Berhalter, Gregg

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    Gregg Berhalter Rehired as USMNT Coach

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    Berhalter was removed from the post after the World Cup, but the results of an investigation cleared the way for his return.The United States men’s soccer team announced Friday that it was rehiring Gregg Berhalter as its head coach for the run-up to the 2026 World Cup.The move capped several whirlwind months for Berhalter, 49, who led the American men’s team to the round of 16 at the World Cup in Qatar but did not have his contract renewed in the aftermath of the tournament.Gregg Berhalter has been chosen to lead the #USMNT to the 2026 FIFA World Cup » https://t.co/ObcP1tCbvH pic.twitter.com/c85nwVS9to— U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team (@USMNT) June 16, 2023
    Instead, the U.S. Soccer Federation announced that it had started an independent investigation into his conduct after accusations made by the parents of one of his players that Berhalter had physically abused his wife, Rosalind, in an incident three decades ago, when they were dating as college students. The Berhalters, who remain married, reconciled shortly after the incident and have talked openly about it after the accusations this year.The investigation was sparked by information from the parents of the United States forward Gio Reyna, who went to U.S. Soccer with details of the incident. Gio Reyna’s mother, Danielle, had been a teammate of Rosalind Berhalter’s at North Carolina at the time, and his father, Claudio, had played with Gregg Berhalter on the national team.Although the families had been close friends for years, the Reynas went to U.S. Soccer only after they became upset about their son’s playing time during the World Cup. The Reynas later confirmed that they had gone to the federation with information about the decades-old incident between Berhalter and his wife.They had become upset after hearing Berhalter’s public comments about an unnamed player at the World Cup who “was clearly not meeting expectations on and off the field” and who the staff considered sending home. Gio Reyna later revealed in an Instagram apology that he was the player in question.The investigation, which concluded in March, cleared Berhalter of any wrongdoing — meaning he did not improperly withhold information from the organization — and opened a path for him to be rehired. It was unclear at that time, though, if that would happen.In recent days, key players on the men’s team, including the star forward Christian Pulisic, had suggested that they supported Berhalter’s return.“I think he’s done a great job,” Pulisic told reporters of Berhalter after a 3-0 victory over Mexico on Thursday night. “I’m glad we can just pick up where we left off,” he added, in comments that suggested the team had prior knowledge of Friday’s announcement that Berhalter had been rehired.Berhalter, who was first hired by the national team in 2019, returns to the team with a 37-11-12 record as head coach. More

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      Investigators Clear Former U.S. Soccer Coach in 1992 Incident

