U.S. Soccer is already searching for a new head coach to lead the U.S. men’s national team and now the federation will begin searches for two more openings.
Sporting Director Earnie Stewart and General Manager Brian McBride are set to step down from their current roles, U.S. Soccer announced Thursday. Stewart is leaving to join Eredivisie side PSV’s front office while McBride has made no decision yet on his immdiate future.
Stewart will remain with U.S. Soccer until Feb. 15 to ensure a smooth transition as U.S. Soccer continues its search for its next Sporting Director. McBride will step down from his role as GM on Jan. 31.
During his tenure as Sporting Director, Stewart helped propel the USMNT back to the FIFA World Cup in 2022, as well as win Concacaf Nations League and Gold Cup trophies in 2021. The USWNT maintained its place as the No. 1 team in the FIFA World Rankings while taking home Concacaf Olympic Qualifying and Concacaf W Championship titles and winning the bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Stewart previously served in front office roles for Eredivisie sides AZ Alkmaar and NAC Breda before becoming the Philadelphia Union’s sporting director in October 2015.
“While we are sad to see Earnie go, he has helped lay a strong foundation and build a strong sporting staff to ensure that the future of U.S. Soccer is bright,” said U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone. “Today, we have a unique opportunity to bring in a new Sporting Director to build on this momentum. We are eager to engage new leaders who will match our ambitions and realize our vision for the future, taking our National Teams to the next level, including competing for a FIFA World Cup on home soil in 2026.”
McBride served within U.S. Soccer for three years, working closely with the USMNT staff by overseeing the development and management of the player pool. He was also involved in the hiring of Youth National Team coaches including Under-20 head coach Mikey Varas and Under-19 head coach Marko Mitrovic.
“Brian was an integral part of the Federation and our team’s success in qualifying for the World Cup and competing with the best in the world in Qatar, while also helping us continue to develop and progress our full men’s program in all areas,” said Parlow Cone. “The decision was made before the World Cup, and we wish him all the best as he embarks on his next endeavor. Brian will always be part of our family and continue to be connected to U.S. Soccer.”
U.S. Soccer has retained Sportsology Group to head the search for the organization’s next Sporting Director. Sportsology has also already begun a full review of U.S. Soccer’s sporting department while the group will also analyze head coach candidates to accelerate the Sporting Director’s hiring process.
The federation is also continuing its investigation on former U.S. men’s national team head coach Gregg Berhalter. Anthony Hudson is serving as interim USMNT head coach, which began with a 2-1 friendly loss to Serbia on Wednesday in California.
Dennis, you trace the history mostly accurately but Peak American TV Soccer was about a decade ago when FSC existed. This did start out where to see every US game took a mix of English, Spanish, and even PPV. You used to have to watch US in Spanish sometimes to see it at all. We would routinely have road quali on PPV! We got it to where all the games were on TV. Then most of them in both English AND Spanish. And on basic cable. Sorry but this is backsliding. The crew was so bad I made the Bob Ley-era decision to go back to Cantor and Spanish. Premium cable and streaming is headed back towards the PPV paywall. And they do this right before the World Cup we host. Wall us off from fans. Isn’t this the time to build the bandwagon.
Brilliant.
I don’t even agree with the non-NT assessment. The peak period was when you had MLS on TV you could get — and that’s about to be paywalled worse than ever — ESPN covering a lot, UCL on basic cable, and heavy coverage of the leagues on FSC and Gol. c. 2005-2010. You could watch UCL on normal cable and didn’t need all sorts of subscriptions atop that to cover various leagues. And even that analysis neglects the spousal murder that would occur without premium cable movie channels. I am sorry but in practice this piles up towards either no HBO/Showtime (until now) or a massive cable/streaming bill. I am sure half HBO’s idea here is to get product that we pay to develop and to chase sports eyeballs who wouldn’t otherwise buy a primarily show and movie streaming.
As it stands I am weighing whether I think the Dynamo are bothered enough with this season to pay for the privilege to watch them on Apple. That has actually complicated what used to be, yeah, we suck, but it’s basic cable. You may like all the access and choice but in practice people with choice at price may say no who were contented under the earlier models. I think that’s more business than fan friendly. I think that’s regression. It’s going back to either watching games in Spanish or not seeing them.
