Gregg Berhalter’s time with the U.S men’s national team has come to an end, opening the door to a new regime ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Berhalter was released as head coach on Wednesday, only one week after the USMNT’s early exit from the 2024 Copa America. The Americans were eliminated in the group stage of the tournament, suffering back-to-back defeats to Panama and Uruguay respectively in crucial matches.
Berhalter helped get the program back on track during his first spell as head coach, rebounding from the 2018 World Cup failure to get back to the competition in 2022. A pair of rivalry wins over Mexico in both the CONCACAF Nations League and Gold Cup competitions, gave the new group of USMNT stars their first trophy lifts of their international careers and set the standard for how the Americans should be faring in federation tournaments.
U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker praised Berhalter’s impact during his five years as head coach, but also admitted that recent results didn’t help his cause to stay as head coach heading into the final.
“We’ve got to win. And we didn’t achieve that from our perspective,” Crocker said in a conference call with reporters. “But when I do look at the work and the effort that Gregg has put in and other staff have put into the program over the last five years, I wanted to make sure that I really took my time and was decisive with my decision-making that at the time I felt was right and not being driven by anybody else.
“I think five years is a long time, and there’s been a lot of building blocks that have been put in place,” he added. “It was a very, very young group, originally, and there has been progress made, but now is the time to turn that progress into winning. There’s been progress in the group, but that progress hasn’t translated into enough wins in that tournament, which is pretty critical.”
Berhalter’s exit now opens the door for a new head coach to come into the program, a vital move ahead of the 2026 World Cup on home soil. Former Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp is the biggest name on the market following his departure from Anfield last May while MLS coaches Steve Cherundolo and Wilfried Nancy (MLS Cup winners in 2022 and 2023 respectively) have also been speculated to be on USSF’s radar.
Klopp, Cherundolo, and Nancy will likely demand more than Berhalter’s salary ($2 million + bonuses in 2022) if they were to take the job as head coach, especially with the excitement of the World Cup only two years away. Figuring out the financials will be a major task for Crocker and the rest of U.S. Soccer this summer, but getting the right coach also remains a high priority.
“I know it’s a really competitive market out there salarywise, and we have to be competitive to get the level of coach that I believe can take the program forward in terms of achieving the results that we need to do on the field,” Crocker added. “But I’m also really conscious that we need to continue to drive for higher standards and equality. But I don’t think that’s going to be a stumbling block in terms of our investment; our national team is a priority. It’s something we’re prepared to invest in and something that we will be investing in.
“I just want to get the best coach possible,” he added. “And whether they’re from the U.S. or elsewhere, they’ve got to fit the profile, which is a serial winning coach, somebody that can continue to develop this potential group of players.”
This is a can’t miss shot. Simple as that.
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Wrong guy. Crash out in group stage. Get embarrassed at home in front of home fans and rest of the world continues to not take us seriously in soccer. Loss of more fan interest, less tv, less tickets and merch for that lack of interest.
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Right guy. Quarters/semis run galvanizes the US fan base behind men’s soccer like we haven’t seen really ever. Last time that level of interest hit US soccer after the 94 WC it birthed our domestic league. Where would that level of interest push US soccer to this time?
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We get this right it catapults US soccer and domestic league trajectories on a path that gets us to future competitive equivalence to top tier euro and SA national teams and club levels not right away but a generation or two out.
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Screw up and I guess our kids are playing pickleball.
Klopp said no thanks. Try for Low. Hasn’t had a job since 2018. Reminder of Lows time with Germany
2008- Euros final
2010- WC semifinal
2012- Euros semifinal
2014- WC winner
2016- Euros semifinal
2018- Grouped in WC
2021- RD of 16 loss Euros
Not much better CV internationally then Low.
Löw is interesting. He is 64 years old, though, and he’s lived in Freiburg for 30+ years.
Jurgen Klinsmann may have been German, but he’d also moved to California and had lived there for years and had very much Americanized by the time he took the US team. Löw has never left Germany.
Löw does speak English, but is he transplantable? And even if he tried, would it necessarily take?
“very much Americanized by the time he took the US team. Löw has never left Germany………………Löw does speak English, but is he transplantable? And even if he tried, would it necessarily take?”
None of that matters.
What matters is can they convince the USSF to leave them alone so that they can:
1. Relate to the players
2. Evaluate them correctly and develop a suitable playing style
3. Get them to buy into it and perform.
Basically can they get the whole to perform as more than the sum of its parts on a CONSISTENT basis .
Everything else is small beer.
one comment by crocker that concerns me is “I know what my contingency plan would be to see through the September window with a level of consistency to make sure that there’s no huge disruption and change.”
setting aside we need a coach to run games, this doesn’t need “consistency” to the previous regime at all. that starts to sound like the previous dynamo coaches where it sounded like GM had made the big picture coaching decision of what system the team would play, then hired a sequence of green zero resume flunkies to carry out his wishes. the coaches and system sucked, the team sucked.
this is what i am talking about where the suits need to butt out of the coaching, and that includes having executive ideas about “system” or “identity” that artificially constrain the next application pile. the GM is not a coach. let the coach, coach. let coaching prospects come to you and explain what they think this team needs. even if you don’t hire a guy those kind of insights can be passed on to the guy who does get the job. and that ensures candidates are fully engaged with our specific job and player pool.
personally i hope crocker had the smarts to at least pick klopp’s brain — or at least try — while we gave him a call. “ok, you don’t want the job, but do you have any thoughts on our team, any advice?” the idea the GM knows what we need and how this should be coached is arrogant, the brains should be other side of the table. GM’s job is to figure out who’s the best for us, the most engaged with our pool, and to ferret out snake oil salesmen. i am skeptical someone whose final 2 sounded like GB and marsch is up to the task and they are the last people i would want deciding that any caretaker or successor should be “consistent.” we don’t need a better berhalter, more of the same. we need something fresh.
It just means Varas probably said he’d stick around for September if needed. Then you don’t have someone coming in and running a new system and then they hire a person (Sarina Weigman?) who puts in something different. You don’t want new ideas terminology et cetra for 2 or 3 matches then learn all that all over again 2025.
You’re micromanaging, nitpicking and panicking and they have not even hired anyone yet.
Get the right person. Friendlies against Canada, New Zealand, Panama, and Mexico (likely opponent) don’t matter. If Pochettino, Low, or Pioli are interested let’s start talking with them but there’s no reason to rush into Cherundolo. People will come available as Euros, Copa, and Olympics end. Perhaps one of the surprise managers would like to upgrade to US rather than battle in the UEFA qualifying rounds? Will Scaloni leave Argentina?
i didn’t think the year wait for Berhalter 1: Deep Playmaker proved worth it, we got a midtable MLS coach. and the 9 month wait for Berhalter 2: Latin America Strikes Back ultimately resulted in his rehire and lasted roughly as long as his second tenure did. i mean we spent nearly 2 years Waiting For Berhalter. are you happy with the pair? even re hayes, i think that quality coach makes a wait worth it, but we have a finite amount of time before the next gold cup and world cup, and one question on hayes will be whether she is around long enough to impact the olympics or whether her value has to play out more on a WWC timetable.
personally i would hire someone immediately. there are plenty of names we have discussed, domestic or international. we are in the final half of the cycle and the clock is running. pick a name. anything else is paralysis or the same sort of intellectual arrogance GB has. i see the domestic names as sufficiently interchangeable in predictable upside and risk that you take the available one to get the coaching faster.
personally i would only “wait” on a specific “person” with a resume “worth it.” that is not a value pick from MLS. that would have been klopp if he wanted the balance of the year off. that would be pep.
you wait on a specific big big name who has approached us and agreed in principle. you don’t play for time on the pool in general, that’s paralysis posing as analysis. other than maybe we can get pep in a year i don’t see how the available guys in summer 24 — the summer transfer period when europe is most in flux — are worse than in-season europe. the good ones will run out deals that at best expire next summer. i don’t see the value in waiting to see who gets fired from coaching when we want a good coach.
If you can work something out with one of those good currently available people great. However, if the best person the US can get in the next couple weeks is Cherundolo then wait. If Cherundolo is like “yeah let me finish MLS Cup” then no get someone else.
IV,
“when we want a good coach.”
The key to hiring a good coach is they have to want you.
If they don’t want you and you can’t make them understand that they really want you then you’re fucked.
The thing about big names and established records is that those people have HISTORY. All that stuff and whatever money you spend on them guarantees NOTHING. Klopp was great for Liverpool. He might not be anywhere near as good for the USMNT seeing as how almost nothing in Atlanta resembles what Klopp had going for him in Liverpool.
Before they brought him back for the USMNT Strikes Back, allegedly Crocker subjected Gregg to a comprehensive battery of tests and what not and he came out huge in all the categories. Supposedly this is one big reason why Matt brought him back.
