PARADISE, Nev. — In an extraordinary twist, after months of drama and limbo, U.S. Soccer is set to rehire Gregg Berhalter as its men’s national team head coach, a source familiar with the negotiations confirmed to Yahoo Sports.
The Athletic first reported the news Thursday night. Berhalter’s contract has not yet been finalized, the source said, but the choice has been made; he is coming back.
After the USMNT’s dominant 3-0 win over Mexico on Thursday in a chippy match that ended early after four ejections, Christian Pulisic praised Berhalter and his work with the USMNT.
“I’ve supported him in the past,” Pulisic said. “Today is a testament of the work that he’s put into this team. [Interim coach] B.J. [Callaghan] picked up right where he left off, and it’s a testament to him, it’s a testament to this team, the way that we just continued, and put on performances like that.”
Berhalter coached the team to two regional titles in 2021, and to the Round of 16 at the 2022 World Cup. Soon thereafter, he became embroiled in a complicated, fraught saga involving USMNT midfielder Gio Reyna and Reyna’s parents.
The saga led to an investigation into a 1992 domestic violence incident involving Berhalter and his now-wife. During the investigation, Berhalter’s contract expired; and the two men who would have been responsible for either rehiring or replacing him, sporting director Earnie Stewart and USMNT general manager Brian McBride, left their jobs.
At that point, Berhalter felt like a long shot to reclaim the job, though U.S. Soccer consistently said he remained a candidate. The federation hired a consulting firm, Sportsology, to assist with a broad search, and indicated it might not hire a new coach into the summer.
Then the investigation, which mostly corroborated Berhalter’s public account of the 1992 incident, officially cleared him to be reconsidered. A month later, U.S. Soccer hired Matt Crocker to replace Stewart. Crocker immediately took the lead on the coaching search. He interviewed more than 10 candidates, U.S. Soccer CEO J.T. Batson told Yahoo Sports on Tuesday, before settling on Berhalter.
Throughout the process, several players, including Pulisic, had endorsed Berhalter for the job, and spoke highly of the work he did with the team from 2018-2022.
Praise for Berhalter continued up to and throughout this week, when the team gathered in Las Vegas for the CONCACAF Nations League. The news of Berhalter’s imminent return broke just as the USMNT kicked off its semifinal against Mexico. An hour earlier Jesse Marsch’s agent tweeted that his client “will not be the next #USMNT manager.” Marsch had been considered by many as a leading candidate for the USMNT’s coaching vacancy, one that had been filled on an interim basis first by Anthony Hudson after Berhalter’s contract expired and then B.J. Callaghan, who stepped in after Hudson left the organization for another job.
Now, what’s old is new again as Berhalter is set to take over over a team that recently added the highly coveted striker Folarin Balogun, who picked the U.S. over England and Nigeria and made his debut Thursday as a starter against Mexico.