Never understood what either of them did. From the jump, my instinct was that Cordeiro created these “management layers” to insulate himself from the fate that befell Gulati (e.g. being held responsible as USSF head for the competitive performance of the head coach).
All I ever saw Stewart do was conduct a half-cocked “search” for a manager, and perhaps help in recruiting Dest. McBride… who knows?
as i understood it, flynn at USSF, who had played a lead role in prior coaching hires, had claimed the 2016 decision as his to make as well. wanted JK out after guatemala and semi round. then took ill and needed surgery in hospital. held onto the decision, made us wait til he was well and could get out of hospital and make it. JK blows the first two games of hex — some act like it was aesthetic, but he got his tail kicked after looking bad for a couple years, zero points, 4-0 CR blowout away. flynn finally fires JK and snaps in arena, no lengthy search. arena then almost pulls it off but loses to CR at home and then the infamous couva game. to be fair he was something like 18-2 but those 2 were everything.
my pet conspiracy theory has always been that a minority at USSF had wanted GB then — he was the MLS flavor of the moment then — when he was coming off the MLS final (which he lost, which they ignore). so arena blows it, he’s done, flynn is still in USSF leadership but headed out. so i am convinced what they did was take it away from flynn and the executives and hand it to a GM apparatus they created. they then created another layer to be able to say the women had the same thing. the GM apparatus then magically decides their old favorite GB is the answer, despite him not having done anything in the intervening seasons. even has us wait to hire him til after the crew finish 2018, while the NT is run through an obnoxious caretaker scheduling buzzsaw that undermines everyone playing at the time — some of whom take 2-3 years to get back involved (eg CCV, adams, horvath).
flynn is long gone. the GM served the purpose of disempowering him long ago. i personally feel like mcbride/stewart blew their one tough decision after the canada loss in NL; they waited just like flynn had. far as i am concerned the rest of our mediocre tiebreaker qualifying was that decision playing out. we accepted being second fiddle to canada. if we don’t do something, it’ll continue despite them being somewhat less talented. lest people forget, “they are hosts too.”
i don’t see where a GM made our hiring process better. we made a nepotism pick at the end of cordeiro’s stint. i was curious if cone would reverse it like she did the equal pay lawsuit. perhaps she has. i am glad. i think aspirations with teeth had withered down to snobs wanting to play a way regardless if it worked. regardless if it even really looked like pep soccer.
no fed needs to take 6-9 months to hire a coach. it’s a waste of time and 1/3 of the available summer camps/tournaments. i don’t see where a GM was of practical benefit. based on what i saw they hired a nepotism coach they used to play with whose brother was an executive. who sucked. they are worse than handing an executive a blank check and sending them out to hire a big name, worse, i think it encourages “missionary projects” where the GM decides the way to win is “x” even though they never coached. they hire a coach who forces that style down our throats no matter how the games go. the GM is then the one in charge of when to pull the plug, which they have no incentive to do either as religious 433 zealot or the guy who hired the coach.
i think we need to just hire a great coach, with a history of winning, who can explain what he wants to do in terms of the pool. like they did their homework. tell them we expect wins, hand them the team, back away. no missionary projects. no micromanaging. your team, pick the players, win games. if you start losing games we think you should win, there’s the axe. i’d much prefer a quick hire and short leash to a long hire and long leash. they seem to think the period they wasted hiring someone justifies more indulgence.
i then think they need a scouting department of soccer players instead of a bunch of statisticians. statistics have their use but the team comes across like picked from streaks in box scores and not because they are the best 23 talented soccer players we have. how many different omits came back from the winter break in the mood to show up GB? that many suggests a lousy selection process. i kind of think any idiot could read box scores. how do they actually look. that takes soccer coaches/scouts. take all this bureaucratic infighter empire building and shift it to a scouting apparatus that can tell if someone in the B.2 can ball no matter what the numbers say. that’s what i think a potentially foreign HC with players in more than a dozen leagues around the world actually needs help with. he doesn’t need a GM pretending to be coach with some missionary project. leave coaching to the coach. he needs help identifying potential players.
