Gregg Berhalter’s USMNT seat is preheating

LANDOVER, Maryland – Eight years and two U.S. Soccer administrations ago, a four-goal loss was the final straw.

It won’t be for Gregg Berhalter; but it is a relevant precedent to remember as pressure mounts on the U.S. men’s national team and its coach following Colombia’s 5-1 defeat here on Saturday.

It was the fall of 2016 when Jurgen Klinsmann’s USMNT failed in Costa Rica. The 4-0 failure was the U.S. A team’s third by such a margin since 1994. Several months after the three — and several days after the calamity in Costa Rica — the head coach lost his job.

Saturday’s was the fourth.

And as it unfolded, Berhalter’s seat certainly began to heat up.

Of course it was just a friendly. Compared to 2016, the challenges and circumstances are different. But perhaps the most relevant precedent is the first of the four flops, a 4-0 defeat to Spain in June 2011 in a pre-Gold Cup friendly. Bob Bradley survived that defeat. He led the USA to the Gold Cup. It was after falling short in the Gold Cup, a regional tournament, that Bradley was fired.

In a nutshell, this is where American football will likely be 13 years later. Berhalter will coach the USMNT in the 2024 Copa América. If he fails, then questions will be asked and decisions will be made.

The question, specifically, is whether the USMNT is progressing and rising towards 2026.

The Copa América will offer essential tests.

If the answer is clear and affirmative, the pre-tournament results will be forgotten.

However, whether tenuous or forceful, Colombia’s capitulation must be seen as part of a pattern, which sensible analysts are increasingly pointing out.

Tab Ramos, a former USMNT assistant and current Telemundo pundit, touched on the topic on Saturday without mentioning Berhalter. “The truth is that I see a [U.S.] team with commitment, I see a team that runs, but I see a team that cannot find solutions”, said Ramos in Spanish. “It’s always the same, always the same football, always the same game. The games change, the opponents change and we see the same thing.”

We saw Berhalter’s USMNT five years ago. We saw them defeat Mexico’s worst team in decades. We also saw them in nine non-CONCACAF games against the Elo top 20. He drew five of those games, lost four and won none.

They tried, a few times, against Germany and Colombia recently, to play more expansive football. But their efforts backfired; its cohesion fractured; “It felt like they were just waiting for us to make a mistake and then they killed us in transition,” captain Christian Pulisic said of Colombia. “And that’s what happened over and over again.”

Whether the mistakes and impotence are Berhalter’s fault or not is incredibly difficult to pinpoint. International football, in general, is overwhelmingly player-driven. But at some point, the responsibility falls on the coach to prove that the pattern is breakable.

Throughout his first cycle of work, Berhalter broke other standards; he adjusted; he conquered Mexico. But when he was re-signed for a second cycle last June, reasonable doubts arose about his ability to guide this USMNT to “the next step” and new levels.

A year later, these doubts still persist, perhaps more ominously than ever. And the clocks are ticking.

The Copa América, although just nine months after Berhalter’s second stint, will be the USMNT’s only chance until the 2026 World Cup to face elite teams in legitimate competition.

Then, US Soccer, led by athletic director Matt Crocker, will have to evaluate the program’s trajectory. The players, on paper, are better than ever. Is your collective potential increasing in line with your individual talent?

The end of July will be the time to answer that question. A change of coach now, in June, would be hasty. But blindly committing to Berhalter until at least 2025 would divert crucial months in which a hypothetical new coach could be constructed. And committing to it until 2026, without evidence of progress, would risk wasting this talented generation of players and squandering this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – a World Cup at home.

So the window to make a decision, however inconvenient it may be, is approaching. And after Saturday, Berhalter’s seat is preheated.

It’s not hot. One month it might be cool, and in retrospect this outbreak might seem silly. Berhalter will not be fired because he lost a friendly against Colombia. Bradley was not fired because he lost to Spain (Image: Getty Images)no multiple entries). Klinsmann was not fired because he lost to Argentina 4-0 in the semi-finals of the Copa América Centenario. Coaches don’t get fired for 90 minutes.

Coaches are fired when their teams go sideways or backwards.

Klinsmann was fired because one goal – qualification and success at the 2018 World Cup – seemed increasingly distant rather than closer.

That’s the lens through which we can view Berhalter next month: Is his process leading to the 2026 quarterfinals or semifinals? Or is it stagnant, perhaps even regressing? Are these lofty goals within our reach or are they slipping away?

The answers, for now, remain inconclusive, but the chorus of skeptics is growing. For the entire USMNT, a potential tipping point is almost here.

This, as Ramos said, appears to be “a very, very delicate moment for the United States.”