U.S. Hall of Famer Tab Ramos played in six world championships for the USA, including the 1990, 1994 and 1998 World Cups. He also played for the USA at two Copa Americas, in 1993 and 1995, when the USA finished fourth. Ramos’ tenure as U-20 national team head coach included three straight U-20 World Cup quarterfinal appearances, and he served as a U.S. assistant coach at the 2014 World Cup. Ramos is part of radio Fútbol de Primera‘s Copa America broadcast team.
SOCCER AMERICA: Gregg Berhalter was initially hired as U.S. head coach in December 2018. Of the 16 Copa America coaches, only Argentina’s Lionel Scaloni took his team’s helm that long ago. Eleven were hired in 2023 or earlier this year.
Of the 24 Euro 2024 coaches, only five were guiding their teams before Berhalter’s initial hiring.
Amid the discussion on whether Berhalter should stay on to become the second coach in history to lead the USA at two World Cups (after Bruce Arena, 2002 and 2006), what are the possible pitfalls of long national team coaching tenures?
TAB RAMOS: With national team coaches, if they’re not successful after their cycle they get replaced. If they’re successful, I think they become reluctant to make changes to the team and the team loses competitiveness, it gets comfortable. Coaches will tend to overextend the trust in players who had success in the past.
There are other players out there who may not currently be as good as the guys you have, but they’re guys who are ready to die for the team and with the experience they gain and the energy they bring they take it to the next level. It’s similar on professional clubs.
SA: At pro club teams …
TAB RAMOS: Every year you have to change five or six guys, because otherwise it gets stale. Even great players need day-in and day-out competition. The greats like Alex Ferguson know exactly when to say, “Look, you’re a great player, but you have to go, I need a new guy who’s fresh, who’s hungry to do what it takes for the team.”
At the national team level, you have to move people on at the right time and national team coaches may be even more reluctant because, at the national team level, you’re dealing with the superstars of the country, the players all the fans like and feel they have a connection with.
SA: What’s your reaction to the USA’s Copa America performance?
TAB RAMOS: It’s really about more than their performance in the Copa America, because it was the type of performance that this team has gotten us used to. So if I could track back a little bit. …
SA: From the beginning of the Berhalter hiring …
TAB RAMOS: Berhalter was hired in 2018 and obviously there’s a period with the narrative of “we’re very young, and we’re learning.” Understood and it made sense.
We qualified for the World Cup 2022, but let’s not forget that we barely qualified, tied for third place and on goal difference.
But, we are still OK. I think you shove that under the rug because it’s a young team that’s learning and qualified. We were lucky in a couple of games. If we didn’t win that Honduras game [the third match after tying El Salvador and Canada], maybe we don’t qualify, right? We were losing at halftime looking terrible but ended up winning 4-1.
But if you look at the narrative, where we were and the age of the players, even if fans weren’t all that happy at the time, it’s perfectly OK to say, “We’re building something, we’re learning.” So now we go to the World Cup.
SA: The team’s been together for nearly four years heading to the 2022 World Cup …
TAB RAMOS: At some point, the learning process needs to level off, and now you need to win games and show that you are better, that there is progress.
If you remember, before the World Cup, the team was badly outplayed in the loss to Japan, then barely tied Saudi Arabia in what was not a great game. But we were told we’re going to be ready for the World Cup. We’re getting some kinks out.
SA: The USA reached the second round with one win, 1-0 over Iran, after ties with Wales and England, and lost, 3-1, to the Netherlands in the round of 16.
TAB RAMOS: Not a bad performance, but not better than previous teams, probably one of the weaker ones. We had an average World Cup.
Some people say we got out-coached in the second round. But the reality is, the Dutch were better. If we had Pep Guardiola, we still would have lost.
OK, so we beat Iran. That’s our one win. So now we have a new cycle. I think that would have been the perfect time to say, “OK, the team has evolved somewhat, not as much as we expected, in particular because we are calling this group of players our “golden generation.” Maybe we expected too much.
It certainly was not all bad. Some players like Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie and Antonee Robinson showed that they can compete with the best. But, overall, the team performance left much to be desired. It would have been a perfect time to bring in a new coach, to bring in new ideas and push this team to be better. I was very surprised by the re-hire of Berhalter. I did not see how the team would improve, it was becoming a team with no big wins, and it was becoming stale.
Then he is re-hired, since this was our coach again, all we could do was support and hope for the best. I said it on the air: “Now we have the coach. It doesn’t matter who it is. So, we have to start fresh, have to support.” I was criticized for that by some fans, but I understood.
Fast forward to today, a year and a half has passed since the World Cup and we find ourselves continuing to play poorly, knocked out of Copa America in the group stage and we have had losses to Trinidad, Panama, and blown out by Colombia.
SA: Against Jamaica, USA gave up a 1st-minute goal but won 3-1 in overtime thanks to Reggae Boyz gifting a stoppage-time own goal. The first game of the year was a 1-0 loss to Slovenia with a “B” team.
TAB RAMOS: After the Colombia game, we tied Brazil, 1-1, in a game we gave up 25 shots, which under normal circumstances when the team is doing well we would be OK with. Brazil is always Brazil. We were back and forth. We could have won the game.
But now go into the Copa America same way we went into the 2022 World Cup with. The Colombia blowout and Brazil tie were just preparation, results were not important. We’re going to be ready for Copa America, just like going into the World Cup 2022 after Japan and Saudi Arabia.
At the Copa America, we beat Bolivia, 2-0. We came out flying, but that lasted only about 20 minutes against the worst team in the tournament.
