Despite a very turbulent start to 2023, Weston McKennie says it’s just like old times for the U.S. men’s national team.
Gregg Berhalter, after the most convoluted head coaching search in the program’s history, has made his return, with this September international window marking his first USMNT camp since being re-hired.
Speaking from St. Louis ahead of the team’s Saturday friendly against Uzbekistan, McKennie explained that despite all the turmoil and confusion, things have stayed on track.
“We kind of picked up where we left off, and training and vibes and everything is as good as usual,” the Juventus midfielder told reporters on Thursday. “We were lucky enough that the two interim coaches that we had were with us the four years [before] as well, so we kind of didn’t have to really change that much. We all kind of have the same ideas. So I mean, having him back in, it’s good.”
‘That’s the culture that we built here’
It’s been a strange year for the USMNT. While a circus broke out surrounding Berhalter, Gio Reyna and his parents, and U.S. Soccer’s protracted search for a permanent head coach, the team played two very different CONCACAF tournaments under interim head coaches Anthony Hudson and B.J. Callaghan.
According to McKennie, the USMNT stuck with the same internal principles that had been established during Berhalter’s first term, giving an anecdote about how the returning head coach took note of that.
“We touched on it a little bit in camp as well,” said McKennie. “I think what’s most important, obviously, is realizing — and I know best myself — that there’s no one person that’s bigger than the program. There’s no one person bigger than the team.
“[Berhalter] touched upon that whenever he came back in, he said ‘it was amazing to be able to see that, even though I was gone, and whoever stepped in, to realize that the brotherhood was strong. To realize that you guys had the same values, have the same approach to the game — with just the intensity, the way that we fight, the way that we want to win games — that’s something, that’s the culture that we built here.'”
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