da bwin： The federation fired Gregg Behalter, and after hiring Emma Hayes as USWNT coach, now faces another search with World Cup 2 years away

da betway： The U.S. men's and women's national team have rarely been compared on the same plane. For much of its history, the USWNT has competed for the biggest trophies the game has to offer. The USMNT, meanwhile, has – at best – aspired to reach that level.

One program has always been elite… the other has always dreamed of earning that status.

Even so, within the space of one year, U.S. Soccer has faced critical and similar decisions with both. Just one year after firing head coach Vlatko Andonovski as USWNT boss, the federation has now unexpectedly dismissed USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter after the team's stunning Copa America failure. That decision comes just one year after bringing Berhalter back and, more critically, just two years in advance of the 2026 World Cup to be played in the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

Within the span of just a few months, U.S. Soccer made a pair of seismic, program-defining decisions. The first is already in place. Bolstered by a decorated European coaching resume, Emma Hayes is the coach tasked with rebuilding the USWNT, and to do so on the fly given the incredibly short lead up to the 2024 Paris Olympics. As for Berhalter's replacement, whomever that may be … well, the focus will be obvious: a home soil World Cup.

Both programs are at a crossroads, as is American soccer as a whole. The pressure is firmly on U.S. Soccer to ensure these two coaching hires – one done, one to come – deliver against expectations and set the course for the flagship U.S. soccer programs for years to come. There is zero margin for error.

GettyThe end of the Andonovski era

Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but the signs were on the wall before last summer's World Cup. The USWNT attack was sputtering in the leadup to the tournament, and Andonovski was struggling to find answers.

Everyone knows what happened next. The USWNT crashed out in the Round of 16, their worst-ever World Cup finish. After such a disappointing performance for a team with such elevated standards, change was inevitable.

It came roughly two weeks after the USWNT's elimination. Andonovski was gone.

The coaching search that resulted was a massive one. The USWNT, for the first time in its history, had seriously fallen back to the pack. There had been momentary slip-ups in the past, but last summer Down Under made it completely clear: the rest of the world had caught up. Spain, England, the Netherlands, France, Australia, Japan, Sweden… none were afraid of the U.S. women anymore.

Andonovski's replacement would be asked to bring back that fear. It was a program in need of a rebuild, but also one in need of a lift. The young talent is there for the nurturing, but the U.S. needed a coach who could jumpstart the program and translate that talent into the dominance of their predecessors.

Ultimately, the one charged with that was Emma Hayes, but it took some time.

AdvertisementGettyHayes (finally) arrives

Emma Hayes was immediately determined to be the right candidate. So right, in fact, that U.S. Soccer would wait for her, hamstringing their Olympic pursuits in the process.

There's risk and reward with any coach but, with Hayes, the downside was obvious: potentially tossing away a major tournament. Unable to link up with the U.S. until after Chelsea's WSL season, Hayes will now only have a few games in charge before the Olympics later this month in Paris. That's not much time for a coach to make adjustments or decisions, and that certainly not enough for a group in need of rebuilding to adjust to life under a new coach.

Ultimately, Hayes' hiring sent a message: U.S. Soccer is thinking long-term, taking big swings. Hayes wasn't hired to get results in these upcoming Olympics, specifically, but rather to rebuild the foundation for something substantial. The Olympics are important, yes, but getting the right coach to get this team back on track for success at future World Cups was imperative.

It's a vastly different situation than the one facing the USMNT, who are currently facing the opposite sort of timeline after Berhalter's exit.

GettyComparing to the USMNT

Hayes' hiring was about thinking long-term. When it comes to the USMNT job, U.S. Soccer doesn't have the luxury of time.

Whomever U.S. Soccer ultimately hires for this job will be tasked with one thing and one thing only: the World Cup. There is no time to rebuild. There is no time to put together a long-term vision. Those are all nice-to-haves, but the must-have is clear. At this point, the only thing that matters is immediate results.

For some candidates, that'll be attractive. The job, depending on the candidate, could be a quick two-year run that ends with a massive World Cup on home soil. Achieve that pinnacle, and decisions about post-2026 can be made at that point. Other candidates, though, could be turned off by that premise.

Ex-USMNT midfielder and former El Salvador coach Hugo Perez said he wouldn't consider taking the job mid-cycle with that short run up. It's a daunting task, one that puts immense pressure on a coach to deliver, quickly, and definitively.

The criteria for the next USMNT's coach is not a resume as a dedicated worker or a demonstrated builder. It's ALL about being an achiever. And a repeat achiever, at that. The successful candidate has to be someone with an established track record of getting results – but in doing so, also be capable of inspiring a skeptical fanbase that is still recovering from this summer's home soil Copa America crash.

It's a tough, tough job.

The man who presided over the Hayes hiring is the same who will now search for a USMNT coach, and his legacy is very much on the line with these two hires.

Getty ImagesThe man making the decisions

Matt Crocker has been U.S. Soccer's Sporting Director for about 15 months. This will now be his third coaching search. This certainly isn't how he expected this job to go when he was hired, but it is undeniably the hand he has been dealt.

"I think I'm a lot clearer and a lot more confident in what I see and also doing reviews with both Gregg and with Vlatko," Crocker told reporters on Wednesday. "I'm a lot clearer in what I think we need going forward. I'm in a better place to have a much more targeted search where I'll be more inclined to go hard and go early with specific candidates that I feel meet the criteria that we're looking for."

Crocker, of course, spearheaded the process that brought Berhalter back just last year. The process, even at the time, was criticized. It isn't all hindsight here; since Berhalter's return, there have been plenty of voices out there raging against how his return was handled.

That's already one strike against Crocker, who must now pivot into another coaching search. It isn't one that he would have expected to do. No one could have fathomed just how quickly this turned, and how poorly the U.S. performed at the Copa America.

The goal is to have a coach in place ahead of the USMNT's September friendlies but, as Crocker learned during the Hayes hiring process, these coaching decisions can be complicated. Speaking to reporters, he outlined what he's looking for in a coach as the USMNT process gets underway.

"Whether they're from the U.S. or elsewhere, they've got to fit the profile, which is a serial winning coach," Crocker said, "somebody that can continue to develop this potential group of players, somebody that's got a huge interest and a passion for player development. It continues to still be a young group – the second-youngest group in Copa América – but also a group that now is sort of in the realms of having a number of experiences, that we should be qualifying and getting out of the group for sure."

He added: "Winning is the yardstick, and we didn't do that. We are looking for a serial winning coach and a coach that can also build on the work that has already been put in place. Clearly, there's still a lot of potential in the group and we have to turn out the performance and results, so that's what I'll be looking for and that'll be my absolute No. 1 priority. 

"All my energies and efforts will be going into that straight away."