of success. i want someone who has basically already done what i need him to do with a struggling US team. here are some good parts and then some players who need help. show me you have lifted silverware from that beginning. contrary to conventional bs there are coaches out there right now with those histories. and then there’s your pick of MLS at a time when a lot of its coaches are just ok.

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    • Bradley and LAFC have vastly more resources than Crew FC. Pareja and Vermes have great academies that Precourt was unwilling to build because he couldn’t move it to Austin. Marsh couldn’t win in the playoffs and has to mature you can’t have a national team manager throwing Bobby Knight type fits on the sideline and blaming the refs whenever he loses, he’s also kind of a one trick pony if the press doesn’t work he’s lost. Ramos is hard to judge because the American U20 player so much better than it was 6 years ago so has he learned or are Pareja, Vermes, and others just giving him better players. We’d pick apart whomever is hired because there is no perfect candidate out there.

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      • i think the best coach is outside mls. but even within mls he is not near the best. his teams haven’t won cups, and by my estimates are not even the best low payroll team (NYRB). so he is neither the best winner nor the best value. the arguments “in his favor” seem more oriented to tearing down other’s success — while never pointing those tools back at him or using them to make comparisons — since he has none. my value analysis showed him 3rd behind NYRB. even Atlanta deemed resource rich played several slots above their payroll slot.

  16. The suspense is killing me. They’ve really, really done Berhalter no favors. Will be perhaps the most past-due, anti-climactic announcement of all time. I really do hope he exceeds all expectations and can overcome the luke warm, tasteless and putrid stew that cooked this “process” up. Indifferent, inaction for 14 mos. and plucking a seemingly competent manager off the back porch does not exactly inspire confidence… is not exactly inspired at all. I truly do hope Berhalter is and can turn the page to a new era.

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    • actually i was thinking the lack of leaks beyond the ‘winner” would help his hand in negotiations. the suspense of a vs b vs c usually holds down the winner’s price — or else you hire b or c instead. if we don’t know who the others are, and we openly select a winner, how can we push down his salary demands. and if pareja and others were the unannounced finalists, and pareja has a new job, you have no leverage.

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  17. Zardes led all Americans in goals scored in MLS and Trapp is the best American deep holding midfielder in MLS you can argue if we need someone who fills that role but both were deserving of looks. If everyone is healthy and you have your pick of 23 I don’t know that we’d see either but how often does that happen.

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    • i tend to agree that right now on merit they’d both compete for 23 slots but also not be obvious starters, and not guaranteed the 23 per se. i think we have drifted way too far from performance in favor of supposed pedigree. i worry he would play Crew favorites and not ruthlessly enforce performance. i think what the team in this state needs is no favorites and play performers, because it’s in rebuilding.

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    • Trapp is not the best in the MLS. Sean Davis, Bradley and probably Acosta and Bedoya are all at least equal and Vasquez is clearly better as is Adams..

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      • It really depends on how you define the role. I really thought Bedoya should have been chosen over Bradley. If you want a holding 6 really only Bradley and Trapp play that if you want 8s you have Davis, Acosta, and Bedoya. The point still remains they both deserved call ups based on how they’ve played in MLS. Trapp is in the realm of Dax, Benny, and others they are very good in MLS but their athletic ability just isn’t good enough against top 40 international teams.

      • if it’s berhalter we all now trapp gets first shot at it even if the tape doesn’t justify it. i thought he was part responsible for the italy goal and we’ll see how long it lasts. i agree that there has to be some other better option either veteran or the youth pipeline. someone has to be capable of running around, taking the right angles, getting stuck in etc. from the current usual suspects i’d say nunya.

  18. I’m starting to wonder if Berhalter really wants this job. I love the Crew, but since when does that job take precedence over the USMNT. If the USMNT manager position isn’t Berhalter’s dream job, then I don’t want him as coach. And why oh why is Stewart and the USSF so fixated on him, I just don’t get it. This situation has been bungled so badly I’m not sure it is a good idea to hire him now. There seem to be so many other candidates with more experience.

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    • it does not feel like we literally picked the best coach in the world interested in working with us. it feels like either we are corrupt or we have constrained the coach so bad better options didn’t want it. it’s very odd that stewart got announced months before leaving his last job in MLS — for which we then had to wait — but we have been so delicate with columbus, who soon may or may not even have a team. berhalter was not the top team in any year, including this, is already eliminated. he’s not even the best coach punching above his weight, armas is. what is the rational basis for this other than his brother works there and it’s a club now. he is not the biggest winner out there or in MLS. he is not the best value team, NYRB is. he is not the best coach available if we looked at foreigners. he is not even the best MLS choice. if it doesn’t quite make sense then it starts to feel corrupt or otherwise screwball, especially for a team that missed a world cup and shouldn’t be farting around.

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      • Comparing NYRB to Columbus is not a fair comparison. Columbus has just gotten their academy going and has no reserve team.

      • Did you know that Gregg Berhalter’s brother is Jay Berhalter the C.O.O. of The Us Soccer Federation? and He’s the same person who hired E, Stewart as US Soccer General Manager. Nepotism? or trying to form a ” mafia ” to control the Federation….

