Before we can definitively answer the question of whether we are underperforming the talent on the field with Berhalter in charge, we have to look at the results he’s produced from a historical perspective. We’ll look at his overall record and record in truly competitive matches.

First, let’s look at overall won-loss record of historical USMNT coaches. We set a minimum of 30 matches coached so we can focus on the guys with real tenure, and we looked only at “modern” history since 1990.

So far so good for Berhalter. His overall record is undeniably good when compared to other USMNT managers.

Let’s move on to look at his record in truly competitive matches. For this, we’re focusing on World Cup, World Cup Qualifying, and Copa America. We’re ignoring Gold Cup because the competitors (including the USA) frequently bring their ‘B’ team to that tournament. We’re ignoring Nations League because there is no historical precedent. Additionally, we already get good insight into CONCACAF-specific performance in competitive matches from the World Cup Qualifying history.

Berhalter’s World Cup was judged as in line with expectations. Failure to get out of our group would have been a failure, but with a team that young not many expected us to advance far in the knockouts.

From a historical perspective, it’s a positive result but nothing special. We’ve advanced past the group stage in 5 of the last 8 but only made it past the Round of 16 once. We’ll call it mid-table.

We would also describe Berhalter’s qualification campaign as “mid table” from a historical perspective. It was ultimately a success because we qualified, and the team was SO young during that process that we can forgive a third place finish. Vanquishing the demons of 2018 was also critical. Berhalter helped to right the ship so to speak.

Still, we did not reach the highs of the 2006 – 2014 qualification campaigns where we finished first. Mid table seems like a fair judgement again.

It’s really not possible to describe this Copa America campaign as anything other than an abject failure, especially when looking at the group we failed to come out of.

We went back and looked at the Groups from our 1993 and 2007 Copa America campaigns for additional historical perspective. In 1993 we were paired with Ecuador, Uruguay, and Venezuela. In 2007 we faced Argentina, Paraguay, and Colombia. Both of those are clearly more difficult than our group this time around.

On results alone we would say it’s tied for our worst ever Copa America. The other two group stage eliminations had more difficult groups, but we did get at least 1 win this time. We’ll call that a push.

When you factor in that this was a home tournament, and we are the first host nation ever not to advance from the group stage in Copa America, we will put this down as the worst Copa America result of any manager. Keep in mind, we’re ignoring talent at this point and only looking at results.

Nothing here says “we must retain Berhalter.” His overall results are the best of any US manager, but that might say more about the quality of friendlies we’re playing and the overall quality of CONCACAF right now. This Copa America is certainly calling the latter into question.

World Cup Qualifying and World Cup results are mid-table, and we just suffered the worst Copa America performance in US history. Not a great fact pattern.

Next: Talent

Footnotes

1) In the 1990 World Cup and Qualifying, wins counted for 2 points. We converted to modern scoring, where a win is worth 3 points, for comparison purposes. We also note that we only played 8 matches in the final round of 1990 World Cup Qualifying, due to Mexico’s suspension

2) The USMNT placed 3rd in their group in 1994, but in that tournament several of the top 3rd place teams moved on – much like this year’s European Championships

3) Bruce Arena took over after 2 matches under Klinsmann. The USMNT lost both matches under Klinsmann

4) The USMNT played 14 matches in the final round of 2022 World Cup Qualifying, as CONCACAF expanded the traditional 6-team “hexagonal” final round into an 8-team “octagonal” qualification