
Chicago Fire and former United States Men’s National Team (USMNT) head coach Gregg Berhalter has defended his tenure as the national team manager, describing it as “one of the most successful periods the U.S. national team has ever had”.
Berhalter was fired as the national team coach following the team’s disappointing performance at the Copa America last year, becoming the first host nation to be eliminated from the group stage since the competition began in 1975.
He answered questions reminiscing about his time with the national team during a press conference on Thursday, saying: “I think the time, if you look at the six years with the national team, was one of the most successful periods that the U.S. national team has ever had so for me, it was a job well done with one failure point — Copa America — and that happens.
That happens to any manager across the world, but overall, we took a very young group and we created an identity, and we were successful with that group, won multiple titles in our region, performed well at the World Cup, qualified for the World Cup, so there were a lot of boxes that were checked.”
MLS team Chicago Fire hired Berhalter shortly after as their head coach and director of football. While he says he was “hurt” by the decision to fire him, he said he could understand it based on their poor performance at Copa America:
“It’s a really difficult moment when you get fired as a coach… For me it was really about being with my family in those moments and giving myself the time and the freedom and the space to feel sad and feel bad. We didn’t perform well in Copa América and when you don’t perform well at a high level there’s consequences, and I take full responsibility for that. But it still hurts.”