Casey Keller for Sporting Director!! One of the Sporting Director’s job is to hire a GM. Keller hires DeMarcus Beasley!! One of the GMs job is to higher the head coach. DMB in his intelligence hires Tab Ramos. Keller believes the USMNT isn’t for developing players, as said on the his network. I completely agree with his statement. Don’t know him personally, Casey seems like a measured person when he’s giving analysis. DMB (who doesn’t sound confident on a mic), seems like he has the front office look about him. @ least, from the pre-game and HBOmax broadcast. I kept waiting for Foudy to speak every time DMB went to studdering. This isn’t an offense to people with speech impediments; this is a knock on his tv charisma. He doesn’t have IT. Front Office seems suitable. Tab Ramos has familiarity with majority of the US pool and would know where to fit players within multiple formations. Tab will also be a big recruiter in the central & Latin American world 4 those overly concerned with dual national players. Keller & DMB are on tv & I still haven’t seen Tab get hired at another coaching position. Soccer people in charge of soccer. Continuity plus WC experience in the FO and Coach. Simple fix, right?!
Tab is at Hartford Athletic. I understand your reason but think those three would not be very good in those roles. Keller from what I can find has no front office or management experience of any type. Love Bease, he’s great on “The Crack” podcast so give him some time on the pregame. Not really sure what the GM does but again his first job (I know he’s a part owner in Fort Wayne) in management is with NT. Tab, there has to be a reason MLS clubs have largely shied away the only offer he got was Houston and since only in USL. I think the next manager comes from another country. I’m going to through a name for GM maybe out of left field. Dane Murphy, nearly got Barnsley promoted, and then moved to Nottingham Forest and got them up. Since has left the club after 4 months in EPL but interesting young soccer mind. Dream for me, Ernst Tanner as GM, and Jorge Low as manager. I wouldn’t be surprised if a woman replaces Stewart.
JR, You want a foreign coach and foreign GM, why? I can’t understand why Americans don’t want American coaches or Americans in the front office. No other American sport has fans that are this weird! Think about it, or research it. What country has won a WC with a foreign coach?
Mr. think,
“You want a foreign coach and foreign GM, why? I can’t understand why Americans don’t want American coaches or Americans in the front office.”
Because being an American does not mean you know what you are doing. I guess you haven’t been paying attention to the USMNT/USSF lately.
I happen to know more than a few Americans who are lucky to be alive because they don’t know what they are doing.
“What country has won a WC with a foreign coach?”
That’s one of those false equivalencies
Deschamps, the manager of France is French.
France win the World Cup.
Gregg Berhalter, the manager of the USMNT is American.
So the USMNT should win the World Cup.
Is that your belief?
Eight countries have won the World Cup:
Argentina, France, Germany, Brazil, Spain, England, Uruguay, Italy.
.
And the odds are things will stay that way for the near future. Most of them have player pools that are already WC contenders so it is not that difficult for them to find an appropriately qualified citizen of their country to manage them.
For example, that’s why , if it wants to and the eligibility rules are favorable, the US can always send a team to the Olympic basketball tournament capable of winning the Gold.
Like most of those World Cup winners, American basketball has, over time, built up a pool of players and coaches of great depth and quality.
Can other countries, like maybe the USMNT, break into that exclusive circle jerk? Sure. Someday. But not with Gregg as the manager. He might be American, even if he is from New Jersey, but he’s not a good enough manager.
“Think about it, or research it. What country has won a WC with a foreign coach?
Think about it; were the coaches, for those WC winning teams, the same caliber as our current American coaches?
It’s OK: no team has ever won with a foreign manager, but the few countries that have won have multitudes of managers to choose from because they are huge soccer countries. Why would Germany, Italy, or France hire a foreign manager when they have more than a handful of great managers. I’m unsure about the foreign GM but given the job “seems” to be mostly working with youth setup and securing releases of players across levels Tanners Euro connections would be an asset. He would also have connections with euro sporting directors that could alert him to dual nats, as Valencia informed Nico Estevez about Musah.
I’m old fashioned. I like hiring professionals who actually have experience doing the job before.
Kasey is the best USMNT keeper of all time. He seems like a great guy and is the most sober American commentator I’ve heard out there.
But Sporting Director? I doubt he’d be interested in a job he knows nothing about.
