Gregg Berhalter is a stunning but sensible USMNT choice — with a glaring question mark

Gregg Berhalter’s six-month limbo began amid a fog, with drama still mum and wounds still fresh. It began with emotions swirling, on the morning after World Cup elimination, but before the reignition of the family feud that changed his life. On Dec. 4, all was quiet; there were no investigations, no executive vacuums, no off-record comments gone awry. But there was uncertainty. Berhalter’s future lay, in part, in the hands of his boss, Earnie Stewart. When they chatted that night at a bustling barbecue atop Qatar's Marsa Malaz Kempinski, Berhalter did not fully know whether Stewart wanted him back as U.S. men’s national team head coach.

But Stewart more or less knew. He and U.S. Soccer, according to multiple sources familiar with their thinking, were strongly leaning toward retaining Berhalter. The polarizing coach retired to his room that night as the favorite to keep his job, for reasons that Stewart and players have since explicated.

Then he got sick, and rearranged his travel plans, and attended a leadership summit, and told a story, and everything changed. The story got published, and triggered Gio Reyna’s parents, who unearthed decades-old trauma and sparked an investigation, which led to a mess, and a U.S. Soccer shakeup, and the assumption that Berhalter would not be rehired.

But as temperatures cooled, and limbo dragged on, and coaching search processes took shape, a familiar rationale emerged.

Berhalter had crafted a culture. He’d instilled belief. Players liked him. They fought for him. They’d played progressive soccer. They’d taken collective strides. They craved an opportunity to continue their growth.

And all of that, save for one thorny detail, is as true on June 16 as it was on Dec. 4. Which is why U.S. Soccer made the stunning decision to reappoint Berhalter. It’s a sensible one — as long as that one thorny detail can be ironed out.

U.S. Soccer's search ends where it started

Berhalter’s locker-room popularity emerged gradually in the aftermath of Qatar. Consensus, of course, is always tough to gauge, but consistent themes emerged. “I think the hardest thing as a coach is to get everybody going in the same direction,” DeAndre Yedlin said in the bowels of the Khalifa International Stadium, a mere hour after the World Cup loss to the Netherlands, when asked about Berhalter. “I think he's done that very well. He's got everybody bought into the culture. And that's the most important thing.”

Critics, meanwhile, obsessed over specific Berhalter tactics. But in and around the team, and among forward-thinking federation executives, the vibes-over-tactics prioritization crystalized. Stewart, in a February interview with Yahoo Sports, recalled arriving in Qatar, and sensing “a real, strong feeling in this group that they could win against everybody. That is something that I think is so powerful. And that is something that didn't happen just overnight, that's something that Gregg and his staff worked on for a long period of time. And I think he did an amazing job of that, in creating that culture.

“And is everything perfect that we did?” Stewart continued. “No. ... I don't think that's ever going to be the case. But I think he's done a really good job.”

Matt Crocker succeeded Stewart as sporting director in April, and inherited a carte somewhat-blanche. At his introductory news conference, though, he laid out core competencies, and a recognizable picture began to take shape.

“For me,” Crocker said, “the most important thing is around leadership. We need the right leader. We need the right head coach to come in and give the players ownership and responsibility to build a really, really strong culture, or to continue to develop that really really strong culture.”

He spoke about “building emotional connections with the players” — the type of connections that would, say, lead a tearful player into a coach’s arms after a Round of 16 defeat to the Dutch.

He also spoke about on-field identities, but focused on “replicating” what had already been created, “an aggressive, a forward-thinking, a fearless team.”

“The style of play is gonna be really important,” Crocker said. “Clearly there's been some great foundations put in place by Gregg.”

As he wrapped up his job at Southampton, Crocker undertook a supposedly global search, but the man he essentially described was still living in U.S. Soccer’s Chicago backyard. As the team convened in March without Berhalter, players endorsed him. As they prepared for the Nations League finals, interim coach B.J. Callaghan bounced ideas off him. After they trounced Mexico on Thursday night, extending a Berhalter-era unbeaten streak to six, Christian Pulisic proclaimed that Berhalter’s fingerprints were all over it.

“Today is a testament of the work that he's put into this team,” Pulisic said.

Other candidates emerged, Jesse Marsch chief among them, but all were flawed, many for the same reason. “A lot of the discussions,” U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson told Yahoo Sports on Tuesday, “are around making sure that coaching a club team versus coaching a national team is different.” Marsch, Patrick Vieira and others had never done the latter. Berhalter had, reasonably successfully.

'There's work to do'

Berhalter, of course, had his own unique flaw. His relationship with Gio Reyna's parents, previously best family friends, had fractured. Gio, meanwhile, had said in a Dec. 12 Instagram statement that he was “disappointed” and “extremely surprised that anyone on the U.S. men's team staff would contribute to” ongoing coverage of his World Cup drama — which Berhalter had done by detailing Gio’s misbehavior during a session at a Dec. 6 leadership summit.

The two men have not spoken since.

Gio, meanwhile, has not given interviews. His feelings toward Berhalter remain a mystery. And his talent remains among the brightest in the U.S. player pool.

So there is a relationship to mend. “I'd certainly acknowledge that there's work to do,” Berhalter said Friday at his introductory news conference. He said he planned to connect with Gio later in the summer, ahead of September camp, when he’ll retake control of the team.

“And Gio is an important player for this team, he's an extremely talented individual,” Berhalter said. “And I have the obligation, and the commitment to coach him like I coach every other player. And I wanna get the best out of him, we wanna get the best out of him. And we know that if we can unlock his talents, he's gonna be a game-changer for this program.

“So, there's work to do, and part of it is working together with Matt, and trying to rebuild a relationship that we know will be important moving forward.”

Whether they can rebuild it remains in question. But throughout an intensive interview process, after a 10-hour day this past week, Berhalter sufficiently convinced Crocker that he could. Berhalter impressed Crocker with his interpersonal qualities — communicating, influencing, listening. “It came out clear that Gregg was an individual that had a huge amount of leadership skills and competencies,” Crocker said.

In the end, he was not a unanimous choice. U.S. Soccer’s board of directors, which must approve coaching hires, had what Batson called a “very vibrant discussion.” One board member, Batson admitted, “did not vote in the affirmative” when Crocker presented his choice to the board Thursday.

But he was the players’ choice. And that’s why he’s a sensible one.

Crocker, from the beginning, had asked players what they’d want in a head coach. “That enabled me to develop a really comprehensive coaching framework,” he said Friday. “So the players were actually part of the process all the way through.” In the end, they got their guy. And Berhalter got his team back.