U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker has stepped down from his role for a new opportunity in Saudi Arabia.
Crocker, 50, has left his current role and will take up a similar role with the Saudi Arabia Football Federation, U.S. Soccer announced Tuesday. Assistant sporting director Oguchi Onyewu, head of women’s development Tracey Kevins and USSF’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) Dan Helfrich will assume Crocker’s duties in the lead-up to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The news comes after Saudi Arabia technical director Nasser Larguet has been linked with an exit from his role. Larguet has served in his role since 2002 and has helped Saudi Arabia begin planning for hosting the 2034 World Cup.
“Over the past several years, U.S. Soccer has grown significantly across every part of our sporting organization, and we thank Matt for the role he played in that progress,” said JT Batson, U.S. Soccer CEO and Secretary General. “Matt helped guide important steps across our sporting organization, and we’re grateful for his contributions. We’re confident in our strategy, leadership team, coaches, and technical staff. We will continue building the right structure for the future, and we’re well positioned to make the decisions needed in the short, medium, and long term.”
Crocker joined U.S. Soccer from then-English Premier League side Southampton after serving as the club’s technical director on two separate occasions. The Welsh-born Crocker also served in a same role within the English FA from 2013-20 before returning to Saints for the next three years.
Crocker was influential in several key decisions involving the U.S. men’s and women’s national teams during his time with the federation.
He rehired former USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter after his contract expired at the conclusion of the 2022 World Cup. Berhalter was later fired after the 2024 Copa America, where the USMNT were eliminated in the group stage.
Crocker helped U.S. Soccer hire Mauricio Pochettino as USMNT head coach, a role that the Argentine has served in since September 2024. Pochettino has registered a 13-2-9 record in 24 matches across all competitions.
In addition, Crocker and U.S. Soccer’s front office hired Emma Hayes as USWNT head coach in November 2023. Hayes officially began in her role in May 2024 and led the USWNT to a Gold Medal at the Olympic Games that summer.
She has won 31 of her 36 matches in charge of the USWNT across all competitions.
“It has been a privilege to be part of U.S. Soccer during such an important period for the sport in this country,” said Crocker. “I’m grateful for the people I’ve had the opportunity to work with across the Federation, from our coaches and players to our technical and administrative staff. I’m proud of what’s been built together and confident the team in place will continue to move the game forward and drive success on and off the field.”
The USMNT will begin World Cup play on June 12 while the USWNT will begin their World Cup Qualifying schedule later this Fall at the CONCACAF W Championship.
the timing is noted Mr. Crocker…thank you
For me, I want someone dedicated to the cause vs. a mercenary who can flip whenever (have you all seen A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms? lol), whether they are American of Welsh or British or Argentinian or whatever
yeah, i have always thought it obnoxious when a college football player skips the bowl game to go pro, or a coach announces he is gone before the game is played. it elevates careerism over the games. so this guy hitting the door before the tournament, particularly after selling some sort of 5 or 10 year plan kind of thing, hits bad.
i personally want to see bureaucracy reduced and us hire coaches for winning above all else. hand the winner the team. let him figure it out. quit forcing tactics. quit running things from the executive suite.
the part that needs beefing up is scouting, below the coach, not management layers above the coach. analytics driven stuff hasn’t been helping. that seems to come up often enough with “sargent” or “wondo.” i think we need to get back to sorting out who the real ball players are. tools based. then a formation using them.
and the irony is for a team that says it wants to skill people to death, many on here are allergic to reyna, dismissive of luna, and in no hurry to push sullivan along. so we’re saying we want something then rejecting it in practice. that hints we are not really tapped into the “national temperament” or “style.” in that sense, crocker failed. what you need is leadership that looks at the pool before it designs tactics. not snake oil salesmen soon on to the next town.
