Christian Pulisic: Feud between Berhalter and Reyna was “childish”

United States forward Christian Pulisic told ESPN the team doesn’t need to make sweeping changes as they search for a new head coach, saying the controversy surrounding Gregg Berhalter and the Reyna family was “extremely childish”.

Berhalter was approved as a candidate for the vacant post on the US men’s national team after an independent investigation by the US Football Association found that both Berhalter and his wife, Rosalind, accurately portrayed the nature of a 1992 domestic incident.

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Pulisic said Berhalter was “extremely unhappy” to no longer be US head coach after his contract was not renewed after the 2022 World Cup.

“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 100%,” Pulisic told ESPN’s Graham Hunter in a lengthy interview at his home in London.

“Everything that happened with Gregg was handled in an extremely childish way at first. I think we saw what’s going on. I think it’s childish, it’s youth football, people complain about playing time. I don’t want to get too deep into that, but I think Gregg was very unfortunate to get into the position he’s in now.”

US caretaker coach Anthony Hudson previously worked as Berhalter’s assistant and picked Gio Reyna for the forthcoming friendlies against Grenada and El Salvador – the midfielder’s first signing since the World Cup.

Pulisic said the team shouldn’t waste time appointing a permanent coach, adding he felt the side were going in the right direction under Berhalter.

The USA finished second in Group B at the World Cup in Qatar before being eliminated in the round of 16 after a 3-1 defeat by the Netherlands.

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

“We don’t need a bunch of new people coming in. I think we have a strong core – people saw that and we need to move on from that. It’s a difficult question for me because we should continue this as soon as we can and we’re building on this World Cup, which I think has had a lot of positive sides. We want to get started on that as soon as possible.”

*Graham Hunter’s full interview with Christian Pulisic will be released on Friday, March 17 across all ESPN platforms