Then we lost to Panama. However it went, we could not even tie. Then, another loss, now to Uruguay, and the team is out.
So now it all adds up — this is exactly where we’ve been for almost six years in a row. In the beginning, the team was young, that is the only difference.
We have been constantly accepting all of these losses under the “we are young, this is a project” banner.
But you can’t tell me or the fans anymore we’re moving towards something when the results are always the same.
At this point, if we keep Berhalter as a coach, the message that we’re sending is we think our coach is doing the best he can, but our players are terrible. I don’t think this is the case. The players are clearly underperforming and that unfortunately always falls on the coach.
SA: What attributes would you look for in a coach should there be a switch at the U.S. helm?
TAB RAMOS: I hope we go after an international coach. We just need somebody to come in for 18 months who knows the World Cup and can prepare this team the best he can to give this team the best shot at having a great World Cup. That’s it. No learning-on-the-job person. Someone who has been there and done that. Win as much as possible at the World Cup, and then we will see what happens.
After the World Cup, if U.S. Soccer chooses, we can embark on another “project” with analytics, presentations, and all of the new buzzwords that there will be in 2026 to show how we will develop into the future. But, right now, with a World Cup at home we need to win games.
SA: When the USA takes the field at the World Cup in 2026, do you think we’ll see players on the field we’re not seeing with the USA now?
TAB RAMOS: If for some reason Berhalter is the coach, I doubt it, this is his project from 2018 and it looks like the team does not change much. Someone else will explore the player pool.
SA: It’s not easy to list players off the tip of one’s tongue who should be on the U.S. team who aren’t …
TAB RAMOS: As an example, Djordje Mihailovic could be there now. To me it doesn’t matter if you play in MLS or if you play in China. The best players must be there.
He has been playing well. But if next month he’s not playing great, someone else should.
I don’t think that happens. Gio Reyna hasn’t really played very much in three years, and he starts every game for the national team. He is not ready physically and he is not game-sharp. And by the way, to be clear, I always thought he had the potential to be like Zinedine Zidane. But he needs to play 90 minutes week in and week out. Otherwise, it is very hard to improve.
Alex Zendejas has been playing great for Club America [back-to-back Liga MX champions] — the biggest club in Mexico and one of the biggest in all of the Americas. And Zendejas doesn’t get a sniff. He should have been there.
SA: What did you think about Berhalter getting criticized for signaling to his team the score of the Panama-Bolivia game right before the free kick that led to Uruguay’s goal?
TAB RAMOS: People at this moment are going to pick on everything. As a coach, you want to tell your team. Your team needs to know what’s going on in the other game. You are playing for a result, it doesn’t mean you don’t want to win. You just have to be smart. It didn’t affect the team on that free kick. It didn’t make a difference.
SA: With the current U.S. player pool currently, would you feel confident taking the USA into the 2026 World Cup?
TAB RAMOS: I would. I think we have a much better team than what we’re showing.
We have major issues to address— we don’t defend well, and we give the ball away in our half of the field a lot by forcing the play. You can’t be successful if you don’t address those two areas as a start.
SA: Is it possible that Berhalter’s system requires too much all-around contribution from his players? I think of that when I see the U.S. burned when outside backs are upfield because they’re such a crucial part of the team’s attacking strategy, or when the team’s best attackers are defending deep in their own half?
TAB RAMOS: I don’t think so because that’s the world game. You must make that effort. Some players attack while others cover. I’m sure the team understands that.
The one thing I would say is that Berhalter doesn’t change the team very much. The system seems rigid, and substitutions are like for like.
Sometimes a goal is scored, or a card is given or the other team changes formation, circumstances that change the game, and in the booth we discuss how it would suit us to change formations into a 3-5-2 or into a 3-4-3 for example but that just about never happens with this team.
SA: Is it possible that Berhalter’s tactics or formations aren’t getting the best out of his players?
TAB RAMOS: I think Berhalter would know the players better than anyone. We can all speculate. It’s always easy to play coach with someone else’s’ team until you’re there and you know what you can get out of players. Only the coach knows all the details, player fitness, combinations of who plays better next to whom, etc, etc.
I know that sometimes you can win games without having the better team. Sometimes, not always.
SA: How do you feel about the overall skill level of the U.S. players? Things like clean touches and accurate passing?
TAB RAMOS: We play out of the back but don’t appear to be comfortable doing it.
Chris Richards doesn’t seem comfortable playing out of the back through the middle and Tim Ream hasn’t looked as sharp doing it. Then Matt Turner is not great support and when you have to pass back, it’s difficult. That’s three guys already.
And by the way, Tim Ream knows how to play out of the back. It seems like the movement in front of him does not make him feel comfortable. It makes him force play into crowded areas.
Most of the teams in Europe that play out of the back have a keeper with good enough feet.
I think the midfield has proper feet: Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie, Gio Reyna, Yunus Musah, Luca De La Torre, Johnny Cardoso, etc.
SA: In previous situations when the USA was in dire straits, Christian Pulisic came to the rescue, for example goals against Brazil and Bolivia recently, Concacaf Nations League goals and assists, the World Cup goal against Iran, and of course his play in 2018 and 2022 World Cup qualifying …
TAB RAMOS: Christian Pulisic is a bright spot and in great form. He does all he can, every game. We’re fortunate to have Christian and unfortunate that we just wasted his best form this summer. Against Uruguay, it was more of a battle than it was a soccer game, but he gave it his all as he always does.