For Berhalter’s USMNT, Success Isn’t Just Qualifying For The 2022 FIFA World Cup

Four-and-a-half years after the United States men’s national team’s stunning failure to reach the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, American players, coaches and fans again find themselves with frayed nerves hoping such history can’t possibly repeat itself.

To be clear, the Americans are in a better position now. Regardless of the outcome of Thursday’s match at Mexico, a home win over Panama on Sunday would guarantee at worst a place in an intercontinental playoff this summer. A win over Panama and a draw at Costa Rica the following Wednesday seals a top three finish in Concacaf a place at the 2022 tournament in Qatar.

But so much of the 2022 cycle has been framed within the context of the previous failure that merely qualifying for Qatar has for many become the only benchmark for success for manager Gregg Berhalter’s group. And it shouldn’t.

Berhalter began his time in charge of the U.S. program asserting that his goal was not merely to restore the program to its place as one of the giants of Concacaf, but to change the way the world thought of American soccer.

Perhaps that posture made sense at the time when program morale was at an all-time low, and there was a very real need to sell dreams in the absence of bona-fide recent achievements. But Berhalter has clung to it as recently as when he joined ESPN’s SportsCenter last week. And there’s nothing the U.S. is likely to do in this window that could achieve that goal — at least not in a positive way.

Just what is the national soccer team’s reputation? Prior to the 2018 cycle, it’s probably fair to say it was of a group that was more than the sum of its parts, by no means a giant of the international game, but a team you decidedly didn’t want to play.

Presumably, the part Berhalter and his men would like to correct is the perception of the talent level among U.S., and of a team incapable of earning results stylishly.

But tor those who watch the highest levels of the club game, the former is already changing independent of accomplishments of the national team.

Eight players who have contributed to the current qualifying effort have played in the current edition of the UEFA Champions League, commonly regarded as the highest level of club soccer. Several more have competed in the UEFA Europa League. That’s an unprecedented level of Concacaf participation in those tournaments from any member nation.

There have been other cycles when as much of the American roster’s core has been based in Europe, but never at those elite levels.

As for whether that group can coalesce to play a more glamorous brand of soccer, the jury remains very much out. Berhalter’s CV was boosted substantially in 2021 with victories in the Concacaf Nations League and the Concacaf Gold Cup. But previous American teams have won regional titles, including the 2017 Gold Cup months before that famous qualifying failure. And the current qualifying results have been very average, historically.

That could change with an excellent final window that includes a first-ever qualifying win at Estadio Azteca on Thursday night. But given this team is impacted by several absences, has already lost at Canada and Panama, and has also dropped points in Jamaica and El Salvador, that would be a massive upset.

The more likely path to qualification appears to be a home win against Panama on Sunday, some sort of result in Costa Rica the following Wednesday and a third-place finish. Where other American teams have done more with less, given the current talent level, you might fairly judge such a finish this time as doing less with more.

That wouldn’t automatically make the Berhalter era a failure. For all the hand-wringing about qualification, getting to Qatar merely sets the stage.

If the U.S. backs into Qatar only to advance past the group stage while playing an exciting style, that would be new territory for American soccer. And history is full of sides that struggled in qualifying only to blossom in the tournament.

So far though, everything Berhalter’s group have achieved to this point is closer to “typical” than “transformational.”

Perhaps promising transformation is the error. Perhaps it should be simpler: get your best players on the field in the best position to succeed and let the results fall where they may. But so long as the big promises continue, Berhalter and his team deserve to be judged by them. Qualifying for the World Cup is a bare minimum.