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Gregg Berhalter rebuilt the USMNT. Will he be the one to lead them in 2026?

Published

2 years ago

July 4, 2024

Gregg Berhalter rebuilt the USMNT. Will he be the one to lead them in 2026?

When Gregg Berhalter took over as U.S. men’s national team head coach five and a half years ago, the program was still fighting to emerge from the darkest moment in its history.

The 2017 loss to Trinidad and Tobago that meant the U.S. failed to qualify for the following year’s World Cup in Russia was more than a wake-up call. It forced leadership at U.S. Soccer to examine every blemish in the mirror. It highlighted the failures of previous cycles to develop young talent. A year after that game, Berhalter was put in place to move the national team forward.

Now, after an unsuccessful group stage at Copa America on home soil, the U.S. program must once again face its failures.

This time, part of that evaluation is whether Berhalter is the right person to lead the program into the 2026 World Cup, which the United States co-hosts with neighbors Canada and Mexico.

If it’s up to Berhalter, the answer is simply, “Yes.” The coach only had one word to share when asked after the loss to Uruguay on Monday that sent his team out of Copa America after the group stage if he believed he was still the right person for the job. He also acknowledged that the decision would not be up to him. U.S. Soccer leadership will evaluate Berhalter over the coming days.

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“Our tournament performance fell short of our expectations. We must do better,” U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker wrote in a statement provided by the federation 90 minutes after the Uruguay game ended. “We will be conducting a comprehensive review of our performance in Copa America and how best to improve the team and results as we look towards the 2026 World Cup.”

The U.S. lost to Panama and Uruguay during the Copa America group stage. (Photo by Hector Vivas/Getty Images)

Berhalter’s task when he was hired was not a simple one, nor was it one that involved linear progress.

His first U.S. teams were a mix of the old and the new, trying to find a blend between experience and pure, stark youth. His first tournament call-ups in the summer of 2019 included Weston McKennie, Tyler Adams and Christian Pulisic, all of whom had yet to play in a Gold Cup, as well as Jozy Altidore and Michael Bradley, who both had more than 100 caps. Berhalter next called up a competitive roster for the 2021 Nations League. The team’s progress under his direction was evident.

The roster was built mostly around youth, with players such as Sergino Dest (then with seven caps), Antonee Robinson (10), Adams (12), McKennie (21), Yunus Musah, Brenden Aaronson (both four), Pulisic (15), Gio Reyna (also four), Josh Sargent (13) and Tim Weah (10).

The U.S. went on to win that tournament, picking up its first signature win over Mexico in the process. It was the first of three consecutive Nations League titles, and Berhalter continued adding new, young faces into the program.

He successfully navigated 2022 World Cup qualifying with one of the youngest teams in international soccer. And while getting back to the World Cup was an imperfect path — the U.S. finished third in CONCACAF qualifying — getting to the tournament in Qatar allowed the program to close the door on that 2018 failure. Berhalter’s young team then impressed in the World Cup, performing well in the group phase before bowing out to the Netherlands in the first knockout round.

Berhalter helped the U.S. return to the World Cup in 2022 after the team failed to qualify in 2018 (Photo by Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)

The idea behind the entire process was to build toward that home World Cup in 2026.

Berhalter did a good job in the first cycle with this team, but the past year has felt far more halting. U.S. Soccer leaders must now determine whether the coach who engineered the transition from 2018 to 2022 is the right person to continue building toward that 2026 tournament.

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Crocker has said “yes” to that question once already, when he and U.S. Soccer’s leadership team, including president Cindy Parlow Cone and CEO and secretary general JT Batson, brought Berhalter back last summer. But the USMNT’s failure to get out of its Copa America group has caused yet another referendum on the program.

Taken in isolation, it would be harsh to put all of the blame for this failure on Berhalter and the coaching staff. Weah’s first-half red card undoubtedly impacted the Panama result, which altered the path to the knockout rounds. But the results as a whole over the past year suggest stagnation more than progress. Berhalter’s teams still lack a signature win over a top opponent. These last 12 months have seen losses to Germany and Colombia, the latter by an embarrassing 5-1 scoreline. A draw against Brazil was a positive, but it was followed within weeks by this Copa America exit.

