Former USMNT Head Coach Gregg Berhalter Talks World Cup & MLS with Rich

Gregg Berhalter joined the Rich Eisen Show on a loaded day. Hours before the United States men's national team opened the 2026 World Cup against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium, the former USMNT head coach sat down to talk through the game from three vantage points he uniquely holds: as a 2002 World Cup player, as a coach, and as the father of Sebastian Berhalter, who was set to take the field for the U.S. that night.

The conversation opened on mindset. Berhalter described how a player narrows inward before a World Cup match, focused on his own body and tasks, while a coach shifts to taking care of everybody, holding small confidence-checking conversations with players two days out and spending hours on a detailed game plan with the staff. As a dad, he said, it becomes pure emotion. "It's such an immense amount of pride," Berhalter told Rich, noting that a year and a half ago Sebastian "wasn't even on the radar of the national team."

On the tournament itself, Berhalter framed this moment as the payoff of an eight-year project that began in 2018. He pointed to how far the sport has come since the U.S. last hosted in 1994, citing 30 MLS teams, committed ownership, and a roster where 21 of 26 players came through MLS academies and 13 have prior World Cup experience. With players like Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Tyler Adams, Chris Richards and Folarin Balogun at peak age, he set the bar high: the team should win multiple knockout games, and reaching the quarterfinals would mark success. He cautioned that the group is "very even," making results hard to predict.

Berhalter spoke warmly about his successor, the Argentinian head coach now leading the side, praising the "die for this jersey" mentality he has brought to a team playing on home soil. He also named the biggest challenges of the job: a national team is essentially part-time, and the public expectation is simply to win, which he called both fair and at times unrealistic since "there can only be one winner."

Asked what it feels like to stand on a World Cup pitch, Berhalter returned to the anthem. He said the gravity of the moment hits him before kickoff, a feeling of being connected to the country and wanting badly to win for it. His favorite memories spanned both roles: the England match in Qatar and the 2002 second-round win over Mexico that sent the U.S. to the quarterfinals.

The talk turned to Major League Soccer and the Chicago Fire, where Berhalter now coaches. He described a league that is growing and improving, anchored by world-class facilities. Germany trained at the Fire's facility and players told him it would be the third best training facility in all of Germany. Owner Joe Mansueto, he said, is privately funding a $750 million downtown stadium and chasing world-class talent. The goal, as Berhalter put it, is closing the gap to one of the top five leagues in the world.

Berhalter closed on family. He and his wife would watch Sebastian play, a shared experience he said he and his son will always have. The full group in attendance numbered about eight that night, growing toward fifteen by the Seattle match, as he said, when "all the cousins come out of the woodwork."