      • NYRB paid their players similar payroll to Columbus. Berhalter has had years in charge of Columbus to accumulate the pieces he wants so I am not open to excuse making blaming his club. i also feel at some point it’s put up or shut up and do you get results. are we hiring a coach who wins or are we hiring the coach for whom excuses can be made. funny but i’ll err on objective resume for the NT over subjective hope.

      • Who is this winning coach you are talking about? Bruce Arena couldn’t tie TnT who had nothing to play for? Lopetegui (2 Euro Youth Cups with Spain) couldn’t win with Real Madrid? Bradley knocked out in first round of playoffs at home by RSL. Bielsa, a second half Argentine title 20 years ago, David Moyes a Football Leauge 2nd Division (today League One) title in 2000. Records and silverware are not as important as your ability to manage men and adjust tactics.

      • Winning coaches available: Zizou, Conte, Wenger, and yes Lopategui. and I have previously pointed out there are coaches like Vermes who have managed MLS wins on low budgets. I feel like Berhalter slots in beneath all of them as he is neither some internationally successful guy nor even the hot, cup winning domestic guy. to me it’s basically saying any old mls coach will do. to mock the others who HAVE WON SOMETHING like they don’t exist or aren’t better than Berhalter is basically political-flat-earth-anti-science “alternative facts.”

  19. I think this will be another disaster. Is this the reason Trapp is playing? Zardes??? I was so hopeful Ernie would be a breath of fresh air, instead,,,,its another MLS coach that will push his crew players forward.

    Tab has earned this position. His U20s are a pleasure to watch. They took apart most or out competition in the WC qualifying and he has no ties to MLS players. I beleive he is not afraid to send the older ones packing too.

    Im going to be very disappointed if Ernie pics him

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    • It’s not about MLS “players,” though I suspect you are right about a Crew distortion in terms of selection, it’s really that at this point in time there isn’t really a Bradley or Arena level star of MLS coaching. And even from the existing bunch Berhalter is closer to midtable. Beyond that I don’t get the anti-MLS stuff, does England talk about EPL as the reason they do what they do the years it doesn’t work? It’s a decent league and we’re always going to have a home league that some of our players are in, whether it has a cap or not, is called MLS or not.

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    • Sorry both Berhalter brothers are well qualified for their jobs and Jay will not have any say over his brothers employment so I’m not sure of this conflict. It’s not like Jared and Ivanka.

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      • it is not an “optimal” hire. this is a “best coach” job and by no measure is berhalter the best. he is not the equivalent of Arena in 1998 or Bradley in 2006. his team is generally mediocre, Hammarby before that was not a champion, he is not the best MLS coach or the best available in the world. if you analyze teams that overperform salary, it’s more like NYRB (still in the playoffs) with Columbus a few slots down (eliminated). i struggle for an objective metric that when used points to him rather than several of his competition. he has a license and some experience. he is at a basic level qualified to be a coach. but he isn’t possibly the best coach we could get. something is wrong, we are offering too little, we are making artificial demands on coaches they won’t accept, or we are outright corrupt and clubby and he was deemed clubable enough. but if like a normal country you were like, we missed the world cup and don’t want to miss another, i think you’d be upping salary, reducing restrictions, and chasing the objective best coach to maximize the team, not subjectively speculating that an executive’s brother with an ok team will do better with more resources. if the idea is he doesn’t have to prove he can coach yet, but we’ll speculate he will when given our team, how is he special relative to half MLS? to me most elite coaches could still make something from nothing. how many times does Bradley make something of an expansion team? he doesn’t cry about resources, he does his job.

      • And you know this how? I just can’t get over the feeling that “the fix is in”. The fact that Greg’s brother Jay is high in USSF can’t be ignored and it would be too much of a coincidence if and when Greg Berhalter gets the job. Especially since he is hardly the best man for the job.

      • The click is : Jay Berhalter the future C.E.O. of the US Soccer Federation and his brother Greg as a head coach. And ” bingo” they will control the whole thing .Did you know that FIFA and their Federations are the most corrupt organizations in this planet?

      • But Jay was the one who hired Ernie Stewart and the paid back was that Ernie hire Greg, as simple as that..

      • Hernando: “Stewart was selected for the position of General Manager after an extensive selection process conducted by a Search Committee that included former National Team players and current Board members Carlos Bocanegra and Angela Hucles, U.S. Soccer CEO and Secretary General Dan Flynn, Chief Sport Development Officer Nico Romeijn, Chief Soccer Officer Ryan Mooney and Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer Jay Berhalter.” Yep Jay and Gregg got all of these other people and Cordeiro to sign off on this conspiracy theory so that Earnie would be obligated to hire Gregg. Here is a quote from A US soccer spokesperson “A U.S. Soccer spokesperson said that Jay Berhalter, who was part of the committee that hired the general manager, is no longer part of the technical side and is limited to the commercial side of the federation.”

      • Hum, this sound fishy: Did you know Mr. Johnnyrazar how big the Chief Commercial Officer influence in any organization will be.?

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