Mission Critical: U.S. Soccer at crossroads, has zero margin for error in next USMNT coaching hire

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.

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.

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.

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."

What makes this USMNT hire so unique is that the requirements are so clear cut. There are no other ways to qualify success right now. This isn't about progress or lessons or developing or building, none of the soft-skills that ultimately are intended to create results. This is about winning. Now.

And with that requirement comes pressure. The World Cup runs from June 11 until July 19, 2026, so roughly two years from now, we'll know how the experiment turned out. The new coach will be judged by how this team performs at the 2026 World Cup. Nothing more, nothing less. Straightforward.

By July of 2026, we'll also know how Crocker has done. The USMNT coach's job will effectively be complete. Hayes, meanwhile, will be through one major tournament and a summer away from her second, with the next Women's World Cup in 2027 in Brazil. We'll have seen how much progress the USWNT has made in that time, too. Crocker's performance evaluation essentially comes down to these two hires. If they sink, he does, too.

For now, the focus is on the USMNT and the upcoming World Cup. All World Cups are big, but the 2026 edition different. That tournament, in that moment, on home soil, is seen as a potentially revolutionary moment for American soccer. For years, the sport has fought its way into the country's culture, and that tournament - and the host team's performance - is an unprecedented opportunity to energize a nation.

That only happens if the USMNT gives people a reason to dream, and that can only happen if Crocker gets the right leader in place to help inspire a country so desperate for soccer success. The stakes could not be higher, or more clear.

At the moment, U.S. Soccer is a federation at a crossroads. Both of the program's senior national teams are marching towards defining moments, and they are barreling toward them like a freight train.

They find themselves in opposite places. The USWNT is fighting to keep its hold as THE elite program in the women's game, whereas the USMNT is pushing to climb and climb and climb to reach the pinnacle of theirs. Over the last year, both fell remarkably short. Now, both must rebuild.

Very rarely does a federation have to make so many massive decisions in such a short period of time. Even more rarely do those types of decisions come with an event as seismic as hosting a World Cup on the horizon. And it's not just the World Cup - these next few summers will be defining for the sport in America as we know it. A New Era in American soccer beckons. Will it arrive?

That process is bigger than two coaches, of course. It occurs from the top right on down. Both Hayes and her future USMNT counterpart hold the keys to that moment, the leaders being tasked with both rebuilding their programs and serving as this country's chief ambassadors to their respective games.

Will U.S. Soccer get it right? Will these two coaches prove the right ones? The answers are mission critical if the federation hopes to usher in a New Era that will be defining for these two teams.