Is Matt going to use the same template and protocol this time?
Perhaps one reason why Crocker is asking for time is maybe he needs to completely re-work how he evaluates managers and teams seeing as how he did such a great fucking job the last time.
Crocker doesn’t have the luxury like you do of being able to hide behind his keyboard if the malarkey hits the fan.
If IV is wrong no one gives a shit.
Gregg has already tainted Crocker’s rep. A second shitting of the bed and Crocker will rise above Bruce Arena and Steve Sampson in the USMNT fuckwit hall of fame.
Vacqi with the haymaker!
Hall of fame indeed
HoF? no call out of fuckwit JK, the arrogant narcissist who destroyed the locker room and everything from within? At least Arena has his first stint to fall back on, the one before he was hired to try and extinguish the dumpster fire that the eunuch Klinsman started with glee
we have never recovered from that SOB’s crap. Berhalter at least united the locker room, save Gio and his family’s pathetic antics which typify the issues with USsoccer
and what about Sunil Gulati? he is the guy who hired that conman and gave him the keys to the castle, after pursuing him for years and years…no mention of him? Talk about someone shitting the bed…the biggest miscalculation in us soccer history. Those pricks bring LD to the World Cup, maybe we actually win a knockout game, but no, we’ll never know because of the bed shitting that went down. Giving Klinsmann everything was an act of desperation, a decision that continues to reverberate, and the completely wrong move. EPIC FAIL
remember, it was all about 2018 with Klinsman the conman salesman
yeah, LOL
Jurgen Klinsmann and Sunil Gulati… the biggest bed shitters in US soccer history
Arena has his first stint with the team, full of glory, on top of his failed attempt to extinguish the dumpster fire Klinsmann the conman gleefully exploded
Beachbum with the haymaker!
First of all, don’t dick around and take forever to pick someone like they did last time. There is no time for that. Secondly, just about all international coaches were successful club coaches first, so lack of international coaching experience should keep someone from being considered. With a coach like Klopp, how hard is it to go into Liverpool and build a winner? He had supportive owners, a great fan base, and a club tradition that is among the best in Europe. Now, I’m not saying that he isn’t a good coach, but what we need is someone who over achieved with teams. When you’re a club manager, if you have a need and the money, and say you need a good LB, you go out and get one via transfer. A national team coach can’t do that; you are stuck with what you have. So, we want to get a coach who makes the whole team better than the sum of its part. That may mean someone less high profile. I’m not pushing any particular coach, but I would say, don’t forget Tata Martino and don’t ignore Cherundolo. My ideal candidate would be someone like either like Gus Hiddink or Bora Militunovic. Wherever they went, they made the national team better.
Totally agree, Gary. The initial instinct in this situation is to pick a successful marquee coach, but a broader thought process may be more prudent. We sometimes forget Liverpool billionaire owner John Henry could finance the transfers needed for Klopp and Liverpool. No one is saying $$ is the sole reason Klopp was successful, but that has to be considered a factor.
This job really isn’t that appealing when you consider all the negative factors involved: short timeframe, lack of quality opponents before 2026, pressure of being WC hosts. It may come down to a few candidates during the screening process who embrace that challenge and have a plan to put it all together.
FWIW, Liverpool’s payroll budget this past year was £125 million – very large, sure, but good for only 5th place in the EPL in total spending with Tottenham and Aston Villa right on their heels. Man U and Man City both spent north of £200+ million. So they’re a big team – top 20 or 25 in Europe, for certain – but they are not one of the genuine monsters like Man City or PSG or Real Madrid or Bayern either.
Liverpool were actually punching somewhat over their weight under Klopp. So did Dortmund, who were struggling big-time – as in, 13th in the Bundesliga -when he took them over in 2008. Klopp had them winning the league back-to-back in 2011 and 2012.
There’s a reason Klopp is considered arguably the best coach in the world.
Dortmund…he very much over achieved there
It’s just been reported that Klopp has turned down the offer from USSF…..oh well on to the next one!
Yah, that’s what I am hearing. Klopp is a firm and sincere, “No, thank you.”
Good, get him out of the way.
Move on to the next one, or next set of potential candidates and have some realistic conversations.
He said he wants a break from football. We play soccer here in the states. Shouldn’t be a deal breaker.
Tuchel, ummm, ahhnnn, ahhhh. Pekkerman, mmmm, uhhmmm.
Nancy, mmm, OK, peut etre.
Klopp, Hmmmm, Mmmmmmm, Uhm Hummmm! KLOPP? Klopp.
A guy can dream right.
i don’t remember getting the vibe tuchel liked reyna or pulisic that much. while i am pro-competition and anti-sacred cows, it’s a red flag to me to not value our key NT producers. and i don’t mean “reputations” like ream and mckennie, i mean the few existing guys who have been showing up and getting it done.
i don’t understand the tuchel fetish. yes, he has coached elite teams, but that also can flatter the coach (eg lampard). what i got from it is he did meh for CFC, and then at bayern he loses league for the first time in years and his old team dortmund wins europe.
Tuchel left Dortmund 2 years before Gio left New York to join BvB.
tuchel coached pulisic, no? and next thing we know he’s at ACM and a starter/star. ok, so do i hire chelsea’s coach or the other end? exactly. my point is i wouldn’t hire any of the people sandbagging our best guys at CFC or dortmund to coach our team. you want cheerleaders not haters. the factual nitpick is ok as facts go but the point is he hardly sounds like he believes in our people. next thing people will suggest lampard or some other critic.
IV: it’s just really hard to connect one particular situation to a very different situation. Pioli didn’t play Dest, but loved Musah and Pulisic. Tuchel loved Pulisic at Dortmund but when given a much bigger cabinet of toys played the guys the owners had spent far more cash on. Terzic loved 2020 Reyna, loathed 2023 Reyna. Certainly the inside information is more available to US soccer as to what went into those situations. If Tuchel really dislikes Pulisic and doesn’t rate him, he’s not likely to want to interview anyway.
” don’t remember getting the vibe tuchel liked reyna or pulisic that much. ”
That’s because you don’t read minds. Why would you know what Tuchel thinks?
When Tuchel had Pulisic at BVB CP was a first year young player. At Chelsea Tuchel inherited a player with a well deserved reputation for breaking down frequently, an unreliable player. Chelsea bought Tuchel a bunch of better alternatives and he used them.
It’s only since CP has had this one year at Milan that he is finally beginning to prove his consistency.
Gio wasn’t even with BVB when Tuchel was there.
More malarkey from you.
If Tuchel gives a shit, he’ll spend 3 bucks on an SBI subscription and look up posts on CP and Gio.
Klopp is #1 choice bu other names to consider:
Manuel Pellegrini : never coached national team but legendary club level coach. Been at Real Betis since 2020. He would probably be interested in a new challenge after 4 years there.
Michael Laudrup: never coached national team either and when he was Swansea City, they played very attractive football for the players they had. Currently unattached.
what do we care about “pretty?” i feel like klinsi’s first cycle — up to brazil — and then GB’s tenure were failed attempts at turning this aesthetic. aesthetic hasn’t turned out to be superior results to bradley and before.
i think the ball needs to stay on the floor a lot of the time to be successful but beyond that i am pragmatic. i want to win. i am indifferent to how cute the style is.
personally i feel like US fans have confused different types of skills and been bait and switched. i think we wanted a team that could take teams on the dribble (brazil, argentina) or make reyna style needle-thread passes. i think we instead got bait and switched into tentative keepaway soccer.
i also think for reasons inexplicable we have fled the speed game successful right now by teams like france and japan. we have athletes if nothing else.
and if we want to play crossing soccer the carpet needs to match the drapes ie they need target strikers on the roster.
i am a little concerned by “develop this potential group of players.” adult NT this should be more about competition and finding a group that works well together as well as some systems — plural, for game management purposes — that fit them, and less about “teaching,” “development,” or long term projects, YNT coaches as well as their teams are supposed to be in charge of developing. this is not a religious mission. you pick a setup. you pick the people who best fit the setup with the least work. a good setup should achieve rapid results and fluidity, and we shouldn’t have to play teacher for years and implement a phone book of cues.
last point, since people went after weah for what he did, if you want for kids to learn these lessons, they actually need to be extended past the particular player making the mistakes. teaching rather than just punishing. because obviously the team in general isn’t getting the message when we castigate a specific player for misbehavior. so it needs to be more “everyone needs to stop this crap.”
we need roster competition, we need accountability to performance and discipline, and we need a coach who can game-manage and is not just a scheme zealot. in sum, a focus on what wins with flexibility and adaptability about how precisely we get there, rewarding what works and sidelining what doesn’t. this grew into precisely the worst combination of scheme stultification and personnel arrogance despite a lack of much results.
you have a hint at what needs to happen in the criticism of, say, turner. now do that 11/23 spots across the field. lot of guys out there either undisciplined or someone had a theory that’s never really borne fruit or we ignore repeated indifferent or bad performances.
this needs to go back to, ignore the names involved, reward the performers, and revisit the tactics that actually work and not the ones you wish did.
i mean we keep individually woodshedding reyna or mckennie or weah or dest for misbehaving. what you need is less individual morality lesson and public pillorying, more team-accepted rules that the next guy knows apply to him before he thinks about doing something. if you make it too personal and nasty then the players don’t get the team lesson. they get x is a bad guy for doing it. then for whatever reason y takes his turn as bad guy next time.