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      An inquiry found no reason U.S. Soccer could not rehire Gregg Berhalter as coach of the men’s national team. But investigators criticized the parents of a player for their part in the controversy.Gregg Berhalter, the men’s national soccer team coach at last year’s World Cup, is eligible to return for the next World Cup cycle after investigators looking into his personal conduct cleared him to remain a candidate for the job, the U.S. Soccer Federation said on Monday.“There is no basis to conclude that employing Mr. Berhalter would create legal risks for an organization,” investigators said in a report made public on Monday.The federation three months ago hired investigators at the Atlanta-based law firm Alston & Bird to look into an incident involving Berhalter kicking his wife, Rosalind, in front of a bar when they were dating as students at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 1992. No police report was filed for that incident.The investigators said they were “impressed with Mr. Berhalter’s candor and demeanor” during the inquiry and found no discrepancies between Gregg and Rosalind Berhalter’s description of the incident, with Gregg Berhalter saying he reported it to his college coach and also sought counseling for the way he acted. The two had been drunk when they left the bar arguing, and Rosalind hit Gregg in the face. Gregg then pushed her down and kicked her twice in the upper leg, the report said.Both Berhalters, in a statement made public in January, acknowledged what happened and said they have been happily married for 25 years.The report also said, based on interviews and research, that there was no reason to believe that Berhalter — whose contract with U.S. Soccer expired at the end of 2022 — ever acted aggressively toward his wife in the past 31 years.“The investigation revealed no evidence to suggest that he had engaged in violence against another person at any time prior or thereafter,” the report said, calling the 1992 incident “an isolated event.”In a statement Monday, Gregg Berhalter said: “Rosalind and I respect the process that U.S. Soccer went through. We are grateful that it is concluded and look forward to what’s next.”The report concludes a bizarre turn of events surrounding the World Cup involving Claudio and Danielle Reyna, the parents of U.S. forward Gio Reyna. The Reynas complained to U.S. Soccer about Gio’s playing time in the tournament and suggested “they knew damaging information about Mr. Berhalter that U.S. Soccer officials did not know.”The Berhalters and Reynas had been close friends for decades, and Rosalind and Danielle had been college soccer teammates. But the Reynas became upset after hearing Berhalter’s public comments about an unnamed player at the World Cup who “was clearly not meeting expectations on and off the field” and who the staff considered sending home. The player was Gio Reyna, and the Reynas vented to U.S. Soccer about what Berhalter had said, with Danielle Reyna telling the federation about the 1992 incident.Berhalter coaching Gio Reyna during a match against the Netherlands in December.Danielle Parhizkaran/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Reynas told U.S. Soccer about the incident, the report said, because they didn’t want the federation to renew Berhalter’s contract. “The information was disclosed at a time when it would be expected to discourage or otherwise influence the organization from offering a contract extension to Mr. Berhalter,” the report said.The report said Danielle Reyna first denied to investigators that she told the U.S. Soccer sporting director Earnie Stewart about the kicking incident, but then called back to say she indeed had. Compared to how open and willing the Berhalters had been in the inquiry, the report said, the Reynas were much less cooperative.The Reynas could not immediately be reached for comment.The investigative report details some of the Reynas’ complaints to U.S. Soccer over the years, specifically calling out Claudio Reyna’s yearslong outreach to the federation on behalf of his children, especially Gio.Claudio Reyna expressed his dissatisfaction with refereeing at the youth club level of the U.S. Soccer Development Academy, travel arrangements at the U-17 World Cup (he wanted business class) and Gio’s playing time on the national team, according to the report. One person interviewed by investigators referred to Reyna’s interactions with U.S. Soccer about his sons as “inappropriate,” “bullying” and “mean spirited.” Another, whose name was also redacted, said, “Mr. Reyna expected Gio Reyna to be treated better than other players.”The report also said that the communications between the Reynas and U.S. Soccer didn’t violate any federation laws or policy, but it did not say whether the Reynas violated FIFA’s code of ethics.In a statement, U.S. Soccer noted that the report said that there is “a need to revisit U.S. Soccer’s policies concerning appropriate parental conduct and communications with the staff at the National Team level.”The federation went on to say: “We will be updating those policies as we continue to work to ensure safe environments for all participants in our game.”Whether Berhalter will be in charge of the men’s national team when those policies are put in place is still unknown.Stewart, the sporting director, resigned in January amid the Reyna-Berhalter situation and took a job with a Dutch club team, and U.S. Soccer is looking for his replacement. The new sporting director will likely will be in charge of hiring the new men’s national team coach. More

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      US Soccer Investigating Gregg Berhalter After Report From Gio Reyna’s Mother

