HARRISON, N.J. — These days, there’s a pack of U.S. men’s soccer team fans that’s as loud on social media as a routine caller on SportsRadio WIP. And when they start to believe something? It takes off like a rocket and doesn’t slow down.
This has been the last few days as the search continues for the next manager to follow Gregg Berhalter, who was fired after his team’s disastrous flop at the Copa América.
Los Angeles FC manager Steve Cherundolo is certainly a candidate for the job and should be given his track record as a player and coach. But because he didn’t give a firm enough answer for popular tastes when asked about the U.S. job after his last game on Wednesday, fans started assuming he’d already been given it.
» READ MORE: Gregg Berhalter fired by U.S. Soccer after Copa América flop by men’s national team
He hasn’t been, and no one has. Just as significantly, multiple sources with direct knowledge of the search process have told The Inquirer that the search process won’t just include domestic candidates, and won’t just give a token nod to international candidates.
No, those sources insisted — pretty strongly in one case — that U.S. Soccer is serious about looking abroad.
What the result will be won’t be known until a hire is made, and we likely won’t hear much from anyone at the governing body until then. If the choice proves underwhelming, sporting director Matt Crocker and the rest of U.S. Soccer’s brass will get an earful.
But while the No. 1 available candidate worldwide — superstar former Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp — has already said no, it was made pretty clear that Crocker plans to give serious credence to hiring from abroad.
When Berhalter’s firing was announced Wednesday, Crocker met with a few reporters, and one quote in particular from him stands out.
“I’m 12 months into the program now,” he said. “I’m in a better place to have much more of a targeted search, where I’ll be more inclined to go hard and go early with specific candidates that I feel meet the criteria that we’re looking for.”
» READ MORE: With Gregg Berhalter fired, who might be the next USMNT manager?
Since then, Crocker’s only public appearances have come at the U.S. women’s national team’s game on Saturday, and at the team’s practice the day before.
Going “hard” will likely involve U.S. Soccer writing a big check. That brings up another falsehood that some fans have been peddling: that women’s team manager Emma Hayes would automatically get a raise to match whatever the new men’s manager gets.
When Hayes was hired, the idea was that her salary would match Berhalter’s, making her the highest-paid manager in the women’s soccer world. But there was never a guarantee that she would automatically match Berhalter’s successor.
Again, a final judgment on the men’s team’s hiring process can’t be made until the hire is done. Crocker has said he wants it done before the team’s next games, a set of friendlies in September. We’ll see if he achieves that goal.
(One of the games is against Canada, whose new manager Jesse Marsch was a candidate for the U.S. job a year ago. He has strongly criticized U.S. Soccer in recent days, and it’s worth remembering that while Crocker thought highly of him, many U.S. players strongly wanted Berhalter back instead.)
For now, the key point is this. If someone says U.S. Soccer is only looking for domestic-based coaches, that’s false. They’re looking abroad, and seriously, and now we just have to wait to see what the result is.
» READ MORE: Jim Curtin wasn’t surprised by Gregg Berhalter’s firing, and still wants to help the USMNT some day
Source link : https://www.inquirer.com/soccer/matt-crocker-usmnt-gregg-berhalter-fired-20240713.html
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Publish date : 2024-07-13 21:49:24
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Author : News-Sports
Publish date : 2024-07-14 01:49:24
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