USMNT’s World Cup exit prompts one final report card for Gregg Berhalter

It wasn’t a pop quiz, but the United States’ 3-1 defeat against the Netherlands in the round of 16 served as Gregg Berhalter’s final exam for this cycle. After earning a C-grade in his World Cup coaching debut against Wales, a B+ against England and a sub-skewed B against Iran in the group stage, let’s take a look at the decisions Gregg Berhalter made against the Dutch and the whole of his team’s 360 minutes of action. “We’ll have to wait and see,” Van Gaal said when asked if he expected future World Cup opposition to tailor their tactics more specifically to Holland. Even if Van Gaal agrees that Berhalter didn’t need a different approach to his usual initial gameplan, there were a couple of potential ways out of the early hole which the U.S. dug. Grade: B- Final marks It’s a bit simplistic to chalk this up as “Louis Van Gaal beat Gregg Berhalter today,” but… yeah, Louis van Gaal beat Gregg Berhalter today.