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      Gregg Berhalter, the coach, said a decades-old domestic incident had been reported to U.S. Soccer by someone looking to get him fired. It turned out to be the mother of winger Gio Reyna.Mere weeks after a World Cup performance viewed by many as a positive step forward for a promising group of players, the United States men’s soccer team has been enveloped in a soap opera story line involving its head coach, a popular former player, a current player (who happens to be the popular former player’s son) and an intricate web of friendly and familial ties.The drama — the fruit of a decades-old incident outside a college bar — has led to an investigation by the U.S. Soccer Federation, threatened the hold of the coach, Gregg Berhalter, on his post just as he is negotiating a new contract, and potentially damaged the reputation of the player, Gio Reyna, and of his parents, after his mother first reported the bar incident to Berhalter’s bosses.On Tuesday afternoon, Berhalter released a lengthy statement on Twitter, revealing that “an individual” (whom he did not name) had contacted the federation during the World Cup claiming to have information that might compel the team to terminate his employment.Berhalter came forward with the story instead, writing that he had kicked his current wife, Rosalind, in the legs during an alcohol-fueled fight in 1991, when he was 18 and the two had just begun dating as college students.“The lessons learned from that night over three decades ago became the foundation for a loving, devoted, and supportive relationship, which we honored and celebrated with our 25th wedding anniversary this past weekend,” he said in the statement.Minutes later, U.S. Soccer sent out its own, vague statement, saying that it had hired a law firm, Alston & Bird LLP, to investigate the allegations against Berhalter (which it did not specify) after learning of them on Dec. 11, a little over a week after the team was knocked out of the World Cup in Qatar.The plot only grew more bizarre on Wednesday afternoon, when the parents of Gio Reyna, a 20-year-old winger on the American team, admitted that they were the ones who had contacted the team’s sporting director, Earnie Stewart, on Dec. 11 with the information about the incident in Berhalter’s past.Reyna’s father, Claudio, is a former captain of the U.S. men’s team and widely considered one of the greatest players in its history. His mother, Danielle, played six times for the U.S. women’s national team in the early 1990s.The involvement of the Reynas, which was first reported on Wednesday by ESPN, was all the more intriguing because of the tight relationship of the families, who are known to be close friends. Berhalter and Claudio Reyna played soccer together as kids in New Jersey, playing for a club team coached by Claudio’s father and the high school team at St. Benedict’s in Newark. The two were teammates at the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, and Reyna even served as the best man at Berhalter’s wedding, according to his biography on the U.S. National Soccer Team Players Association website.Rosalind Berhalter and Danielle Reyna were roommates and soccer teammates at the University of North Carolina.In a statement on Wednesday, Danielle Reyna said she was the one who initially contacted Stewart about the bar incident, characterizing her actions as an effort to protect her son. She said she contacted Stewart on Dec. 11 out of frustration after Berhalter was quoted that day speaking at a leadership conference about a problematic player on the team who was nearly sent home during the World Cup for his poor attitude. Berhalter did not name the player, but it was widely, and correctly, assumed to be Reyna, who featured far less in the competition than expected.Reyna, one of the most promising players on the team, released a statement on Dec. 12 shortly after Berhalter’s comments were reported, admitting that he had reacted poorly to being told that he would receive limited playing time in Qatar and expressing disappointment that his coach had publicized the situation.In a statement on Wednesday, she said that Berhalter’s descriptions of the incident “significantly minimize the abuse on the night in question,” though she did not provide more detail.“Rosalind Berhalter was my roommate, teammate and best friend, and I supported her through the trauma that followed,” Danielle Reyna said in the statement. “It took a long time for me to forgive and accept Gregg afterward, but I worked hard to give him grace, and ultimately made both of them and their kids a huge part of my family’s life. I would have wanted and expected him to give the same grace to Gio. This is why the current situation is so very hurtful and hard.”Claudio Reyna, in a statement, admitted that he had separately expressed frustration during the tournament regarding his son’s playing time to Stewart and General Manager Brian McBride, whom he referred to as friends.“However, at no time did I ever threaten anyone, nor would I ever do so,” he said.The ultimate resolution of this situation has yet to be decided, but on Wednesday U.S. Soccer announced that Berhalter would not serve as head coach during the team’s annual training camp in January. Anthony Hudson would fill that role, the team said.Berhalter’s contract ended on Dec. 31. The team suggested that the awkward timing of the World Cup, coming in the fall instead of the summer, had not left the organization enough time to conduct a customary performance review following the tournament. That process is ongoing, the team said.The investigation, and the complex soap opera that emerged Wednesday, has only complicated matters. More

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      U.S. Team Distances Itself From Federation’s Decision to Alter Iran Flag

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      A day before a critical World Cup match with abounding political and competitive ramifications, players and coaches on the U.S. national team on Monday distanced themselves from social media posts made by their soccer federation that showed support for the women of Iran by doctoring that country’s flag.Gregg Berhalter, the American coach, said Monday that neither he nor any players were involved with the decision to remove Iran’s official emblem and two lines of Islamic script in posts on Twitter and Instagram.“We had no idea about what U.S. Soccer put out. The staff, the players, had no idea,” Berhalter told reporters Monday.He added: “Our focus is on this match. I don’t want to sound aloof or not caring by saying that, but the guys have worked really hard for the last four years. We have 72 hours between England and Iran, and we really are just focused on how to get past Iran and go to the knockout stage of this tournament. Of course, our thoughts are with the Iranian people, the whole country, the whole team, everyone, but our focus is on this match.”The Americans, after failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, can advance to the knockout rounds from Group B by defeating Iran, which would also progress with a victory.Iran condemned U.S. Soccer’s decision to use an incorrect flag. It said it violated the statutes of FIFA, world soccer’s global governing body. The American federation deleted the posts Sunday and said it would use only Iran’s official flag going forward.“The intent of the post was to show support for women’s rights,” Michael Kammarman, a U.S. Soccer spokesman, said at a news conference Monday. “It was meant to be a moment. We made the post at the time. All of the other representations of the flag were made consistent and will continue.”Over the past few months, and certainly at this World Cup, the Iranian team has become entangled with its country’s harsh treatment of women and its crackdowns on personal freedoms under theocratic rule. The team engaged in protests of its own after the September death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, who had been arrested on charges of violating a law requiring head coverings for women.After refusing to sing the national anthem before its opening match, against England, the Iranian team appeared to join in before its next game, against Wales, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and commitment.“We can’t speak for them and their message,” U.S. defender Walker Zimmerman said. “We know that they’re all emotional. They’re going through things right now. They’re human, and, again, we empathize with that human emotion. So we completely feel for them.” More