there’s a lot that we agree on IV, and that I agree with in your post
Sargent and Wondo seem very different to me; Sargent has been let go basically and Wondo got chosen. Re. Gio, it just wasn’t a good window for him, and I think revealed kind of why he doesn’t play for club even tho he is as we all know talented, but at this point I’d take Luna over him every day of the week, holidays, everything
re. style, it’s always made me laugh/cringe to hear the discussion for years and years being how the USMNT did’t play a flipping pretty style or whatever junk was going on when Barca and others started populating the US airwaves. I was like, wtf are you people talking about?? We can win by stopping that shit, not doing it, and countering it. Like the Confederate Cup win, but many US fans and ‘conscienti’ hated that win and went along with the world as it criticized it as negative football…whatever 😉 If it was Greece who gets mad love for playing this kind of game, or some Arab country, they’d be heroes not only to their countries’ fans, but to football overs for their ‘grit ad determination and blah blah blah’ for stopping the unstoppable and unbeaten Spain
Anyway we’ve come a long way from that and are not resigned to those kinds of tactics and have players, besides only LD back then, who can score and create and control things, at times, in the right matchups, depending on who is healthy, and in favor, in the right schemes and tactics, with the right combinations of players, blah blah blah 😉
Beach, has Greece really gotten mad love since 2004 though? Were they able to build that into anything consistent? They’ve only made 2 WCs since and didn’t win a knockout rnd match. Their WC victories are Ivory Coast and Nigeria. Saudis beat Argentina and couldn’t get out of their group.
————-
Contrary to IVs faulty memory 1998, 2002, 2006 we gave up 1.9 goals per game in the WC group stages. Also gave up 1.9 in 2009 Confed Cup, somehow still made the final. We gave up early goals in almost all of those matches too, negating the strategy. Our organization and work ethic really were not very effective. Look at the Euros 2 yrs ago, club WC last summer, Copa America, the team with most possession wins at a much much higher percentage. Obviously you still have to finish, but your chances are much better if you have more of the ball.
hey JR, I remember all of those games from the WCs mentioned, and stats schmats, it’s ONLY because of the organization and work ethic we overcame. Come on man, back then it was a group of guys, not a rotating tryout every minute, and they all loved each other and believed in each other and worked for each other…that’s how you can win by being organized and work ethic based, not some goofy notion of formational whatever with guys who don’t love each other, or at least care for each other 🙂
Also, those USMNT groups were the founding fathers of how to beat and dominate Mexico, which they mostly did including the WC 2002 and the Gold Cup with LD’s PK and the madness from Mexico, and many other examples after being the whipping child forever.
I’m telling you man, love overcomes a lot in soccer…see the Spain win back then, like Greece and their thing, which was just an example, not the lone example; heck JR, there were many US fans who were BUMMED LD scored vs. Algeria LOL, so ready to pounce and declare failure when again, for me, it was that love between the players and their belief in each other and their mission that got it done; Algeria fucking played for a draw even tho they needed a win to advance LOL!!! and would have been continental and cultural heroes forever if they’d pulled of that failure to advance…see??? just another example.
it’s not how you do it, it’s do it, my strong opinion…without resorting to white collar cheating and other nefarious dishonorable ways and means
🙂
oh, and re. possession, it’s most valuable with the lead; however the chances are created to get the lead is fine, on the counter or in possession or whatever, but with the lead, that is when possession is truly valuable
Successes:
-Emma Hayes hiring and Olympic Gold
-Youth National Teams and identification- every international window now we have full camps for U17, U18, U19, U20, and U21 during college offseason both men and women have brought in college players for playing identification. It’s hard to say how much tournament success that will lead to because our best (and many countries best) are often not released for competitions like U20 WC or Olympics.
TBD: Poch
this is spin. the men are struggling. the women were top 4 already and should have been finalists even at their down ebb if they fixed the defense. androvski was inexplicable.
that leaves your age group thing. i looked it up. one college kid U20 camp. one college kid U19. no college kids were on the U20 world cup team. the vast majority of age group kids i see are from very safe selections from pro signed, II teams, or academy kids here or europe.
i think the back end of U20 is equivalent to top end college but the selection doesn’t reflect that. we continue to operate on the assumption MLS academy development is working awesome. reality says my MLS team’s academy can barely produce a first team player. it’s a few functioning academies. we used to have U20s as college all star teams. it’s swung over to pro kids. it probably needs to land more in the middle — based on how many kids with some college are in the pool later on. crocker didn’t really accomplish that.
you’re kind of trying to tell me it’s an open shop when it’s more closed than my day. the age groups will be academy kids, early signed pros home and abroad. the U20s called for tournaments will all be signed. it’s most definitely operating on the assumption some kid sitting in MLS is better than some kid scoring 15 goals in NCAA. even when stats tell us some percentage of that will prove the reverse. x% senior MNT will have gone through college and not made U20.