The failure to get out of the group was a massive missed opportunity on multiple levels, from the growth of the team to the potential impact on growing the sport in the U.S. in a summer of soccer that can capture new fans and build toward 2026.

Berhalter is a process-oriented coach, precisely attuned to the details of his program. His grinding work ethic is well-known to anyone who has been around the team over these five and a half years. For Berhalter, what happened in the Copa America was a setback.

“We know we’re capable of more, and in this tournament, we didn’t show it,” Berhalter said. “It’s really as simple as that.” But, much as he has done throughout his tenure, Berhalter also framed it as a moment from which to take lessons and build.

“When you’re in tournament football, there’s very little that separates success from failure,” Berhalter said. “It’s one action, it’s one decision from the referee, and you could be in trouble. For us, it’s having this understanding that every time we step on the field, it has an impact. And I think we’re getting there, but we’re not always there. And that’s something that we can improve.”

Players credit Berhlater for creating the group’s close bond. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

After Monday’s loss at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium, players in the mixed zone backed Berhalter with some of the same ideas they discussed during the job’s most recent hiring process. The culture of the team, which they have largely credited to Berhalter, remained a strength in the group. There was a trust in one another, they said.

“I believe we all have a comfort with Gregg, and we all understand him and we’ve had him for a long time,” McKennie said in the mixed zone. “He’s progressed the team very far from where we started. I think the connection that we have with him is what’s important, in having a coach players would run through a brick wall for, players that listen to him. And so I think whatever happens, happens, but I think if he’s the coach, we’re all happy.”

Only now, U.S. Soccer must weigh whether that comfort is a strength or, potentially, a weakness.

Is that comfort level within the group under Berhalter preventing them from pushing on? Are the red cards — specifically Weah’s and defender Dest’s in a Nations League game in Trinidad last November — signs of too much leeway? Is a group filled with young players too accustomed to discussion around their team as a ‘golden generation’ growing complacent?

The results at the Copa, one win and two defeats, and over the past year, should at least challenge the way this team is discussed.

Yes, the group is filled with players who are playing across Europe, including a handful who are at some of the biggest clubs in the world. And yes, it was still the second-youngest team across both the Copa America and European Championship, going on in parallel in Germany this summer. But their roles for those clubs vary.

Few are asked to carry their team, and compared to the world’s best international sides, arguably outside of Pulisic, the U.S. still lacks bonafide stars, the difference-makers that can turn games on their head at the highest levels. That has manifested itself with a team that has struggled to create enough goals, both in Qatar and this summer.

This U.S. team has talent, but in the grand scheme of global soccer, it remains an upstart trying to challenge the very best. The team cannot afford to believe it has arrived. It’s an idea that veteran center-back Tim Ream seemed to hint at in the mixed zone after the Uruguay game.

“This is a fantastic group, as everyone knows and one that is very close, but sometimes the intensity falls through the cracks,” Ream told Univision. “We have to continue to put our heads down and continue to work, continue to be humble enough to know there are things we can continue to improve, every single day, every single training session, every single game.

“If guys have that mindset, then they can continue to be on an upward trajectory. When we start to think that we are a finished product, then guys are going to stagnate and just stay at the level they are at.”

Some of that should fall on the players, of course. That was most certainly a theme from the team after Monday’s defeat. “I don’t think this tournament really had anything to do with the staff or the tactics or the way we play,” Reyna said. “I think it was more individual mistakes.”

But some of it also falls on Berhalter and the staff.

If the leaders at U.S. Soccer feel this team must be challenged to get to the next level, there are legitimate questions as to whether the culture in the program right now is set up to do that, and if it is, whether Berhalter is the person to do it.

“I don’t think so. I don’t think we’ve progressed enough since the World Cup,” USMNT legend Clint Dempsey said on Fox on Monday night, when asked if Berhalter is still the right voice to lead the program. “We’re not on the right track. … For me, it hasn’t been good enough.”

As for the next steps, there are many factors beyond just on-field performance U.S. Soccer will consider. The federation likely is aware of the discourse around Berhalter and the national team, in which a growing sector of fans has trained its focus on the coach as the problem. “Berhalter out” has been a rallying cry on social media, ubiquitous in any discussion or debate around the team.

The biggest question, though, is who they would look to if they were to replace Berhalter.

There aren’t obvious candidates for the position.

