How Gregg Berhalter got the USMNT manager job back

As Gregg Berhalter reached the airport on Wednesday, a day after a 10-hour interview in an undisclosed location with U.S. Soccer leadership, he got a call from sporting director Matt Crocker. And it was a great moment, and sort of thinking about the team and the possibilities and your mind is going 100 miles an hour, but I was really motivated to come back and really make a go of this next World Cup and make the nation proud.” GO DEEPER Gregg Berhalter's USMNT return comes with newfound momentum, and a to-do list That U.S. Soccer landed here, back with the same coach who had been in charge six months ago, felt to some to be an odd circumstance. The second thing was very much around things like ELO rating, coaches that are winning coaches, coaches that have got a reputation of developing young players.” That initial process cut it down to “double-figure coaches” and “a number of those candidates” then went through a “comprehensive process.” Crocker also said he was in regular contact with the player leadership council, which includes veterans like Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, Tim Ream and Walker Zimmerman, and that their feedback informed the initial model on what the players looked for in a coach. “It gave us an opportunity to get real rich data, and then it took us a period of time to sit down and effectively tune all of these numbers, but what I’m delighted to say is on every step of the way, Gregg scored phenomenally and we’re really excited to have him here.” Berhalter confirmed he was in discussions with Mexican side Club America, one of the biggest teams in North America, when he got an invitation for an interview with U.S. Soccer. But Crocker said that just because he felt Berhalter was the right person for the job, it did not mean things were back to “business as usual.” That, in part, has led to the decision for Berhalter not to coach in Sunday’s Nations League final against Canada nor the upcoming Gold Cup as he and Crocker work together to strategize and best prepare the federation and the program for the upcoming cycle.