Gregg Berhalter's 'technical difficulties'
Happy Monday! It's June 10th, and in today's newsletter, we're talking poor showings in pre-tournament warm-ups - especially USA's abject display against Columbia. Tuck in and enjoy!
The USA lost 5-1 at home to Colombia in a pre-Copa America warm-up game in the nation’s capital on Saturday and were utterly outclassed by superior opponents. (Highlights from B/R Football)
Technically it was a 5-1 home defeat but it was, in fact, one of those games that you only really get in the USA where fans of the home nation are massively outnumbered by supporters of their opponents. Which, no matter how you dress it up, continues to be embarrassing for American soccer.
One thing that isn’t unique to the USA though is that the defeat led to impassioned calls on social media for the coach to be fired and in one case for him to be jailed.
Curiously, the post-match press conference wasn’t able to be livestreamed due to “technical difficulties”. As reporter Megan Swanick asked “One need wonder if those technical difficulties are named Gregg Berhalter?”
Those who were able to tune in were only able to hear the sound of Berhalter throwing the team under the bus:
“The reason why I’m so disappointed is guys just didn’t do their job”.
“From the 75th minute on, it was I think a lack of respect for our opponent [and] the game of soccer, what we were doing. We’re not framing it a lesson learned, we’ll frame it as a wake-up call.”
The comments raise two questions:
1. Is it not a reflection on the coach of the team if they ‘disrespect’ the game of soccer and don’t do their job?
2. Was the defeat also a ‘wake-up call’ for US Soccer regarding their coach?
The always-worth-reading Henry Bushnell at Yahoo Sports suggests the timing of the loss, on the eve of a major tournament, means that Berhalter isn’t going to be sacked right now and not even if they get hammered again on Wednesday against Brazil in Orlando.
Berhalter will coach the USMNT at the 2024 Copa América. If he fails, then questions will be asked and decisions made.
And he’s surely right - US Soccer isn’t in the habit of firing coaches on the eve of tournaments.
In fact, US Soccer don’t like firing or hiring coaches at all. Remember they didn’t even have a coach for most of last year because after Berhalter’s contract ran out (while he was under investigation), the federation spent several months conducting a ‘global search’ for the next coach before deciding that the best coach they could find in the world was…..Gregg Berhalter.
A couple of stats:
On Saturday, for the first time in USMNT history, all 11 starters were players from clubs in the top 5 European leagues. (OptaJack)
The USMNT’s only win under Berhalter against a top 20 team excluding Mexico is Iran. He has a 7.1% win percentage in those matches. (Twitter)
Meanwhile Brazil played a largely second string side against Mexico in their 3-2 friendly win on Saturday in Texas - which means they are likely to unleash their starters against Gregg’s boys in Central Florida on Wednesday.
Let’s reconvene after that one….
PS: There is a lot of talk about Berhalter wasting the ‘golden generation’ of American players. But we have to ask, regardless of views on the coach, is this generation really that much better than previous version of the USMNT?
Craig Burley of ESPN doesn’t think so and we tend to agree. There are plenty of players from American soccer’s past - Dempsey, Donovan, Bocanegra, young Michael Bradley, Reyna, Tab Ramos, O’Brien, Howard, to name just a few, who would walk into this team.
Your Daily Soccer Round-up….
EURO 2024: Your editor tasks you with finding a way to do a single page interactive guide on all 622 players. Design team at The Guardian: “No, problem, boss!” (Guardian)
Still, nothing beats popping down to your local newsagents, or Barnes & Noble, to pick up a Panini sticker album and doing it old school….
….GODDAMNIT:
A row between rivals Panini and Topps has meant collectors cannot fill an album with players in their kits from all 24 nations in this year’s tournament. (Guardian)
England shouldn’t be too worried about a lackluster showing at Wembley in their final warm-up loss against Iceland. The other pre-tournament favourites hardly fared much better with France being held to a 0-0 draw against Jesse Marsch’s Canada, and Portugal losing 2-1 at home to Croatia.
What’s “nice wake-up call” in French and Portuguese? (BBC)
PREMIER LEAGUE: Rumours abound that Man Utd are looking to offload their entire first team, while Sir Alex Ferguson is swanning around Mayfair buttering up Crystal Palace sporting director and compatriot, Dougie Freedman, in an attempt to prise England trio Marc Guehi, Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise away from Selhurst Park. (Football Insider)
Quote of the Day
“A single Real Madrid match is worth 20 million [euros] and Fifa wants to give us that amount for the entire cup. Like us, other clubs will refuse the invitation.” - Carlo Ancelotti on why Real Madrid won’t be playing the expanded FIFA Club World Cup (Guardian)
And that’s your lot. Thanks for reading The Daily Soccer, and don’t forget to subscribe if you’d like our newsletter in your inbox every day.