The truth is there are some decent options for the USSF to consider. It’s about finding the right candidate who will commit for a minimum of 2 years.
Klopp is #1 on everyone’s list. It’s up to him if he will accept a lower comp plan to step in the role.
Domestically, always liked Cherundolo as a player and as a coach. An upgrade from GB and well-respected. Nancy is a proven winner who would also fit into the role and not break the bank.
Overseas in Europe, there’s really just two with US coaches I can think of with both US connections, within budget, and have good track records: Wagner and Matarazzo. Wagner is out of work, while Matarazzo may be tempted to come back home. Unsure if either is a good fit for this team…hard to say.
Wagner would be a hard NO for me, his tactics are uninspiring and are the antithesis of attacking football. Matarazzo is an intriguing prospect, I don’t know much about him but he seems to always get the best out of his players on a seemingly limited budget and he has kept his club in the Bundesliga since their promotion from Bundesliga 2. Apparently USSF has already reached out to Klopp, so it’ll be interesting to see what develops over the next few weeks on that front.
Given the truly daunting task this HC job entails at this point in time, I’m thinking there needs to be a compelling reason to consider an interview. Klopp and Hugo Perez, both available, already declined. Perhaps a marquee coach, if the USSF could scrap up the money, could be tempted. But given the options, it’s a tough sell.
Those that have some connection to the US or US team may be more open to talking. In MLS, Cherundolo would be the most likely option, and I am hoping he at least is on the list. He would certainly understand he is not the #1 option.
I agree Matarazzo is a better candidate than Wagner, in that he has taken these marginal, low-budget Bundesliga teams, made them competitive and on paper overachieve. But Mattarazzo is in a good place at Hoffenheim, and the timing may not work in our favor.
while matarazzo was born and played college here, he basically disappeared for pro into low level germany never to return, zero visibility back here. no international experience at any level. and he’s basically a serviceable club manager with 30-ish% wins. given the pool we could potentially draw from, “why him?” because coaching in germany impresses you? so what, he has little success to show for it. i’d even say the same on wagner. wow, he got a team promoted via playoffs. he didn’t get norwich up and like matarazzo hasn’t had to actually win anything.
if we are going to hire someone for being a current or former big 5 league coach, ignore the “american” label — which to be real is strained here for passport players or long term expats (it’s not like they are dolo and after a coaching apprenticeship there came back here and coached in a league we know with evaluable concrete results) — and we can do far better than this.
i am unenthused about another “see what he did with the crew, imagine what he’ll do for us,” value concept. he’s done alright in his short head career but he was neither an international player nor has he coached anything a bigger deal than the crew. he might have better xs and os than GB but i don’t see him launching this into space.
IV: you would absolutely hate Nancy. Wants to posses the ball, pushes his WBs into the offensive third, CBs involved in the attack, 20+ goal sequences, keeper playing out of the back, immediate counter press if the ball is turned over. His style is the complete opposite of yours.
it’s not just “me,” it’s every time we play from the back a litany of turnovers and goals follow. it’s theory aside i struggle to remember when we have ever scored a 20-30 pass textbook possession goal with a tap-in. it’s do we have the mids to match the system and the wingback risk.
people are getting ahead of themselves and drawing up abstracted xs and os. to me, this is the pool. what can you do with this pool? what ideas do you have to negate the better teams and get our own goals? i don’t think international opponents are going to let us pass them to death. we can then cry about fouls and act like it’s just concacaf or something, a lot of good that does. but our tactics should reflect something we can actually execute even if we’re getting hacked. and should be designed to break down/stop colombia rather than show up bolivia.