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      What We Learned About the U.S. In Its Match Against England

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      A feisty 0-0 tie against World Cup contender England gave the U.S. a chance — and perhaps the courage — to advance in the tournament.AL KHOR, Qatar — The chant came from deep in one corner of the stadium, ringing out loud and clear for a few moments before fading back into the general cacophony of the night.“It’s called soc-cer!” the United States fans bellowed at their England counterparts. “It’s called soc-cer!”As the United States has seen its soccer culture develop in recent decades, it has always used the great powers of Europe as a handy measuring stick, a mark of how far it has come and how far it still needs to go. Yet it is England, a country that prefers to call the sport football and definitely believes it is better than the Americans at playing it, that has always served as the reference point that matters most.The evidence is visible across the United States soccer landscape: American fans, old and new, now spend weekend mornings watching matches from England’s Premier League on television. In American soccer stadiums, they borrow liberally from English sports culture, making it their own, refracting it through a U.S. lens, but leaving no question of its DNA. And the best American players still dream of one day going overseas, anywhere at first, but eventually to stardom in Britain’s most storied stadiums.On Friday night, the United States got a rare opportunity to measure the shrinking distance between the countries’ teams, and by most assessments performed admirably, scrapping to a scoreless tie that left the Americans holding their World Cup destiny in their hands.The result — and small moments like the fans’ sassy chant — sent the message that the United States was ascendant and ambitious for more.“There’s a lot of people that obviously thought we were going to get blown out,” said the American midfielder Weston McKennie. “We went into this game, to the outside world, as obvious underdogs. But we didn’t feel like an underdog at all, because we know our capability, we know what we can do, we know what talent and fight and spirit we have.”A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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      Pressing World Cup Question for U.S.: Who’ll Score the Goals?

