Opinion: The Conversation About Berhalter is Exhausting

On Wednesday, the United States Men’s National Team played horribly against Jamaica in the semifinals of the CONCACAF Nations League. Despite the Jamaican team being in horrible turmoil, with numerous of their biggest players out of the team, particularly star Leon Bailey, the US started dismally and let in a poor goal in the 1st minute. They proceeded to spend the entire rest of regulation time struggling to find an equalizer. The team saved their blushes when Jamaica gave up an own goal off a corner in the last minute of added time, forcing overtime. The US then proceeded to then smash two goals in quick succession, courtesy of Haji Wright, with assists from Gio Reyna, with both having come on as substitutes earlier in the match. The USA won, 3-1, advancing to the final v. Mexico on March 24th.

Despite ultimately winning the match, scrutiny returned to Berhalter for the poor performance, with many loud voices calling for Berhalter’s sacking or mocking that the last minute reversal saved his job. And this is where I can’t keep writing with a straight face. I’m just out of patience.

We’ve been doing this same sad dance for 5 years. I am tired. I know you don’t like Berhalter. I know you want him fired and replaced with __Insert Prominent Coach Here__. You’ve been saying it since the first match. Again, it’s been 5 years. I get it. Please get a new personality trait.

This is not about whether we can or cannot criticize Gregg Berhalter or whether we think others may do better in the position; indeed my thoughts are on the record elsewhere. Actually, it’s the complete opposite. The discourse for #BerhalterOut has been so constant and intense that, whenever anything goes wrong, there’s a feeling that you have to address it, or else you are blatantly ignoring it. It’s so overwhelming that it burns out everything else, making it difficult to have nuanced discussions about what the team and Berhalter are actually doing. Like, how on earth are you supposed to talk with a straight face about the USMNT and positional play when the internet is constantly mocking the coach as Greggdiola? How are you supposed to make nuanced evaluations of roster decisions when so many people are screaming because there’s too many MLS players or because they don’t like that Cristian Roldan got called up to sit on the bench. I mean, for God’s sake, the team won this particular match and yet, we still need to have this conversation! It’s boring. It’s exahusting. It’s not leaving room to talk about anything else.

And, to be clear, we all know that Berhalter would not have been canned even if the team had lost on Wednesday. The federation just hired him back. He’s won the Nation’s League*, won a Gold Cup despite the federation clearly deprioritizing that tournament and sending severely weakened teams. Under his guidance, the USMNT qualified for the World Cup after missing out in the previous edition, and then advanced to the knock-out stage, progressing farther than any of our CONCACAF rivals. The US has not lost to Mexico in any competition since 2019 and now the US very clearly stands alone at the top of the federation. Unless there is a meltdown in the Copa America this summer, we all know Berhalter is not going anywhere in the near future.

*Correction: Incorrectly stated that Berhalter has won two Nations League titles. During the finals in 2023, the team was led by a Caretaker manager, current assistant manager B.J. Callahan

For a lot of people, the USMNT serves as an entryway into the sport. For just about any USMNT match, the majority watching will know maybe two or three names, but almost certainly not the coach’s. Mind you, those of us who watch every match certainly know, but we are in the minority. Part of the goal of my post-match column is to create something that is approachable enough for someone who is trying to get more into the sport and is looking to learn more about it. At the same time, I also want to make something that is useful for someone who is already bought in and is well versed in the sport and the team. This is not an easy balance and, correspondingly, these columns are extremely labor and time intensive. But I cannot do that if everyone everywhere is screaming about how we need to fire the coach all the time. I am just too tired to keep fighting this toxicity.

I am not so arrogant as to assume that this article will somehow bring forth a calmer and more nuanced atmosphere around this team. Actuallly, I am rather confident that this article will convince exactly no one to reconsider their positions. Rather, what I really want here is to create a place where this opinion can sit and live that is not inside my mind. I am so tired of #BerhalterOut that I don’t even want to spend time thinking about complaining. So instead, I’ve written it out, published it, and now it’s living on the internet. From now on, at least for the forseeable future, I’m not talking about #BerhalterOut. I’m not touching it at all. My thoughts are out there in the open, now everybody knows that I think the #BerhalterOut movement is thoroughly unproductive, that it serves mostly for wish fulfillment and outrage-attention. And I want to talk about something else. Really, almost anything else. And now there’s an article I can point to insead of giving anymore of my time or energy.

And, with that said, I never have to think about this again. Hopefully.

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What was it that I said earlier? Something about wish fulfillment?