US enter Gold Cup with eye on 2026 and their new-old head coach on sidelines

Here’s the USMNT story so far in 2023. The second interim coach of the year is going for his second trophy of the year, even though the team has a new permanent coach, who is the former permanent coach.

This new-old head coach, Gregg Berhalter, who was hired-rehired on 16 June, will not be in charge of the US’s first Concacaf Gold Cup game – against Jamaica in Chicago on Saturday – because he is busy Thinking Deep Thoughts.

US Soccer have decided that Berhalter will not return until after the Gold Cup ends. He will instead hold a series of “big picture” strategy meetings with the man who appointed-reappointed him, the federation’s new sporting director, Matt Crocker.

Related: Folarin Balogun chose the US over England. He may have created a 2026 contender | Eric Wynalda

After Jamaica, the US meet Saint Kitts and Nevis then face Trinidad and Tobago using what is essentially a reserve squad mostly drawn from Major League Soccer, with a host of young and inexperienced names and only two players who started matches at last year’s World Cup: goalkeeper Matt Turner and forward Jesús Ferreira.

Still, the US should reach the final at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on 16 July as they look to retain the title. Last Sunday’s 2-0 win in the Concacaf Nations League final over Canada, who finished ahead of the US in World Cup 2022 qualifying, was convincing. Meanwhile, Mexico are in disarray having sacked their head coach, Diego Cocca, after only four months in the wake of a shambolic 3-0 loss to a mostly Europe-based US side in the Nations League semi-finals.

This Gold Cup is taking place in the US and Canada, who, along with Mexico, will host the 2026 World Cup. Since its inception in 1991 the biennial contest has been won by the US or Mexico every time except for 2000, when Canada were the victors. From an American perspective, though, it’s a tournament of limited utility with the next World Cup three years away. The Gold Cup has also been devalued by the Nations League and the reality that most of the top players are now Europe-based and entitled to a rest after a long season made even more arduous by last year’s mid-season World Cup.

It’s telling that even US Soccer has decided that Berhalter is better off glued to Power Point presentations than coaching the team on the touchline. One mitigating argument is that as Berhalter’s longtime assistant, interim boss BJ Callaghan offers a seamless continuation of the tactical vision. That’s been the case in his two matches so far. On the other hand, with no World Cup qualifying slog to negotiate given the country’s status as hosts, there is not an excess of meaningful matches ahead for the US in the next three years.

“What we didn’t want to create was the environment of you know, Gregg puts his boots straight back on, slides back into the environment, and it’s very much business as usual,” Crocker told reporters. “There’s some real big-ticket items around some real strategic stuff over the next couple of seasons that we need to map out first.”

Holding a productive chat with Gio Reyna would probably be of greater consequence for the 2026 prospects than anything Berhalter might have accomplished at the Gold Cup. Before going off injured the Borussia Dortmund playmaker was outstanding against Canada, providing two assists.

However, since the US met the expectations of members of the reality-based community by getting out of the group stage in Qatar, and appear to be on an upward curve, Berhalter probably would have been handed a new contract at the start of this year were it not for the consequences of his fall-out with the Reyna family.

An investigation into a domestic violence incident involving Berhalter in 1992 was prompted by a disclosure from Reyna’s vengeful parents, who – like Gio – were upset at his limited playing time in Qatar. It concluded in mid-March and in effect gave US Soccer the green light to bring back Berhalter.

He admitted in a press conference last week that he has not spoken with Reyna since the World Cup, adding that the player is a potential “game-changer” and they need to “rebuild a relationship that we know will be important”. There are clearly no such strains with other talents: it’s impossible to imagine that Berhalter would be back without the blessing of locker-room influences such as Christian Pulisic and Tyler Adams.

At its core, Berhalter’s task is extremely simple: get the US at least to the semi-finals in 2026. Mould a team capable of beating the likes of the Netherlands, who ousted the US 3-1 in the round of 16 at last year’s World Cup. And given the youth and development potential of last year’s roster, perhaps two-thirds of the regular starters in Qatar are realistic contenders to make the first XI in 2026. It’s hard to imagine many of them being displaced by the players at this Gold Cup.

If there were a trophy on offer for being world leaders in vapid corporate-speak, the US men’s set-up would be leading contenders for silverware. The statement announcing Berhalter’s return declared that Crocker “deployed a multifaceted evaluation mechanism” in order to find a coach capable of “building lasting relationships with staff and players, planning and effectively driving a vision-led identity, pushing innovation and boundaries, and being a decisive decision-maker. Within these categories, he utilized advanced data analytics, sophisticated metrics, and cutting-edge hiring methods to profile and rank each candidate.”

These included psychometrics assessed by “abstract reasoning testing” to locate a leader who “is able to both regulate their own behavior by understanding self in a variety of situations and models outstanding consistent behaviors.” (Well, that ruled out José Mourinho.)

Coaches, though, are not ordinary CEOs. Their best-laid plans are subject to career-defining vagaries over which they often exert little or no control: the quality of the playing pool, injuries, the luck of the draw and the caprices of knockout football. After all, last year’s champions, Argentina, won two games on penalties in Qatar.

Maybe an efficiency drive will see ChatGPT handed control of personnel decisions by the 2030 World Cup cycle. These past five-and-a-half-month had echoes of the human resources odyssey that led to Berhalter’s original hiring at the end of 2018: a year-long global search that settled on a New Jersey native who’d been in charge at the Columbus Crew for the past five years. As the rumour mill churned this year, salivating fans could have been forgiven for wondering which member of the France ’98 World Cup squad would be taking charge: Zinedine Zidane, Patrick Vieira or Thierry Henry?

The biggest selection problem of the Berhalter era(s) to date, central striker, may be solved now that Arsenal’s Folarin Balogun is on board, having switched his international allegiance from England. The 21-year-old scored in the Nations League final in his second US appearance but is not on the Gold Cup roster. Nor is Ricardo Pepi. In their absence, Ferrera of FC Dallas, as well as the Mexico-born Club América winger Alex Zendejas, who has one goal in three caps after committing his international future to the US in March, will be hoping that Berhalter is watching closely. Wherever he is.