You want instant world dominance, we should be as good France because IV says so. Crocker made progress with youth teams, and player identification that’s a success.
-During previous regimes unless it was a Concacaf Tournament or WC these teams didn’t get together very often and if they did it was U17s, U20s, and U23s. 60-65 players total. Last window U21, U20, U19, u18, and U17s all met around 100 players. And not just let’s meet in Florida and scrimmage Jacksonville St, they’re traveling to Argentina, France, Spain, Mexico. Previously if you weren’t 20 in a U20 WC year you didn’t go to anything because there was no U19s or U18s. The US will always miss some kids in the cracks because the country is so large.
-most of the top players in college are foreign or came thru academies. When they didn’t get offered MLS Next Pro contracts they go to college. Go look at the Herman trophy nominees and top scorers. Top 10 goal scorers in NCAA last fall only 2 were American both came thru USL academies.
—————-
Answer me this why does no major manager play your style of soccer? Even Simeone abandoned your 4-4-2 defend deep in your end and counter. Japan abandoned their trapping at midfield style. Why? Because over the course of a tournament with 5 knockout rounds no one can absorb that pressure. France with the most talented roster in the world couldn’t win playing that way. So as soon as Crocker hired anyone besides your AAU coach you deemed it a failure.
———————
You must require Trump-like mental gymnastics to be a proponent of competition for spots but still cry about why we don’t have the old IMG where 20 players got to be the national team from age 17 to 20.
“ should have been finalists even at their down ebb if they fixed the defense. androvski was inexplicable.” They gave up 1g in New Zealand in four matches, yes Andonovski couldn’t get that defense right. They finished in the Rnd of 16 nowhere near the final. That after finishing 3rd at Tokyo Olympics. So sorry hiring Emma and winning the Olympics less than a year after crashing out in the WC is a success.
you’re trying to act like he improved the age groups when U20 have been stuck plateaued at the same elimination round for about a decade. every few years some colombia or morocco team with a better mousetrap skips on past us to later rounds. and they don’t tend to be teaching their kids to play keepaway by the corner flag, which i was taught is a sign of lack of ideas.
or have you forgotten the “barometer” already? my notion that the US U20’s success could be predicted by how often they actually bothered to try to get to the endline? that our lone morocco goal was a sustained series of corners?
you’re trying to spin me thinking androvski being in a job as long as he was, was insane, into antagonism for hayes. hayes was the one thing he did right. how many years did some of those defenders losing quarters and semis get to keep their jobs? eg sauerbrunn that they let play to almost 40. kind of like the men right now.
i wonder how much soccer you really watch. france gets downfield in a hurry in transition. morocco and japan use my counter style. morocco is a terror lately that beat us in U20. oh, but we know better. what is it we know? exactly. you can’t make up your mind if we are geniuses at the edge of greatness or a complete mess i am mean to expect more of.
you confuse my dislike for 433 for me being pro 442. i brought up 442 in the context of doku owning our wing and standard coaching responses. my real point is we are so wedded to a (faulty) system coach we don’t make common sense in game adjustments, and struggle to adopt and stick with stuff that works better when we experiment. we did well for a bit 3421. where did that go? we always default back to 433. 433 doesn’t work for us, and didn’t control games when i was a kid, either, when i played it with a different select team one year.
Some credit where due: he brought in Hayes who immediately turned the uswnt back into the best in the world. He landed Poch who is the biggest name the usmnt have ever had. Yes the jury is out on results for the men but that is on poch not crocker
Good riddance! Dude was corny and dead weight that needed to let go. He didn’t care about USA American soccer, especiallythe mens side. He is a money grabbing grifting 🤡 like Poch!
i don’t see how all these layers of bureaucracy are doing any good as process. we hire some mediocre sporting director from a team since demoted to the championship. we have to wait for him to get hired before we hire some mediocre GM sometimes with limited experience. we have to wait for him to get hired before we then hire some coach a top MLS team wouldn’t take.