One finalist from the last hiring cycle, Jesse Marsch, only recently took the Canada job. Notably, Canada advanced to the knockout stage of the Copa America, albeit with just one goal in the three group games. Some of the big-name candidates that fans would hope to see cost many multiples of the salary U.S. Soccer currently pays Berhalter, and that doesn’t even begin to account for whether those names would even want the gig.

The decision U.S. Soccer makes in the coming days, and, if it chooses to move on from Berhalter, the weeks that follow, will have a massive impact on what happens in two years when the World Cup comes back to these shores. The disappointment of a similar result in that tournament would dwarf this current failure.

Considering the stakes and the expectations, the USMNT job feels bigger than even the monumental task of climbing out of that failure in Trinidad nearly seven years ago.

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(Top photo: Julio Aguilar/Getty Images)

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Jon Jones requests UFC release after Dana White says legend was ‘never’ considered him for White House card

Published

4 hours ago

March 10, 2026

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Jon Jones requests UFC release after Dana White says legend was ‘never’ considered him for White House card

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Mixed martial arts legend Jon Jones ended his retirement from UFC simply because he wanted a spot on the “Freedom 250” fight card at the White House in June.

But, when UFC CEO Dana White announced the card during UFC 326 this past weekend, Jones wasn’t among the fighters. As a result, he has requested a release from his UFC contract.

White was candid when asked about Jones following the UFC 326 card.

Jon Jones of the United States of America reacts after his TKO victory against Stipe Miocic of the United States of America in the UFC heavyweight championship fight during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 16, 2024 in New York City. ((Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images))

“Never, ever, ever, which I told you guys a hundred thousands times, was Jon Jones ever even remotely in my mind to fight at the White House,” White explained, per CBS Sports. “Some guy with Meta Glasses filmed him talking about his hips – that his hips are so bad. And I don’t know if you guys saw that flag football game where he can barely run. Jon Jones retired because of his hips. He’s got arthritis in his hips. Apparently, doctors say he should have a hip replacement.”

White added that “the Jon Jones thing is bulls—,” saying that he texted the fighter’s lawyer saying he would never be on the White House card despite Jones saying he was in negotiations for it.

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The Meta Glasses incident White is referring to came from a viral video, where Jones, unaware he was being filmed, discussed issues with his hips to a fan.

On Monday, Jones composed a thorough response to White’s comments about him and the White House Card. He previously posted and deleted social media explanations, but Monday’s appeared to be his final statement on the matter.

UFC President Dana White speaks after UFC Fight Night at Toyota Center on Feb. 21, 2026. (Troy Taormina/Imagn Images)

“Yes, I have arthritis in my hip and it’s painful, but that doesn’t mean I can’t fight,” Jones, who retired a heavyweight champion in 2025, said. “So let me get this straight, if I had accepted the lowball offer, suddenly my hip would be fine and I’d be on the White House card? That doesn’t make sense. I even received stem cell treatment last week to get ready for the White House card, and training camp was scheduled to start today. I was preparing to be ready.

“I understand business deals fall through sometimes, but going out publicly and saying things that aren’t true isn’t right. After everything I’ve given to the UFC, the years, the title defenses, the fights, hearing that I’m ‘done’ is disappointing. Especially when as recently as Friday UFC was calling me trying to get me on that White House card for a much lower number.”

Jones finished his statement by saying he “respectfully” asks to be released from his UFC contract.

Jon Jones enters the ring before facing Stipe Miocic in the UFC heavyweight championship fight during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on November 16, 2024 in New York City, New York. (Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

“No more spins, no more games. Thank you to the real fans who know what’s up,” he wrote.

The UFC did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Fox News Digital.

Jones is considered one of the best UFC fighters of all time, owning a 28-1-1 record, which includes his last bout with Stipe Miocic, knocking him out to take the heavyweight title belt. He is also a two-time light heavyweight champion.

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

Scott Thompson is a sports writer for Fox News Digital.

Sports

With U.S. at war with Iran, political upheaval could engulf World Cup

Published

4 hours ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

With U.S. at war with Iran, political upheaval could engulf World Cup

Twelve days ago the U.S., a World Cup host country, launched a full-scale bombing campaign against Iran, a country that has qualified to play in the tournament. That’s never happened before.

Five days later, that same World Cup host began military operations inside the borders of Ecuador, another World Cup qualifier, half a world away. That’s never happened before either.

