Calls for Leadership Change in U.S. Soccer Continues
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00:00You know, Kyle, I think it is only natural in sports when things don't go your way, you
00:08know, sometimes to not blame the players and blame the coaches.
00:11And I don't know, you know, you know a lot more than me about this, and I don't know
00:15if that's necessarily fair here, but it certainly is what everybody is talking about today,
00:20that the leadership of Team USA, the men, they need a change.
00:24Do you think that that is accurate?
00:27I do.
00:28I wrote about that last night at Sporting News, and I'm far from the only one.
00:32There's been really, really intense calls for U.S. soccer to make a change here from
00:37a lot of respected voices.
00:39I know Jeff Carlisle of ESPN did so, Henry Bushnell of Yahoo, a lot of the folks on Fox
00:45Soccer last night as well.
00:47So there's been a big call, and this is a big change from the past, because in the past
00:53there has often been a relatively reasonable excuse for any step back that U.S. soccer
01:00has made.
01:01And there's also been plenty of examples of parallel growth from the Federation.
01:07You look at the talent on the field, it's far better than they've ever had in the past.
01:12If you just look at where these players are playing at the club level, you've got a lineup
01:17for the first time in U.S. history against Columbia in a pre-tournament friendly.
01:22The first time ever a U.S. soccer lineup has featured 11 players all from the Big Five
01:28European League.
01:29So there is clear growth from a talent level with this team under Greg Berhalter.
01:33What there's not been is clear growth from a results perspective.
01:37He has yet to beat a top 15 ranked team in the world not named Mexico, just flat out
01:46has not done it in multiple chances, whether it be friendly, competitive action, anything.
01:51The highest ranked team he's ever beaten, won a game against, not named Mexico, was
01:58Iran at the last World Cup, ranked 20th in the world.
02:02So there's just not been that next step.
02:05They've dominated CONCACAF under Greg Berhalter, flat out.
02:08I mean, Mexico is in a nosedive and the U.S. has generally dominated its own confederation.
02:15But the calls to take that next step abroad in the global perspective just has not happened.
02:21And he's had plenty of time to do that.
02:24This tournament was the latest and last chance to do that before the 2026 World Cup.
02:30And they fell well short of that.
02:32Yeah.
02:33Let me follow up with that, Kyle, and ask this question, because I'm not familiar.
02:36I'm familiar with the coaching cycles, you know, basically here in the States with the
02:40NFL and the NHL, you know, NBA baseball as well.
02:44When something like this is a call to action, as you mentioned, Fox Sports, ESPN, a lot
02:49of the analysts, yourself over at Sporting News.
02:52When a change like this happens, is that something that happens immediately, like today?
02:57Or is that something that happens in months from now?
02:59Like, how does that usually transpire?
03:01Because it feels like if something was to happen, like, right away, it would be a knee-jerk
03:05reaction, regardless if it's correct or not.
03:08Yeah.
03:09So U.S. Soccer put out a statement last night that was pretty generic and bland.
03:13They just said, we're going to conduct a review.
03:15This did not meet our expectations.
03:17We'll go from there.
03:19At the club level, these things would happen a lot quicker.
03:21You would see coaches fired the night after a disappointing defeat or the next day.
03:29That's just how quickly they happen, because you have very little time to make a turnaround.
03:34At the international level, they will happen a lot slower.
03:36We saw the last time there was a vacancy after the 2022 World Cup, when Berhalter's contract
03:41was up.
03:42It took them, I mean, like eight months to decide that they wanted Berhalter back.
03:48They don't have that kind of time this time, because the World Cup is only two years away.
03:52So they're going to have to move quickly with this.
03:56They're still going to take some time.
03:58There's going to be a few months between now, when they decide if they want to keep or fire
04:03Berhalter, and then when they make the hire.
04:06It's going to take a little while, but they do not have remotely the time they took the
04:09last time this happened.