this leadership group then as a matter of substance pimps some new, abstract idea of soccer that doesn’t fit the player pool as the “american way.” at the senior level they look like they haven’t played together before. the tactics are generally an anvil dragging us back instead of a catapult into higher competitiveness. we go in circles on selection because the tactics don’t work so we’re struggling with “is it the formation or is it this player.”
go back to basics. have the USSF president wave a check in front of an excellent coach with winning tactics that fit the pool. that is not this keepaway crap. more athletic, more physical, more transition and chance oriented, more fundamentally sound, less technical, less possession oriented. we do not have lionel messi and co. to pass teams to death.
and then this needs to get more pragmatic. what formations and approaches work. what players play well.
reduce bureaucracy. shorten hiring times. get the coach to the team faster. get more time with the team. hire better. hire proven winners. let them coach. make the players compete for roles. reduce entitlement. reward performance.
fundamentally this was just crap. you hire him. his team went so bad it’s demoted. he hires someone like mcbride, who is long gone and added little. mcbride spends most of a year waffling then brings back berhalter. berhalter then crashes and burns in tournaments. meanwhile that process consumes whole quarters of the cycle.
this is no way to run a railroad, and i think it’s a fair argument this hasn’t moved an inch since this time last cycle. so what is the point.
-McBride put in his resignation before Qatar and left in January 2023. Crocker didn’t begin working until April of 2023.
-McBride joined US Soccer as GM in 2020 and left in Jan 2023, he was not involved in the hiring of Berhalter either time.
——————-
If only these basic facts could be easily searchable on the Internet.
typical horsecrap. nitpick spelling and whether each fact is right. i mixed up the GM. that is easy enough, i think we have had 3 or so this cycle. i didn’t mix up the analysis. by moaning about the nitpick you distract from the useful analysis. bravo.
i’m more concerned it gets fixed, which i think i am right on about, than whether each fact is perfect.
i think you want to flex what you read but have zero answers and not enough trenchant critique of something that loses a lot, other than nihilism like they suck. this pool is not worse than canada or mexico. this pool is not worse than some of the “good teams” it loses to. we may not be world cup winners but you make too many excuses acting like it’s 1989 or something.
which, btw, this was a semi team in 1930. this was a quarter team in 2002. the problem is not this is a baby soccer nation. the problem is it wanders off into alleys for periods. this crap we are trying right now is another cul de sac. you are blowing this whole golden generation’s careers.
i mean, cut the crap. this should on paper be the best team in the region. but we qualified 3rd last time on a tie break. before that it was 5th behind panama. many of our recent tournament finishes are like that. do i really think that’s talent? no. i think that’s the tactics are roughly as dangerous as watching some team walk the ball up in Soccer Bowl in the 70s.
this got good when it tripped across bora and got some teeth to it. it needs the teeth back in it. win balls and get athletically downfield behind defenses.
otherwise, the 1989 team was lucky mexico was banned. the teams before that were often soft or imbalanced. and right now domestic development is questionable and national tactics are passive. attack like you mean it. play positive soccer. put balls to feet in the box. defend like heck. this isn’t complicated. but you’re not going to win a lot of soccer games dawdling on the perimeter like you are scared, or playing defense passively in zonal formation lines.
IV,
“this is no way to run a railroad”
The USSF is not a railroad. I disliked Crocker because I thought he grossly fucked up Gregg’s re-hiring and may have fatally hamstrung Gregg’s successor by waiting until Copa America was over to hand that shit sandwich to Pochettino. I think Pochettino underestimated how fucked up the team was but Poch’s hiring is a success regardless of how the WC turns out:
1) He has given MLS and recent MLS players more of a legit chance to prove their worth. Lalas will let you know how that turns out.
2) He has raised the profile and the bar of the previously lightly regarded USMNT manager’s job. Along with guys like Tuchel and Nagelsmann he has shown that maybe a national team job is not just for mercs, retirees, or ex-players looking for an entry level job with a profile. The fact that rumors about Pep maybe taking over as Poch’s successor are taken seriously in some quarters tells you that.
3) The team and it’s country club mentality needed to be taken down a peg or two and Pochettino did that. Whether anyone else could have done that is unknown and irrelevant. For better or worse, once that roster is turned in, this will be Pochettino’s team now. At this point, in term so of the manager, what matters more is the identity of his successor.
