Christian Pulisic Calls Reyna-Berhalter Saga ‘Childish,’ Addresses USMNT Coach Search

The Chelsea star expressed his displeasure with the handling of the drama and called on the U.S. to not wait too long to appoint a manager.

For the first time since the World Cup, USMNT star Christian Pulisic addressed the drama between Gio Reyna’s family and Gregg Berhalter that has engulfed U.S. Soccer since the World Cup..

In an interview with ESPN’s Graham Hunter, the Chelsea star labeled the handling of the saga as “extremely childish” and expressed sympathy toward Berhalter.

On Monday, U.S. Soccer (USSF) released the findings of an investigation into past misconduct allegations against Berhalter, revealing the extent to which Reyna’s parents tried to influence USSF officials. USSF cleared Berhalter and stated that he is still a candidate for the open USMNT managerial position. 

“I’m not here to appoint the next manager—it’s not my job—and whoever it is I’m going to play and give it 100%,” Pulisic said in the interview. 

“Everything that happened with Gregg, first of all, has been handled in an extremely childish manner. I think we’ve seen what’s been going on. I think it’s childish, it’s youth soccer, people complaining about playing time. I don’t want to go too far into that, but I think Gregg has been extremely unfortunate to get into the position he is in now.”

The U.S. has pressed on with Anthony Hudson as the interim manager until the appointment of a new sporting director, who will then lead the search for a new manager this summer. Along with Reyna, Hudson named Pulisic in the upcoming USMNT roster for Nations League group matches this month. 

However, Pulisic said he prefers that a permanent manager is named soon in order to build on the USMNT’s relative success in Qatar. 

“Do I feel like we should just wait and wait? I don’t think it’s necessary, because we are not in a phase like we were after not qualifying [for the 2018 World Cup] where we needed a complete rebuild,” Pulisic said.

“We don’t need a bunch of new guys coming in. We have a strong core in my opinion—people have seen that and we need to carry on with that. It’s a tough one for me because we should continue that as soon as we can and build off this World Cup, which I think had a lot of positives in it. We want to get going with that as soon as we can.”