IV: Nancy has figured out how to play possession soccer with guys like Aiden Morris, Sean Zawadski, and Mo Farsi. Despite pushing his WBs and CBs higher than anyone else in the league The Crew have the fewest GA and GA average in MLS. Whereas Gregg had ideas about possession style play Nancy has solutions. In the Euros teams with less possession in the knockout rounds won 4 out of 14 times. Copa was 3 and 3 although Colombia’s red card factored into that. In the Copa group stage in matches with a winner, teams with less possession were 4W 14L. There are some teams like Japan that have figured it out but your margins are small. France has tried to play without the ball but keep losing against good teams (it’s very hard to beat teams like Spain, Germany, and Argentina when you give them more of the ball). I don’t think Nancy would get picked but I think he’d do a better job than Gregg. A better enough job I’m not sure.
JR,
One reason why Gregg era teams didn’t really play well out of the back is that none of the keepers were particularly good at distributing, by foot or otherwise.
And besides the Jedi/Ream combo, who only came back into the picture at Qatar, they did not have center backs who were good and comfortable with it.
That’s one subtle reason why they missed Dest.
JoeScal may eventually be as efficient but he has not had the time
Vacqui, what I’m saying is Gregg didn’t really ever improve anyone’s possession play. I watched most of The Crew’s games with Gregg and Wilfred in charge. Gregg didn’t really make his club players that much better in possession either. Wilfred has taken a lot of guys not known for being possession guys and made them comfortable with the ball. If you saw Aiden Morris under Porter to where he was 1 1/2 years later under Nancy, night and day. It’s hard to tell if Wilfred could get guys that comfortable in the limited time that NT managers have, but he’s improved players in both Montreal and Columbus. People had written off Mihailovic as an MLS player until he went to Montreal, Nancy turned him into a popular snub on the WC roster among the grass is greener crowd. I don’t know if Nancy would work or not (honestly like to keep him in Columbus forever), but IV’s sit in our own half and long ball strategy from his playing days in the 90s won’t work over the course of a tournament that’s been proven over, and over and over. France with some of the best players in the world haven’t been able to make it work.
USSF wasted 11 months on delaying the inevitable.
During that time, they could have brought in someone and Copa America could have been the first barometer of progress, but instead he went with a guy that didn’t improve on anything other than maintain the status quo.
yeah well that’s my perspective on the lack of personnel or tactical experiment of the past few years, just the same. i feel like we just spent this year so far demonstrating this particular set is not the secret sauce. that time and tournament are burned. we are running out of time and part of that process needs to be more competition and some sacred cows being benched or hamburgered.
whoever comes in needs to have a blank slate sensibility about the roster and what to do with this. i really hope crocker isn’t going to effectively “coach” this and dictate a particular, similar “type” coach. we really need to question this whole path this went down, names on the rosters, formations, tactics, or this only amounts to symbolism rather than change.
Whoever it is, pleases select a coach with a proven record of recent success at the international level.
Great club coaches don’t always make great national team coaches. It’s a very different gig.
With less than 2 years to go we need a no nonsense seasoned winner at the international stage that has a realistic understanding on what it takes to be successful in tournaments using whatever pool is made available to him.
ok, so no Klopp.
@ malkin. For my money, no. It would be a gamble for me because he never coached or played internationally and we have very little time and games left before we need to get our act together and perform at the WC we are hosting. Of course klopp did a masterful job with Liverpool but he could also shape his vision by recruiting players that he believed would make his system and tactics shine. Something not possible with a country. Klopp is a terrific leader of men though and that could be the x factor here. But overall I’d lean towards less of a brand name that has worked with limited player pools before and led then to overachieve at international competitions. Not sure who it would be but that would be my preference. Maybe if it was right after the WC and we had 4 whole years I’d have a different view but with such a tight timeline my vote would be a pragmatic one.
Low, Klopp, Peckerman., Pioli.
Don’t think you would go wrong with any of those coaches.
Tim Weah for Player of the Year.
I’m not saying we’re going after Klopp, but… we’re going after Klopp.
And I’m not saying we’ll get him…but I think it’s entirely possible we get him, for a whole bunch of reasons. First and foremost – it’s as low-stress as a major gig gets – which could be big for a man who clearly burned out there at Anfield – and since the US just crashed out of a major tournament in Group the bar is presently very low and there’s nothing but upside in front of a coach, and with a very young and very talented group.
I’d also be thrilled with Wilfried Nancy. As a coach I sort of marvel what he’s done with Columbus and I really, really wish I could pick his brain for even an hour. We’d do well if we scooped him up before the world figures out just how good he really is.
I think Cherundolo would also be a likely upgrade, though I do think he’s more of a risk than Klopp or Nancy and would excite the fan base less than either.