WITH AMERICA’S WORLD CUP TWO YEARS AWAY, U.S. SOCCER NEEDS A NEW COACH

Gregg Berhalter can’t continue after a brutal performance in Copa America, as the U.S. wastes a “golden generation” of talent in a nation that has tried for decades and can’t solve its identity crisis

     What happened to decades of soccer moms? Doesn’t Lionel Messi play in Miami after David Beckham played in Los Angeles and Pele in New York? We have waited lifetimes in America for any kind of surge in a sport worshipped elsewhere like divinity. I used to sit on an ESPN panel and wait for a mute button when I badmouthed the beautiful game — and where it wasn’t going in America.

     But our best male athletes continue to play the barbaric form of football, along with basketball and baseball and other diversions. And no matter our so-called mission, the only rulebook item saving us from ourselves is this: Host nations automatically qualify for the World Cup. It means the U.S. will have some sort of presence in 2026, though it might be among the worst, based on an ugly ouster in a Copa America group stage.

     Our national team fell to Panama last week because Tim Weah decided to assault an opponent, forcing 10 teammates to lose 2-1. Then came Monday evening in Kansas City, home of Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, where the U.S. lost 1-0 to Uruguay. We are falling to countries I never mention in my sports column for any reason. Should we stop the age-old dream of ever hanging in a game against Argentina, France, Brazil, Belgium and England, much less topping the world’s best teams?

     Even in the stadium of the Chiefs, spectators knew where to point the blame. “Fire Gregg,” they chanted in the second half, targeting Gregg Berhalter. In some ways, it’s hard to believe he’s still the coach after a fiasco at the 2022 World Cup, when he was called out by Gio Reyna’s parents — a 1992 incident of domestic violence involving Berhalter and a woman who became his wife — and almost was fired. He kept his job, but U.S. Soccer director Matt Crocker can’t continue to give him life.

     The firing should be quick and meaningful. Berhalter doesn’t agree, answering “yes” when asked if he should remain in charge. “Just to see the guys' faces in the locker room and to see the emotion of the staff and players, we're bitterly disappointed with the results,” he said. “We know we're capable of more and in this tournament this we didn't show it, it's really as simple as that. You look at the stage that was set with the fans in this tournament, with the high level of competition in this tournament and we should have done better. We'll do a review and figure out what went wrong and why it went wrong but it's an empty feeling right now for sure.”

     The decision will be mammoth for U.S. Soccer, where Cindy Parlow Cone is the first woman president. Our female teams are proud and triumphant. Can she intertwine the two polar-opposite projects? Said the organization: “Our tournament performance fell short of our expectations. We must do better. We will be conducting a comprehensive review of our performance in Copa America and how best to improve the team and results as we look towards the 2026 World Cup.”

     “This is our golden generation. Looks like we're wasting it,” former U.S. star Clint Dempsey said. “Our 2026 World Cup is coming up."

     The global extravaganza starts in less than two years, with the final set for MetLife Stadium outside New York. Ten other cities will host games, along with towns in Mexico and Canada, and we should ask why our team has no spirit after advancing to a round-of-16 loss to the Netherlands at the 2022 World Cup. Many U.S. players, including captain Christian Pulisic, have potent careers in Europe. But when they are placed together for the red, white and blue, they reek.

     Fanboys will blame the referee, a 32-year-old Peruvian named Kevin Paolo Ortega, who was called out ruthlessly by Fox Sports analyst Alexi Lalas. “Amateur hour,” said defender Antonee Robinson, but in the end, USMNT was a clogged-up bunch that managed only four shots. “The result is on us,” he said, “and we weren’t good enough.”

     “Just not enough quality,” said Pulisic, who has been called the future of American soccer for years. “I felt like we gave it everything, but we just couldn’t score.” He added, of the ref: “Honestly, I mean I saw things that I've never seen before right in front of my eyes today that I just I truly I can't believe. It's not why we lost; we're not out of this tournament because of officiating.”

     In the first week of July, with only baseball on the tube, this wasn’t a good night for soccer in our land. Even the camera vision was a mess, from a high angle controlled by tournament organizer CONMEBOL. “This is not a stadium for ants,” color commentator Stu Holden said. “This is a very high camera for the CONMEBOL world feed.”

     The producers should have left the feed where it was. That way, we wouldn’t have to watch.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.