With the tournament scheduled to kick off in three months, those events have soccer scholar Jonathan Wilson questioning whether it’s wise for the World Cup to go on at all.

“It seems to me, for each passing day, it’s less and less likely that the World Cup can happen,” he said.

That take seems unduly alarmist said David Goldblatt, a British sportswriter and sociologist who is a visiting professor at Pitzer College in Claremont. Anything short of a full-scale war inside the U.S. would not be enough to pull the plug on the tournament now, he said. Especially with FIFA expecting revenues of as much as $11 billion.

“I mean, it’s not a good look,” Goldblatt conceded. “And certainly when set against FIFA’s official pronouncements on its role in encouraging world peace and cosmopolitan celebrations of a universal humanity, none of that sits terribly easily.

“But in terms of actually running the World Cup, I don’t think it’s going to make very much difference at all.”

However, with the Trump administration open to engaging in more international conflicts, there’s little doubt this World Cup, the largest and most complex in history, will also be the most political in history as well.

Complicating things further is the fact the current conflict in the Middle East hasn’t been limited to just the U.S. and Iran. Iranian missiles have hit both Qatar and Saudi Arabia, among other countries, and Jordan has fired on U.S. assets.

Those three countries are World Cup qualifiers as well.

The fate of a soccer tournament pales in importance to the death and destruction the conflagration in the Middle East has produced, of course. But the need for unity is the very reason there’s a World Cup in the first place.

When French soccer administrator Jules Rimet founded the tournament 96 years ago, he believed soccer could be a tool for international peace. And in the early years of the tournament, Rimet, FIFA’s longest-serving president and a talented diplomat, was able to limit the impact of geopolitics on the World Cup, watering down Mussolini’s influence on the 1934 World Cup, for example, and steering the 1938 tournament away from Hitler’s Germany.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has taken a far different approach, courting President Donald Trump’s support despite his growing number of global conflicts.

A week before bombs began falling on Iran, Infantino appeared at the inaugural meeting of Trump’s Board of Peace wearing a red cap with ‘USA’ on the front and the numbers ‘45-47’ — a reference to Trump’s non-consecutive presidencies. That act was so blatantly partisan, IOC president Kirsty Coventry said her organization would investigate whether Infantino, an IOC member, breached the terms of the group’s charter, which requires members to act independent of political interests.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino holds up a USA hat as he attends the inaugural meeting for the Board of Peace at the Institute of Peace in Washington on Feb. 19.

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

“Infantino has absolutely breached every FIFA protocol on neutrality,” said Wilson, author of “The Power and Glory: The History of the World Cup.”

“Absolute neutrality is always impossible and not desirable, but it has clearly gone way, way, way beyond. The peace prize looked grotesque at the time. It looks even worse now. And I can’t see how the future will look kindly on Infantino. I think Infantino has to some extent legitimized Trump.”

This is hardly new behavior from Infantino, who had close relationships with Vladimir Putin ahead of the 2018 tournament played in Russia and Qatar’s leaders ahead of the 2022 tournament despite their well-known human rights violations.

The list of countries Infantino is asking to overlook poor relations with the country hosting the majority of World Cup games this summer is growing.

Consider that Denmark, which administers Greenland, an autonomous territory Trump has also threatened to invade, can qualify for the tournament in a European playoff that will take place later this month. Then there’s World Cup qualifiers Haiti, Ivory Coast and Senegal, who aren’t at war with the U.S. but whose citizens have been banned from entering the country to cheer for their teams. That completely contradicts a promise from Infantino, who said “everybody will be welcome” at the 2026 World Cup.

“If I had a crystal ball I could tell you now what is going to happen,” Heimo Schirgi, the World Cup chief operating officer for FIFA, said Monday. “But obviously the situation is developing. It’s changing day by day and we are monitoring closely. [But] the World Cup will go on right? The World Cup is too big and we hope that everyone can participate that has qualified.”

Goldblatt, the Pitzer professor, said Infantino’s action are understandable since he has few cards to play against Trump.

President Trump speaks as he receives the FIFA Peace Prize while FIFA president Gianni Infantino applauds Friday.