“the women were top 4 already and should have been finalists even at their down ebb if they fixed the defense. androvski was inexplicable”
Bullshit. IV, you should run for elective office, you’ll fit right in.
Vlatko Andonovski (often misspelled as Androvski) was hired as the manager of the USWNT on October 28, 2019, by then-U.S. Soccer President, noted blatant misogynist Carlos Cordeiro. The hiring process was led by USWNT General Manager Kate Markgraf, who conducted a search to identify a successor for Jill Ellis.
When Vlatko Andonovski resigned in August 2023 ( Crocker was hired April 2023), the USWNT was ranked No. 3 in the FIFA World Rankings. This drop to third place was a historic low for the program.
Historic
• This marked the first time the USWNT had ever fallen out of the top two spots since FIFA established the ranking system in 2003.
• The team surrendered the No. 1 spot for the first time since June 2017, ending a six-year reign at the top.
• The decline was a direct result of their Round of 16 exit at the 2023 Women’s World Cup, their earliest-ever elimination from the tournament.
• New Leaders: Sweden, who eliminated the U.S., took over the No. 1 spot, while tournament champions Spain rose to No. 2.
So if you are telling me that the USWNT was in a hppy place and okay, I don’t think so.
What has Hayes done?
Under Hayes, the USWNT has staged a major comeback, currently holding the No. 2 spot in the FIFA Women’s World Ranking as of April 2026.Since Hayes’s appointment in May 2024, the team’s ranking has seen significant volatility, reaching both historic lows and a dominant return to the top
• Back to No. 1 (August 2024): After falling to an all-time low of No. 5 in June 2024, Hayes led the team to Olympic Gold in Paris. This undefeated run catapulted them back to the No. 1 spot in August 2024.
• The team maintained its top ranking through December 2024, capping off a “turnaround” year under Hayes.
• Battling for the Summit (2025–2026): Throughout 2025, the U.S. and Spain frequently traded the top two spots. While Spain currently holds No. 1, the U.S. remains the highest-ranked team in CONCACAF.
If you think there is a better manager than Hayes going forward, who would that be?
y’all are missing my point on hayes vs. androvski. the latter guy stunk, the players did not respond, and the defense did not get fixed. for years. i don’t care what the hiring process was. i care that he was a mere ok women’s league manager when this team was historically run by THE TOP ncaa coaches (when amateur) or THE TOP international coaches like pia.
i merely see hayes as akin to hiring pia. which is how this used to get run.
all due respect but hiring andovski is the same sad sack mentality that thought GB was worthy of his job. woe is me. we are a baby soccer country. history says the men will be strong for a period when the league clicks and we hire serious coaches. history says we wander off down rabbit holes and pretend like we are babies who need european tutoring and a complete rebuild.
i mean do you people get we were making the semis in world cups (1930) before england played in one (1950, the one where we upset them and they lost twice in group and went out)?
i get after the 1920s power ASL burned out it became more of an amateur game for a while, but that misses that few leagues in the world have been pro forever. holland wasn’t all that pro until the 50s or 60s. do they get kid glove treatment? do they get to be eternally adolescent?
and more pointed, do most NT get to just ignore results and pursue aesthetics? this is like total football without the playful aspect, or futebol without the dribbling fun. or the results of either. usually that results in firing the coach and getting practical. but we hired a coach to do a slightly different version of more than the same. who then can’t resist the siren song of 433 even when it was 3421 that worked.
we are better talented and resourced than canada, and have historically owned them, but they are aggressive and oriented to speed, and we are intent on getting cute. without being that cute to watch. watching centerbacks pass it back and forth is not jogo bonito. what is this.
IV,
“y’all are missing my point on hayes vs. androvski. the latter guy stunk, the players did not respond, and the defense did not get fixed. for years. i don’t care what the hiring process was. i care that he was a mere ok women’s league manager when this team was historically run by THE TOP ncaa coaches (when amateur) or THE TOP international coaches like pia.”
You’re no lover of facts or logic.
Your panties are twisted up blaming Crocker for Androvski when Crocker had nothing to do hiring the guy and may have paved the way for his exit.
Good Move for him and US Soccer.
Is Bruce going to be coming back to bail USSF out?