One of the most exasperating parts of the Gregg Berhalter U.S. Men’s National Team managerial era is that their appears to be absolutely no room for any evaluation of the program that lands between the poles of “excellent” and “awful.”
The manager himself probably didn’t help matters when he first took the job and said his USMNT would change the way the world viewed American soccer, thus obscuring the position of the goalposts by which the program had previously been measured.
But some of this was probably ineviteable after the trauma of failing to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, combined with the pressure of wanting to give an absolute best performance possible in 2026 on home soil.
One of the latest examples of this is a recent article from Yahoo Sports’ Henry Bushnell — one of the regulars on the U.S. national team beat — in the aftermath of the Americans’ Concacaf Nations League triumph over Mexico on Sunday night.
Bushnell is an excellent and consistent writer and reporter, which is part of what makes the central crux of his current argument so flummoxing: With insights from the players and coaches involved in the USMNT, Bushnell writes that while the program “won’t ignore” regional competition in the future, it has “clearly outgrown” regional play and has nothing left to prove there.
There’s truth to the central point of the article, that to reach the squad’s full potential in time for 2026, Berhalter’s team needs to venture beyond the region for high-level games. It gets to do that at this summer’s Copa America, potentially against the likes of defending World Cup winners Argentina, the legendary Brazilian squad and others.
But to assert that the program has no room to grow at a regional level or imply that this version of the U.S. team has ascended to a previously unseen level against its nearest rivals is demonstrably false. And it ignores the more significant development from the last five years in which Berhalter has been in charge: not the USA’s competent recovery from a low point, but Mexico’s stunning decline from power.
Away Daze
Don’t think there’s anything left for the Americans to prove in Concacaf? Then you’re obviously not looking at their away record.
It’s a fair question whether that away record is fully relevant to the Americans’ chances of a 2026 tournament played as the host team. But it’s a good historical measuring stick to compare relatively quality, and a cursory examination shows nothing exc eptional about this group relative to others in the program’s modern era.
Berhalter’s group has played 12 total competitive away matches in Concacaf and won only three of them. The vanquished teams? Honduras, Cuba and Grenada.
Put another way, every Concacaf Copa America entrant this summer has taken points off the U.S. in every home game they’ve played. Canada owns two victories. El Salvador owns to draws.
This isn’t necessarily shameful — away matches in international play are supposed to be difficult. But it’s a big giant red flag that maybe this team shouldn’t yet be annointed as a unique group within USMNT history.
In fact, Berhalter’s group earned fewer points per game on the road in the final round of Concacaf World Cup qualifying than any previous team that successfull qualified. This despite the expansion of the final round to eight teams that theoretically would’ve resulted in a couple more winnable away games.
USA Away PPG, Concacaf WCQ Final Round
- 2022: 0.86 ppg
- 2018: 0.60 ppg
- 2014: 1.40 ppg
- 2010: 1.40 ppg
- 2006: 1.40 ppg
- 2002: 1.00 ppg
- 1998: 1.20 ppg
What to infer from this? Either Berhalter’s team uniquely struggles in away environments, or — more likely — that the overall depth of the region has improved. The development of Canada as a perennial threat and projects in Jamaica and Panama would suggest the latter.
As for the other continental honors? To Berhalter’s considerable credit, the United States has won four of six Concacaf trophies for which it has competed under his guidance. But three of those have come in the Nations League, a competition that didn’t exist before Berhalter assumed this role. Every knockout stage game of those competitions except one has been played on U.S. soil.
And in the modern Concacaf era (since 1990), the U.S. or Mexico has won all but one of the trophies up for grabs, when Canada pulled an upset to win the 2000 Gold Cup. So if Mexico is suddenly off the level they’ve inhabited for most of that era, then the Americans’ dominance doesn’t really suggest progress. If anything, it’s an argument for Concacaf to stage tournaments that fairer for the federation’s other teams — i.e. events that aren’t always on U.S. soil — although the economic realities of the region make that highly unlikely.
El Triage
As for whether Mexico has declined relative to the U.S. and other Concacaf opponents, there’s so much evidence that you have to be willfully blind to miss it.
One stat that has circulated since the Americans’ latest 2-0 victory over El Tri is how Mexico has scored only once in its last six games against the United States.
That’s an impressive defensive record for sure. It’s also better than the U.S. has fared against every other Concacaf team playing in the 2024 Copa America:
Goals Scored Against USMNT, Last Six Games
- Costa Rica: 5
- Panama: 5
- Canada: 4
- Jamaica: 4
- Mexico: 1
The counterpoint to these numbers would be that it’s Mexico whom the U.S. is most often facing in regional finals, and therefore that remains the measuring stick. But that misses the reality that El Tri may benefit even more from playing games on American soil than the U.S. does.
Mexico’s national team is the most popular national team in the country in terms of attendance and TV viewership. They enjoy a home-field environment in every game they play in the U.S. before largely Mexican American crowds, including even when they play the Americans.
Even then, they have had less of an automatic path to Concacaf finals than in previous eras. They lost the 2017 Gold Cup semifinal to Jamaica and were seeded into a 2022-2023 Nations League semifinal against Honduras because of Canada’s strong play in Concacaf World Cup qualifying. They almost missed out entirely on the final stages of the 2023-2024 Nations League, requiring penalties to win their quarterfinal series following a 2-2 aggregate draw against Honduras.
Then there’s their last World Cup performance, in which Mexico failed to advance to the knockout stage for the first time since it was ineligble for the 1990 tournament.
Playing in Copa America is an undoubtedly positive development for the U.S. national team. And there certainly is a need for competitive fixtures beyond the familiarity of the region.
But that need isn’t reflective of any definitive growth in the current American program, and it’s no newer than it was when the U.S. first played as a guest team ast the Copa America in 1993, or when former manager Jurgen Klinsmann spent much of his tenure railing against the Concacaf structure while in charge from 2011 to 2016.
The Americans’ recent dominance of Mexico is a lot more about how bad this version of El Tri has been. Berhalter deserves credit for fielding a team that is taking full advantage of it. But fans deserve better than to be fed a narrative of unquestioned superiority in the region, when performances against basically everyone else other than their traditional rival suggest the Concacaf gap is actually narrowing.