Soccer in the States:What is the USMNT’s ceiling with Manager Gregg Berhalter?

“This game I can’t single anyone out: It was an entire team effort that was dominant. It’s hard for me to remember a performance away from home this dominant that wasn’t getting a result,” Gregg Berhalter said, addressing the press after his team’s embarrassing loss to a rival in a critical World Cup Qualifying game. 

If you couldn’t already tell, those were the words that the United States Men’s National Team manager uttered after a 2-0 loss to Canada Sunday — much to the bewilderment of USMNT team fans everywhere, including myself. 

I think I speak for all of the fans when I recount my initial reaction to what Berhalter said: “Excuse me?”

While he had the best view of the pitch, he couldn’t have watched the same game as the rest of us. Here’s what the fans and the rest of the world saw: One early defensive mistake gave way for striker Cyle Larin to slot Canada ahead in the 7th minute. From there, the U.S. showed an ineptitude that has become all too common on the biggest of stages, mustering few real chances at goal and never really putting together a cohesive product. Dysfunctional would be the one-word summary. And, of course, Canada tacked on a 95th-minute goal to add insult to injury. It was, by a country mile, the most frustrated I’ve been in this World Cup Qualifying cycle. 

It’s important to analyze both the micro and macro of Berhalter’s performance here. Some of the issues were as simple as team selection, while others run much, much deeper. 

Let me say that being a manager is by no means an easy task, especially with armchair critics such as myself, Twitter fiends (also me), TV personalities and basically everyone and their dog furiously ranting about every mistake Berhalter makes. But sometimes, the wrongdoings are just so impossibly stupid. 

Two words: Gyasi Zardes. I try to shy away from directed attacks at specific players, but I have to make an exception for this one. Without delving too far into a tirade on my least favorite USMNT player, Zardes is better suited to play at a Gold Cup level of competition, running with the B/C teams, than on the biggest stage in World Cup Qualifying. 

Seeing Zardes in the starting lineup for the Canada game made me want to gouge my eyes out. I, like many other fans, was dumbfounded that Berhalter would pick him over breakout star striker Ricardo Pepi, who already has 6 goal contributions in the campaign thus far and has proven he’s the best option up front for the U.S. 

But surely just one poor choice in the starting lineup can’t impact the team too much, right? Sadly, it absolutely can. The rest of the XI was optimal to say the least, and yet, the team wasn’t able to string together attacking play — much of the dysfunction followed Zardes’ lack of ability to distribute the ball and move it forward without being dispossessed. I know it’s a slippery slope to say it was all Berhalter’s fault, but his choice up front sabotaged any semblance of an attack for his team.

Berhalter’s second mistake came during the game, as he held out from bringing on substitutes in a game which clearly needed them until the 69th minute. Pepi came onto the pitch, and his contributions in the last 20 minutes of the game were by far the most productive from a striker on the day. But it was too little, too late. 

While there’s so much more that could be said about the game, I’ll end the microanalysis in the interest of brevity (head over to USMNT Twitter for endless examination at your own risk). 

It’s not just that what Berhalter said is blatantly wrong, comically overselling the product that his team put out on the field. It’s moreso that his comments reflect a damning reality for the United States Soccer Federation: The manager who is tasked with taking the nation to the World Cup does not have high enough standards. 

We’ve gone too far with Berhalter to turn back now. Firing him now wouldn’t make sense anyway — the U.S. still sits in second place in the Octagon with a very viable path toward automatic World Cup Qualification. Berhalter’s relative success so far is what makes this situation so difficult to approach. 

But, if you listen to some of the prominent voices of the media at the moment, many of whom are former USMNT players, the consensus is this: Berhalter’s teams are not built for the brightest lights. Something’s not right, whether it’s a matter of his tactics, his team selection, his player development or something else. Berhalter’s standards for his team are drastically lower than everyone else’s, and that’s a huge problem.

Needless to say, the final window of qualifying games is do or die. In future editions of this column, I’ll get into the math behind all the ways the U.S. could qualify and what kind of results the team will need against its last three opponents.

For now, I’ll leave you with this: Even Stephen A. Smith, a man who acknowledges himself that he doesn’t know all that much about soccer, is calling into question why Berhalter still manages the team. 

“I’m looking at [Berhalter] with a raised eyebrow, and I barely know soccer,” he said. “I’m looking at him and I’m saying to myself, ‘Why is he the coach of this team?’”

I don’t know, Stephen A., I don’t know.

Adam Jasper is a sophomore providing updates on the U.S. Men’s National Team and its road to qualifying for the World Cup as well as general soccer news. His column “Soccer in the States,” runs every other Thursday. He is also a sports editor at the Daily Trojan.