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      An American team that cycled through strikers during the qualifying period needs to settle on one before heading to Qatar. The good news is some of the options are hitting their stride.COLOGNE, Germany — Evaluating any soccer player, with all the multifaceted layers of performance, all the twists and turns of action on the field, poses a complicated challenge. Yet the game’s strikers are so frequently reduced to a kind of rudimentary binary:Are they scoring goals or not?As the United States men’s soccer team gathered this week to train and play their final two exhibition matches before the World Cup begins in November, the state of the team’s strikers — the internal competition, the ongoing uncertainty over whom the team could call upon in two months — highlighted the broader anxiety and excitement of the current moment in world soccer.There are, everyone realizes, precious few moments left to impress coaches. After a game Friday against Japan in Düsseldorf, Germany, the United States will face Saudi Arabia on Tuesday night in Spain. After that, the next time the team will be together in the same city will be in Qatar, only days before its World Cup opener on Nov. 21 against Wales.For the American strikers, that means this final camp represents one last chance to claim a starting job that has effectively been up for grabs for more than a year. Josh Sargent got the first chance. Then came Jordan Pefok. Ricardo Pepi got a long look after an early scoring burst in qualifying, but as the tournament wound on others cycled in, too. Jesus Ferreira. Gyasi Zardes. Pepi again.Ricardo Pepi, center, with Jesus Ferreira before a World Cup qualifier in March. Both have been given a chance in the No. 9 role.Moises Castillo/Associated PressThe concern is that no one forward has risen above the rest to claim the No. 9 role wholly as his own. Less than a year ago, the problem was that no American striker seemed to be playing particularly well for his club. The problem now may be a more welcome one: Essentially all the contenders for the job seem in recent weeks to have found something close to their top form.Sargent, for example, already has six goals for his English club, Norwich City. Pepi recently scored his first after a loan to a club in the Dutch Eredivisie. Pefok’s Union Berlin is, surprisingly, leading the Bundesliga. But scoring for the United States, as all of them know, has proved considerably more difficult to replicate, at least up front: Of the 18 goals scored by the Americans in their 14 qualifying games, only four came from a forward playing a traditional striker’s role.Coach Gregg Berhalter has identified at least a half dozen strikers ahead of his final roster selection — a group that includes Ferreira, Pefok, Pepi, Sargent, Brandon Vazquez and Haji Wright — and is expected to whittle the list down to three. Given the heated nature of the positional battles — and the stakes of securing, or missing out on, a World Cup place — Berhalter said on Thursday that he had noticed some understandable nerves and anxiety within the team as a whole in the early days of training.“There’s a slight hint of it — it’s not something palpable that you can feel — but you see a couple guys are tight in some exercises,” Berhalter said. The coaching staff has tried, perhaps in vain, to put everyone at ease, he said. “The message is, ‘Go do your thing, and let the chips fall where they may.’”Josh Sargent, center, has six goals for Norwich City this season.Wolfgang Rattay/ReutersJordan Pefok, who is not in camp, has helped Union Berlin into first place in the Bundesliga.Hendrik Schmidt/DPA, via Associated PressThe goals that did come from strikers in qualifying were not shared widely. Pepi tallied three in over two games in September and October but then faded out of the picture after struggling following a January transfer. Ferreira scored in the second-to-last game of the qualifying tournament, a 5-1 rout of Panama.Read More on the 2022 World CupA New Start Date: A last-minute request for the tournament to begin a day earlier was only the latest bit of uncertainty to surround soccer’s showcase event.Chile’s Failed Bid: The country’s soccer federation had argued Ecuador should be ejected from the tournament to the benefit of the Chilean team. FIFA disagreed.Golden Sunset: This year’s World Cup will most likely be the last for stars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo — a profound watershed for soccer.Senegalese Pride: Aliou Cissé, one of the best soccer coaches in Africa, has given Senegal a new sense of patriotism. Next up: the World Cup.Ferreira, 21, who had a four-goal performance in a match this June, has been perhaps the steadiest, if not the most spectacular, performer of late.In an interview this week, he opened up about the pressure of competition for spots and how his past struggles on the field had affected his mental health. The spotlight of playing around the penalty area seems to make strikers most susceptible to armchair psychoanalysis. But the singular nature of the job’s expectations can weigh on a player as well.“I’ve always had a problem with my mood,” Ferreira said. “When some things don’t go my way on the field or I mess up, I kind of tend to shut down, and I knew that from the beginning.”But Ferreira has thrived this year, scoring 18 goals in 31 matches for F.C. Dallas in M.L.S. He attributed that recent run of good form in part to his work with a sports psychologist who has helped him focus on positive aspects of his game and not let himself get overly focused on goals — or the absence of them.The ebb and flow of form highlighted by Ferreira could be plainly observed in Sargent, too. When the Americans began the final round of their World Cup qualifying campaign last year, Sargent seemed to be Berhalter’s preferred striker. He started two of the team’s first three games in September, but he failed to make an impact and was not a factor for the rest of the qualifying tournament.At the time, Sargent was playing out of position for a Norwich City team tumbling toward relegation from the Premier League. This season, in the second-tier Championship, Sargent has found his groove with six goals in 10 games.“My confidence is at an all-time high at the moment,” Sargent said. “I’m just trying to keep that momentum going as long as possible and keep scoring goals.”Berhalter had struggled to get a read on Sargent, 22, during his last club season. His team was struggling, and he was often playing in a wider and more defensive role as it was overwhelmed by better rivals. In recent weeks, he has been returned to the No. 9 position that both he and the American staff preferred for him, and the goals have returned.Berhalter said he was pleased to see him experience a personal resurgence, pointing out the refinement of late in Sargent’s movement off the ball and the contact and placement of his shots.“As a coaching staff, we felt for him,” Berhalter said. “We were watching these games, and we felt bad. It’s not nice to have to watch that.” He added, “Now he’s gotten these chances, these opportunities, and he’s producing.”When Sargent failed to produce early in qualifying, it was Pepi who took advantage, briefly claiming the position. But he soon began to struggle, too, while trying to find his footing after leaving M.L.S. for Germany. Last week, Pepi, 19, scored for Groningen of the Dutch league to end a personal 30-game scoreless drought.“I’m happy he’s back in his goal-scoring form,” Ferreira said of Pepi.Coach Gregg Berhalter’s job gets much easier with a reliable scorer up front.Martin Meissner/Associated PressHow will the roster be finalized? A player’s wider body of work matters. But for strikers, more than anyone, current form — measured most plainly, but not exclusively, in goals — seems to carry a significant amount of weight.“All I could say to them is that, you know, perform the best you can with your clubs, keep trying to score goals, and we’ll evaluate it, and we’ll try to get it right to help the team,” Berhalter said. “We may not get it right. You know, that’s part of it also. We may make mistakes.”Any focus on club form could keep the door open for Pefok, Vasquez and Wright, who were not invited to this camp. In the end, though, whoever emerges on the final roster in November, and whoever gets the call for the World Cup opener against Wales, will have endured a crucible of internal competition.“We’re a brotherhood, we’re a family, but we’re also here to compete,” said midfielder Weston McKennie, one of the players whose place at the World Cup feels assured. “It’s a dog-eat-dog world. You can be friends off the field, but when it comes to on the field, you’re going for my position, I’m going for your position.” More