Gregg Berhalter: the Right Choice to Lead US Men's Soccer Team

Many soccer pundits were surprised and disappointed that Gregg Berhalter is returning as US men’s coach through the 2026 World Cup. They should not have been.?

Berhalter is the right person to build on the team’s great progress since he took over from former coaches Juergen Klinsmann and Bruce Arena, who left the team in shambles after failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. Berhalter had to rebuild America’s team around a group of young players ages 17 to 21, as the “lost generation” between Landon Donovan and Christian Pulisic had not a single player competitive on the international level.?

He was astute enough to see the potential of these young players, so he put together a comprehensive plan to turn them “America’s Golden Generation.” It started with getting them to play the attacking style and positive ball control employed by great European teams. Then he encouraged and helped them get signed by those top clubs, rather than languishing in MLS. Recognizing America needed more international talent, he persuaded dual nationals like Sergino Dest, Yunas Musah, Antonee Robinson, Ricardo Pepi, Alexander Zendejas, and Jesus Ferreira to commit to the U.S. Most recently, star striker Folarin Balogun chose America over England.

Meanwhile, Berhalter went to work on bonding this young group of players, creating a team dynamic using corporate-style team building techniques. This worked handsomely as was evident during the team’s play at the World Cup. The team spirit recently hit a crescendo after winning the Nations Cup by turning captain Pulisic into a bowling ball sliding into bottles along a champagne soaked alley.?

Berhalter has created a culture of young players who genuinely love each other and have each other’s back. As Pulisic said, “Berhalter created the best brotherhood team that I’ve been part of.” This teamwork and the progress Berhalter made in building the U.S. Men’s Team was especially evident when the U.S. team demonstrated its superiority over arch-rivals Mexico and Canada in the recent Nations Cup. Following that victory, Pulisic hit back at critics of Berhalter’s reappointment, telling ESPN, “I have to give credit where credit’s due. It does frustrate me seeing all the negative press toward him.” He went on to reprise all the team’s successes under Berhalter.

Berhalter also created a leadership council of several players to talk through difficult issues. One of these was the attitude of 20-year-old Gio Reyna, who was creating disruption by his negative attitude and not trying hard in practice. The situation got so bad that Berhalter and his fellow coaches considered sending him home before the Cup, but relented after Reyna agreed to apologize individually to each player. Since this situation was unknown outside the team, many people criticized Berhalter for not starting Reyna. During the World Cup Reyna’s parents placed multiple calls to Berhalter’s bosses threatening them to get their son more playing time.?

At a December conference I attended on Moral Leadership, Berhalter was asked on a strictly confidential basis to describe an incident with his players where he faced difficult decisions as a leader. He shared general outlines of the Reyna episode without mentioning the player’s name. I thought this was an excellent example of his leadership in dealing with one of his stars - something we have all had to do when stars in our organizations are behaving inappropriately.?

When a participant at the conference broke the rules by releasing a transcript of the discussion, and later another reporter identified Reyna by name, Reyna’s parents were incensed and went on the warpath to get Berhalter fired. His mother revealed a 31-year old drinking incident when Berhalter was only 19 against his girlfriend (now his wife of 25 years), creating the recent controversy.?

As Pulisic observed, “Everything that happened with Gregg was handled in an extremely childish manner. We have all seen what is going on. I think it is childish, its youth soccer, people complaining about playing time.” How right he is: parents have no right to lobby to get their sons or daughters playing time. Parental intervention only hurts young players like Reyna as it delays their maturation as professionals.?

Officials at U.S. Soccer also were criticized for taking six months to search for a new coach and then renewing Berhalter’s contract. That is unfair. U.S. Soccer had no choice but to investigate the Reynas’ charges by hiring a well-known law firm. Its report completely exonerated Berhalter while praising his transparency, but sharply criticized the Reynas’ public intervention. That made Berhalter eligible to return as head coach. Second, the U.S. Soccer organization is undergoing major overhaul under new CEO JT Batson. He is building a much more professional organization and letting former players who were working there move on, while replacing them with pros like Matt Crocker, its new sporting director.?

Charged with selecting the men’s new coach, Crocker talked with numerous external candidates and also consulted extensively with the players, who were uniformly supportive of renaming Berhalter. Pulisic was speaking for many of them in recommending building on the progress of the last four years when he said, “We don’t need a complete rebuild as we did after not qualifying four years ago.” In addition, players Weston McKennie, Tim Weah, and Walker Zimmerman spoke out positively on Berhalter’s behalf.?

Third, the major advances in the U.S. team’s playing style and great teamwork were evident in the World Cup, a sharp contrast to the “playing not to lose,” defensive style of prior teams. Finally, it should be noted that Berhalter is the winningest coach in US men’s history (37 wins, 11 losses and 12 draws). Working thoroughly yet rapidly to select the new coach, Crocker recognized that Berhalter was the best leader to take America’s men’s team to the top levels of world class soccer.

Now that the air has cleared, Gregg Berhalter can build upon his excellent start to create the greatest men’s team in U.S. history by enabling each player to continue to grow in ability and skill to reach his full potential, integrating more upcoming young players into the pool, and adding more dual nationals while continuing the bonding of this team’s culture on and off the field.

If he does all that, America will finally have a men’s team that we can be proud of as it competes with the world’s best teams and comes out on top.

Bill George is an Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School where he teaches leadership. As the former Chair & CEO of Medtronic, he owned the Minnesota Thunder of USL’s A League and coached youth soccer for 12 years.