USA unthinkably eliminated from Copa America in group stage
It’s been a depressing month to be a US Soccer fan. In 5 extremely important matches, the highlight performance is a draw versus a historically weak Brazilian side. There are many candidates for the low point. Is it the 5-1 drubbing by Colombia? Is it losing to Panama on home soil with our ‘A’ team (at least pre-Red Card)? Or is being the first host country of a Copa America not to advance to the knockout rounds since the tournament moved to it’s current format in 1975?
Getting eliminated hurts. We can complain about the referees. We can argue that a single moment of madness from Tim Weah cost us the opportunity to move on. We can feel that we were just unlucky and we can still believe this team is a Golden Generation.
Yes
But we also have to face a harsh reality. Even if Uruguay’s goal gets called back for offsides, and even if we hold on for a point against Panama after Weah’s red card, we still would have been eliminated. We weren’t good enough as a team in this tournament, even though we have good enough players. We have been patient with Berhalter but this calls for a reassessment of the program and a rebuild. How are the players and fans going to get their belief back if we just keep doing more of the same?
Is Berhalter someone you can see fundamentally reassessing the program? Absolutely not. Is he the right person to take us onward to 2026? Absolutely not. He needs to be held accountable and it’s time to bring in a new coach.
For the record, we’ve had serious doubts about Berhalter since before the World Cup. We gave him the benefit of the doubt when we played well in Qatar and saw the genuine affection the players seemed to have for him after our loss to the Netherlands in the Round of 16. The program was headed the right direction – undeniably after our failure to even qualify for Russia in 2018. We thought he deserved a chance to see if he could keep the program moving the right direction.
The answer to that is now unequivocally no. Togetherness as a team is great, but it doesn’t win championships by itself. We need the right tactics and the right motivation.
We’ll be back in the near future with a full discussion of all the factors we consider when we say he needs to go, whether we think US Soccer will actually make the right decision, and a subsequent piece about the options to replace him.
Here’s hoping Olympic soccer goes better for Team USA.
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