Gregg Berhalter acknowledged that his firing in August as U.S. men’s national team coach was “a really difficult moment,” but said he’s now hungry and motivated again to take on his new roles as Chicago Fire head coach and director of football.
Berhalter, 51, was introduced in his twin roles on Thursday by Fire owner Joe Mansueto, and said that he looks at the opportunity with Chicago as a chance to awaken a “sleeping giant.”
But he also took some time to reflect on what transpired with the USMNT over the summer, including the group stage exit at the Copa América that ultimately cost him his job.
“It’s a really difficult moment when you get fired as a coach, and I don’t want to liken this to life and death at all because it’s not. You’re still alive, but it is like mourning a death,” Berhalter said. “And you wake up the next day and you feel really bad. Your confidence takes a hit and it’s a really difficult moment.
For me it was really about being with my family in those moments and giving myself the time and the freedom and the space to feel sad and feel bad. We didn’t perform well in Copa América and when you don’t perform well at a high level there’s consequences, and I take full responsibility for that. But it still hurts.”
Berhalter added that once he got past the mourning period, he took some time to reflect on what he could have done better. He solicited feedback from the USMNT players, analyzed their responses and identified ways to improve.
“And then from there you become motivated, alright? Now I want the next opportunity. You get hungry again,” he said. “And during that period when I got hungry, there’s a number of opportunities that I was looking at and I kept coming back to Chicago and the potential and the alignment.
“It’s not every day that you get to work for a man like Joe Mansueto, who understands what a top level is and how to build something that’s really good and sustainable.”
That alignment includes the opening of a new training facility as well plenty of flexibility in rebuilding the roster of a team that has failed to reach the postseason in each of the past seven years. Mansueto also said Thursday that the team is looking to build a soccer-specific stadium and is touring potential sites.
“Having our own soccer specific stadium is what we’d like to see,” he said. “And so we’re actively pursuing that and if we can find the right parcel in Chicago, I think we’ll move forward on it.”
Mansueto explained that the club’s previous director of football, Georg Heitz, notified him in August that he intended to head back to Europe. With preseason for the 2025 campaign set to begin in January, Mansueto felt time was of the essence. An initial list of 80 candidates was quickly whittled down to three, two domestic and one from abroad.
“We wanted to give whoever we brought in enough time to be able to work on the roster, look at the organization, make changes. So we wanted to get somebody in as quickly as possible,” he said.
Mansueto said it wasn’t initially his intention to have one person fill both the director of football and head coach roles, but that Berhalter’s track record — he previously held both posts with the Columbus Crew — convinced him a similar setup would work with the Fire.
“From my perspective, what I wanted to do, what I tried to do is create an environment where people can do their best work and if he can do his best work as director of football and head coach,” Mansueto said.
“So there’s this seamless connection. I’m fine with it and he’ll build underneath him an organization to offload the things.”
Mansueto brought Berhalter in for a three-hour interview, and said he was immediately convinced he had found the right candidate.
“We all walked out of there and said, ‘That’s our guy,'” added Mansueto.
An offer was made around two weeks ago, and Berhalter accepted.
“Me and Joe are very aligned on where we want this club to go,” Berhalter said. “It’s really about creating an established top-performing club in Major League Soccer and having the consistency throughout the time that we’re here.
“The second thing is about potential. This market, this club, this team has a ton of potential and that’s what makes it exciting.”
As for his successor with the USMNT, Mauricio Pochettino, Berhalter applauded the U.S. Soccer Federation for the appointment and said the two would have no issue working with each other.
“He’s a great guy,” Berhalter said. “I think he’s a great hire for U.S. Soccer. [He’s a] top coach, coach at the top level knows what pressure’s like, knows how to perform in pressure situations.
“So I think it’s a really good hire and I can assure you that there will be a relationship and we will be able to count on each other, both us supplying him players and hopefully getting feedback from him also.”