He seems like a great guy but WTF does he know about being a Sporting Director. He would just be more of the same.
ramos was an awful HC here in houston, think “berhalter 2019.” weak low percentage crossing offense wedded to a soft eredivisie positional defense. worst team here i have ever seen. so, no thank you.
the one valid thing ramos has raised, which you do wander towards, is whether most of the bright soccer minds of our prior era are on TV and not coaching. dolo did well with LAFC, and donovan has done a thing or two with san diego in the minors, but reyna, mcbride, and stewart — suits; keller, dempsey, DmB etc. — TV.
even if you like baby barca, who do we have trying to teach it? a sub level center back known for previous sputtering offenses in europe. when some attacker can’t quite finish i don’t exactly trust him to sort that out. hence the two things we did do were defend and hustle. that, from a defender, i can understand. but his claim to fame is a header that was saved (by a hand, yes, but it didn’t go in) in a game we lost, who played twice in the world cup as an injury replacement, and didn’t distinguish himself on the sidelines immediately after it was over.
personally i see this line of discussion as somewhat venting somewhat sincere. i think what we really want is some elite coach to try and make this shine. i think the venting is more like, if we’re gonna hire local, where are the good domestic retired players, not this one. that’s what i see this as coming from. and to be fair, some might suck — ramos — but i kind of think if you had a dozen or so “formers” coaching then surely a handful have some snap or greatness in them.
All we need now is to have USSF fail to pay their national team players to look like a third world nation now. To call this disarray seems to be an understatement.
How are these two roles, Sporting Director and General Manager, defined? Never understood this. I’m sure someone here knows…
Not sure what to make of this. Were both planning to step down after the world cup anyway, or is this more fallout from the Reyna thing? And how to evaluate the jobs these guys did and these positions which didn’t really exist before. How much credit (or blame) do McBride and Stewart get for the ’22 cycle? Do we need two executives and a head coach? Our most recent successful international basketball setup had one exec and one head coach. Arena, Klinsmann, and Bradley got to basically the same level with no execs…Would be interested to hear an official take from SBI on these things.
Not surprised the least bit. Why continue the employ a network of friends and former teammates? In business new management generally surrounded themselves with people of similar vision and compatibility. Former chain of command had those attributes but lost their scope with the Reyna family.
This is another pivotal hire for US soccer in what is an already contentious atmosphere in being rational.
I like the suggestion of Van Gaal but not as a coach but an administrative hire
I wanted an interim for a while until an ideal and attainable coach became available… But I didn’t want it to happen this way. Sadly, USSF will likely spin their wheels with consultants for 6 months before hiring a MLS coach who was available the whole time. Hope I’m proven wrong and we hire Loew or Van Gal next week.
Bummer. Two legends who have played the game at the highest levels. Guys who in my eyes, had practically all the soccer experience and more compared to any other “higher up” than we have had in the federation. It is a shame. Their role wasn’t coaching. The fiasco that has happened post World Cup was not on them.
Hopefully we have a coach in place by March which those are important games to get back to the CONCACAF Nations league final and defend our crown. We still haven’t got a u23 coach in place for the Olympics. The continued laissez-faire attitude by US soccer rubs me the wrong way. I get you want to put the right Head Coach in place, but I see no real plan or urgency from Parlow Cone or the board. Also you have to say the handling of TV rights to HBO max wasn’t the ideal situation. Now people have to get another streaming service to watch USMNT/USWNT friendly games.
Streaming services have taken advantage of the American Soccer fan. You now have to have multiple streaming services to watch games ranging from European leagues to MLS. Paramount for Seria A and Concacaf nations league. Apple TV plus for MLS, Peacock for EPL, ESPN plus for La Liga, Bundesliga, Eridivisie, FUBO or sling tv to get FS1 to watch Gold Cup, WC. The amount you are paying for these streaming services basically puts you right back for paying the amount for cable tv. It’s becoming ridiculous.
“You now can have multiple streaming services to watch games ranging from European leagues to MLS. Paramount for Seria A and Concacaf nations league. Apple TV plus for MLS, Peacock for EPL, ESPN plus for La Liga, Bundesliga, Eridivisie, FUBO or sling tv to get FS1 to watch Gold Cup, WC. The amount you are paying for these streaming services is still lower than paying the amount for cable tv. It has becoming ridiculously awesome.”
Fixed that for you, from an old dude that was trying to watch soccer in the 80-s and 90s.
Not fixed at all. The amount you are spending for different services is a bit ridiculous. I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s myself. I understand you want to watch as much soccer as you can pay for. Glad you have the money to pay for what you want.
Saw this coming a while ago when ESPN bought up a lot of rights and then put everything on ESPN+. I got ESPN+ and Peacock+ bit it just hasn’t been as good quality as regular cable. But at the same time as some of those games you can see bass fi8shing for free. Expect this more as it is all about taking advantage of the fan. How long before the Super Bowl and then the World Cup becomes pay TV?
In the 80’s there was a single Serie A game on Sunday. No English soccer, no LaLiga and no Bundesliga. Some Mexican soccer on the Spanish stations and it was they who had the best WC coverage. With the advent of cable services in the 90s there was moderately more to see, mostly the usmnt from ESPN and MLS on Spanish stations. In the last 20 years coverage has exploded.
Essentially none of the currently available leagues and international soccer were available in the 80s.
The situation today is that you can pick what you want to see and get it for a moderate price. If you want the freedom to choose across the major leagues and international soccer, you will pay more dearly.
I agree however, that the HBOmax deal for USSoccer is rotten.
Well…. Looks like Hudson will be interim for the foreseeable future. So now there is an outside company heading up the search for Sporting Director and Head Coach candidates? Bring Juergen Klinnsman back as Sporting Director/ GM That’s what he is good at.
i really hope not. hudson has an awful senior coaching record and based on last night it would be a xerox of his predecessor’s tactical and selection choices. unlike sarachan zero about his CV says he’s earned the right to coach a team this good, or even to shepherd it along for half a year.
i don’t buy you need half a year to hire GM/TD types. the timeframe she gave — women’s world cup is after gold cup — means we will play summer friendlies and the tournament like this. personally i am of the wave checks in front of the ones you really want school. 2-4 weeks tops. but even if you budgeted 4-6 weeks “per” that’s 3 months.
side point, if the search firm is doing a lot of the work and it’s the zoom era, can’t we speed this along? the last one was pre covid and let’s be blunt, it took how long it did because for all the BS we pretty well knew who we wanted, it was a set of insiders, and we basically waited out their existing deals.
personally i believe in hire them fast with a shorter leash. get the one you really want and let them earn the job doing it. we seemed to hire slow with infinite indulgence. based on the results — mediocre coach with mediocre results, GMs out the door next cycle — waste of time.
considering how the whole “reyna thing” went, beginning with the coach fibbing why he made the decision, all the sneaky politics and press releases, i was kind of hoping for more transparency here. they said they were doing an after action review. it apparently took place at the fed level and not GM, and the GM level is gone, apparently along with the coach. fine. this has instead wandered into the people who said they were involved in the review 6 weeks ago, saying they never intended to renew and are on to new jobs. stewart in particular already having a new gig he would have had to apply for and chase.
even the berhalter decision is a fudge. “still a candidate.” i think that’s to avoid being sued. let the new GM be the executioner once he’s cleared.
what i don’t like is amidst all this face-saving insincerity, and dragged out performative deliberations, they have the best pool in the history of the NT and a finite amount of time to prepare. by this timeline he would arrive after the first gold cup. and even if you want this to go a new way, there is a chance the GB sect has their claws in this another half year, which all due respect isn’t that why everyone is being cleared out of their offices? you went the wrong way. start turning it around before the new guy even gets here. sarachan helped ID a lot of the players who later made the team. shouldn’t be him, he had his own issues, but they need someone in here for a half year who kicks the can down the road well for the real guy. hudson, same tactics, poorly chosen CBs, odd fetish for marginal veterans 0-30 or close to it.
i mean, i was saying this when they picked hudson, his quality aside, part of what a team unsure of its direction needs is fresh air in a caretaker. fresh faces, fresh system, which in terms of GB gives you a sense where he went right or wrong, and can inform the direction of change. eg GB was obviously wrong on vazquez, not unlike reyna. if he’s wrong enough, he’s obviously not the guy. hudson has every incentive to run this like GB had it right, even if it still shows him up.
Given the lack of time to prepare and only 3 or 4 sessions before the Serbia match a big change was unlikely. I think to expect much difference should he still be in charge (I think he will be) in March with 2 or 3 sessions with main squad is unlikely. I think the best chance would be if he tried some 3 back system they had prepped during qualifying or WC lead up. Earliest I think you see major changes would be summer when he’d have more time to train. Even though this was a fairly inexperienced squad most of them had had camp with Gregg or a YT in Gregg’s tenure so maybe the staff saw it as a basic structure that the guys from all over could tie to. This system did look incredibly better and more dangerous under Varas than it has under Berhalter so maybe Mikey can fix it this week. Dare to dream.