“What’s Infantino going to do? What levers can you pull?” he asked. “You can threaten to take it away. That’s not happening. Moral admonishment? Who’s going to take that from FIFA? It is a farcical idea that anybody thinks that the president of FIFA has any kind of collective moral authority or any role as a spokesperson for the progressive part of the world.

“They may fantasize that this is the case. But it is morally and politically absurd that any of us should expect that of these people. So if you are Infantino and that is the case, you know what works with Trump? What works is flattery. So of course he’s gone down that path.”

The games, Goldblatt said, will go on even if bombs are still falling. And that may not be an entirely bad thing.

“Football’s a great distraction. That’s partly why it’s so popular,” he said. “It will be virtually impossible, if the war continues, for that not to be a central element of like, the meaning and the purpose of what we’re all doing here.

“How we’ll feel and what it will look like, I don’t know. It will be very strange. Football is unpredictable and extraordinary. Something will happen that will warm our souls.”

⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.

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Australia grants asylum to 5 Iranian women’s soccer players amid Iran conflict

Published

16 hours ago

March 10, 2026

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Australia grants asylum to 5 Iranian women’s soccer players amid Iran conflict

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Australia granted asylum to five players from the Iranian women’s soccer team who were visiting for a tournament when the U.S.-Israeli attacks against Iran began.

Australian federal police officers on Tuesday transported the five women from their hotel in Gold Coast, Australia, to a “safe location” after they made asylum requests to meet with Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and to finalize the processing of their humanitarian visas.

“Last night I was able to tell five women from the Iranian Women’s Soccer team that they are welcome to stay in Australia, to be safe and have a home here,” Burke said on X.

The move comes after the team refused to sing the Iranian anthem before their first Women’s Asian Cup match early last week against South Korea, although they later sang and saluted the anthem in two subsequent matches, including ahead of their final match, when they were eliminated by the Philippines.

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Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke poses with five Iranian women soccer players who have been granted asylum in Australia, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (Australia Ministry of Home Affairs)

“I don’t want to begin to imagine how difficult that decision is for each of the individual women, but certainly last night it was joy, it was relief,” Burke told reporters after signing the documents. “People were very excited about embarking on a life in Australia.”

The five women said they were happy for their names and pictures to be published, according to Burke, who emphasized that the players wanted to make clear that they were not political activists.

The Iranian team arrived in Australia for the tournament before the war against Iran began on Feb. 28.

After the team was eliminated from the tournament over the weekend, they faced potentially returning to a country still under bombardment. The team’s head coach, Marziyeh Jafari, said on Sunday the players “want to come back to Iran as soon as we can.”

An official squad list named 26 players, as well as Jafari and other coaches.

While only five players were granted asylum, Burke said the offer was given to everyone on the team.

IRAN FLAG REMOVED FROM PARALYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY AFTER SOLE ATHLETE WITHDRAWS OVER TRAVEL SAFETY CONCERNS

Iran players during their national anthem ahead of the Women’s Asian Cup soccer match between Iran and the Philippines in Robina, Australia, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (Dave Hunt/AAPImage via AP)

“These women are tremendously popular in Australia, but we realize they are in a terribly difficult situation with the decisions that they’re making,” Burke said. “The opportunity will continue to be there for them to talk to Australian officials if they wish to.”

It remains unclear when the remaining players will leave Australia.

“Australians have been moved by the plight of these brave women,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters. “They’re safe here and they should feel at home here.”

“They then had to consider that and do it in a way that did not present any danger to them or to their families and friends back home in Iran,” he continued.

The asylum offer came after U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday called on Australia to grant asylum to any team member who wanted it.

Trump had blasted Australia on social media, saying Australia was “making a terrible humanitarian mistake” by allowing the team to be “forced back to Iran, where they will most likely be killed.”

Supporters react towards a bus transporting Iranian woman players following their Women’s Asian Cup soccer match against the Philippines on the Gold Coast, Australia, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (Dave Hunt/AAP Image via AP)

“The U.S. will take them if you won’t,” Trump said, despite his administration’s efforts to limit the number of immigrants in the U.S. who can receive asylum for political purposes.

Just hours later, Trump praised Albanese in another post.

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“He’s on it! Five have already been taken care of, and the rest are on their way,” Trump wrote.

Albanese said Trump had called him for “a very positive conversation,” about the issue. The prime minister said he explained “the action that we’d undertaken over the previous 48 hours” to support the women.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.