USMNT Dumps Gregg Berhalter With Two Years To Prepare For World Cup Hosted By United States
The Gregg Berhalter era is officially over. The U.S. Men's National Team finally parted ways with its head coach after a disastrous Copa América that saw the USMNT fail to move past the group stage.
The Americans came out strong at the Copa América, winning their first match. They looked almost guaranteed to reach the quarterfinals.
But a brutal loss against Panama that included an undisciplined red card by Tim Weah early in the match put the USMNT in peril.
They needed to defeat Uruguay in the third match to reach the next stage of the tournament, but they lost again.
That set Berhalter's already hot seat on fire and on Wednesday USMNT made the decision that many U.S. Soccer fans have wanted for years.
Fox Sports' Doug McIntyre was the first to report the news.
With Copa América now in the rear view mirror, the USMNT's attention turns to the 2026 World Cup.
It's a huge tournament for the United States squad, as the majority of the matches will be contested on U.S. soil.
There are 16 cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico that will host World Cup matches, including 11 located in the U.S. As the host countries, all three of the North American nations are already qualified for the tournament.
The final match of the World Cup will be hosted by MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on July 19, 2026.
Expect the USMNT to run an exhaustive search for its next head coach. It absolutely has to get this decision right after the disaster that was the Gregg Berhalter tenure.
The United States hasn't reached the semifinal of the World Cup since 1930 when it finished in third place. The Americans reached the quarterfinals only once since then, reaching the final eight in 2002.
They've managed to reach the Round of 16 in three of the past four World Cups, with the only miss coming from the 2018 debacle. That was the year in which America failed to even qualify for the World Cup.
Following the 2018 failure, USMNT fired Jürgen Klinsmann and hired Berhalter.
The team expected Berhalter to finally bring United States soccer to relevance, like fans have been promised for decades. But it never really happened.
So the search begins for the next person tasked with finally helping the USMNT reach elite status on the international stage.