USMNT hire Gregg Berhalter as new head coach after 14-month search sparked by World Cup qualifying failure
The former defender, 45, will likely be presented next week and is charged with restoring the US as a Concacaf power
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14 months after Bruce Arena left his role in the wake of the United States' failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, the USMNT have finally found his replacement.
Gregg Berhalter will take over as head coach, the pinnacle of a managerial career that has taken in a spell in Sweden with Hammarby and then a successful stint at Columbus Crew where he acted as both coach and technical director. Berhalter's team developed a reputation as a side that played attractive, possession-based football and he is expected to take that approach with him to the national team as the USSF sets about fixing the issues that saw them miss out on last summer's global footballing carnival.
The year or so since Arena departed has been a chaotic time in American soccer, with the failure to qualify for Russia 2018 resulting in a presidential election.
Naturally, the USSF decided against hiring a new coach before the new hierarchy was settled and after a bitterly-fought electoral process eventually it would be Carlos Cordeiro who was named president, in turn naming Earnie Stewart as general manager.
Stewart's close relationship with his former teammate Berhalter meant that the Columbus Crew coach has long been considered favourite to lead the USMNT out of the doldrums but after a thorough - though some would say snail-paced - hiring process, in which FC Dallas' head coach Oscar Pareja was also interviewed.
The hiring of Pareja or Tata Martino - the departing coach of MLS stand-outs Atlanta United - was seen as a potential way to engage with the Hispanic soccer community in the US, a necessary step for a federation that has long been accused of being a closed shop.
Berhalter's arrival does little to address those issues given his brother is the USSF's chief commercial officer and the hire was made by his friend Stewart, but the 45-year-old coach will most widely be judged on how he takes on a team that boasts a potential superstar in Christian Pulisic. The expectation is not just to qualify for the Qatar World Cup in 2022 but to qualify without the last-minute scenario they left themselves in last year in Trinidad that resulted in such humiliation. Berhalter also needs to help Stewart and Cordeiro modernise US Soccer and make it more transparent.
Those might take longer than getting the on-pitch results, but at least after over a year of life without a coach, the USMNT finally have a leader to take them on.
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