Why we love to hate Gregg Berhalter

The maligned coach has become a wedge topic between fans and media

Why do we love our national team sometimes and hate Gregg Berhalter at every other moment? Why did we have more fun when we were constantly underdogs? And why do we malign and overpraise the psychology of USMNT supporters? It’s fascinating and greatly affects the game on a daily basis. A coach rapidly becoming synonymous with disappointment despite winning two regional trophies and qualifying for the World cup..

Despite having one of the most successful stints of all time as the US National Team head coach, the fanbase have already begun to discredit Gregg after months of praise from the media as a result of the constant and unbearable cycle of 24-hour sports news coverage. These peaks and troughs of public flavor raise and dip faster than ever before.

It only took 5 games for Bruce Arena to be completely dismissed yet Berhalter has managed it in the space between relative success in two tournaments and a qualifying cycle. The amusing reality is that Gregg Berhalter has very little to do with how Gregg Berhalter is perceived. His demeanor in press conferences and his aptitude to look at expected goals instead of the result does him no favors with the public, but this is more than a simple crisis of self control. External forces ensure there's fuel for the angry mob and we gobble it up like hungry hungry hippos. This happens everywhere in the world now with any sports figure.

Step one: Identify the target 

Step two: Set impossible expectations through repetitive overconfident assumptions

Step three: Wait the shortest period of time possible before beginning the criticism 

Step four: Discredit anyone who has a different opinion at every opportunity

It sounds like a conspiracy…and it is, but not in an evil illuminati way. It's a conspiracy of the extreme gulf wedged between our expectations and the landscape of journalists that have inside access.

Punditry has become the art of speaking only in platitudes like we’ve created corporate buzzwords for sport, except now I have to live with that in my twitter feed while following my favorite team. Entertainment (I’m looking at everyone not named Clint Dempsey) has limited itself to the most obvious use of language in soccer so much so that in a hundred years time there will probably only be a few sanctioned sentences allowed to describe performance. In their descriptions of the coach, the team, and the expectations the media have become trapped in a world of their own creation in which someone can only be superb or only shit. Everything is black and white and there's no space for nuance or understanding. 

Gregg Berhalter is a victim of the cycle and our supporters were often happy to perpetuate it as us vs them (them being Gregg and the media). In reality Gregg Berhalter isn't terrible nor is he superb, he's brilliant and he's shit. These are lazy descriptions and lack respect to the complexity of soccer and the complexity of human beings.