A few hours after the US men’s national team returned to the World Cup this March, the two of us sat in a hotel bar in Costa Rica, bottles of Imperial, bowls of ceviche, our notebooks and laptops strewn across the front table. us. , and drafted a piece detailing the Americans’ trip to Qatar.
The USA lost 2-0 in Costa Rica that night, but the result was enough for them to finish third in the CONCACAF Octagon and return to the World Cup after missing out on the tournament in 2018. The night was a bit of an oddity. Although they had qualified, the US team were relatively subdued at the final whistle, with the disappointment of losing initially outweighing the fact that they had punched their ticket to Qatar.
Emotions returned when the team reached the locker room, and rightfully so. For more than four years, the USA had suffered from failure to qualify for the previous World Cup. Although few of the players on Team USA in Costa Rica were close to the infamous loss in Couva, Trinidad that ended their chances of going to Russia, the 2018 loss was still very much a part of the team’s identity. It was the lens through which everything about the team was seen.
Still, sitting in the hotel bar in Costa Rica, we knew that to tell the real story about this team, we had to zoom in. What happened in the first half in Honduras in September, or in the Nations League final in Denver in June 2021, or in the subsequent Gold Cup, showed only a sliver.
To that end, today we’re introducing a new audio series, now available in its entirety Athletic football show podcast source: “From Couva to Qatar: The Remaking of the US Men’s National Team”.
To understand this team, you have to understand the history – what happened in Couva, and also what happened before. How the US teams shaped the program before 2017. Or how the years after the 2014 World Cup held many warning signs of the stunning failure to come.
You also need to understand the path for American players; What it was like before the U.S. hosted the 1994 World Cup, what it was like for current coach Gregg Berhalter and his teammates on the U.S. team that reached the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup, and how Christian Pulisic played a big role in opening it up that last few years.
Perhaps most importantly, you need to have an idea of what’s on the horizon. The USA will be the youngest team in Qatar. The team will feature players from some of the biggest clubs in the world, clubs that the Americans have historically never approached. Collectively, these players almost certainly have a higher ceiling than any previous edition of the USMNT.
All this has raised expectations about this group. Hope for what this team can be informed how people think about it MUST reached Qatar. Dreams of what he might be able to do in four years when the U.S. co-hosts the 2026 World Cup — when the most important players in Qatar will be in the midst of their debuts — have added even more excitement.
Yet for all the excitement surrounding the teams they play for and the talent they possess, America’s youth are still developing as individuals and still coming together as a group. Their journey to the World Cup has been quite difficult. There are questions about Berhalter’s tactics and legitimate weaknesses in the playing field.
We could only capture so much of it the article we ended up running the night the team qualified for Costa Rica.
So when our bosses approached us a few months ago with an idea to produce a series of podcasts about this American team before the World Cup, we jumped on board.
We’ve covered this team throughout the Berhalter era, from the first camp of his tenure in Chula Vista, California in January 2019 to the recent friendlies in Europe against Japan and Saudi Arabia. We’ve been around how the team has been shaped and reshaped, changing from the mixed group we saw for most of Berhalter’s first year in charge to the new, exciting squad heading to Qatar. We know the highs and the lows, we’ve chronicled all the big wins and paradigm-shifting losses.
But even for us, this podcast provided a valuable chance to step back and hear what others had to say. We conducted interviews with Berhalter and key players Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie, Gio Reyna, Walker Zimmerman and DeAndre Yedlin, as well as other key voices who brought unique perspectives to DaMarcus Beasley, Clint Dempsey and Marcelo Balboa.
It was enlightening, to say the least, to hear what some of the USMNT’s all-time greats had to say about where this team stands in the context of the program’s history. We heard Berhalter talk about potentially losing the team in his first year at the helm, something he’s never said anywhere else. We heard what it was really wanted to be in the locker room at halftime of the USA’s qualifier in Honduras in September when it looked like things might fall apart for the Americans. We heard players grapple with the golden generation label, with some embracing it and others shunning it.
Above all, we heard about a new group of players standing on the precipice of something that is both transformative and transitory. This World Cup will change the careers and lives of many people associated with the American team. It’s a big deal – but it’s also not the end of their story. As important as Qatar will be, the promise of a home World Cup in 2026 looms even greater.
We wanted this podcast to capture all of those ideas. Hopefully it will leave die-hard USMNT fans and those watching this team for the first time on November 21 with a clear understanding of the pressures the Americans face, the reasons why there is so much hope around this group and a sense of this team’s place in the ongoing evolution of the program and sport in this country.
We will both continue to tell the story of this team in the coming weeks. We’ll be on the field in Qatar for the USA’s Group B games against Wales on November 21, England on November 25 and Iran on November 28, and for every single-elimination game in December. Until then, we hope this podcast provides the most comprehensive view you’ll get of this USA team at the top of the tournament.
Watch all five episodes below:
