Twenty years after the best USMNT run in the modern era, a team with great potential hits the World Cup stage—with many links to its predecessor brianstraus on the ties that bind 2002 and 2022:
Then there’s the trio who bookended that five-game 2002 journey with surprising moments that remain lodged in American soccer lore. The, which was the youngest on the planet through much of qualifying, will kick off the World Cup against Wales on Monday as the second-youngest in the competition . And it’s been built meticulously over the past three-plus years by three ’02 alumni.
Stewart, McBride and Berhalter arrived in Korea during a moment of uncertainty for American soccer. The 1998 World Cup had been a disaster for the U.S., a fractured team that lost all three matches and finished dead last in the 32-nation tournament. And MLS was teetering, having contracted clubs in Miami and Tampa before the 2002 season. There was just one soccer-specific stadium at that time , and only four investors sharing ownership of all 10 MLS teams.
“I had the feeling that the referee didn't want us to go to the next round,” Berhalter said in a U.S. Soccer retrospective. “I just had the feeling that he knows the place of football in the world, and he couldn't bear to see Germany getting knocked out by the "I remember going back to the Premier League [with Sunderland], and my profile changed just from your colleagues’ level of respect,” Claudio Reyna told U.S. Soccer.
“He’s a very curious person into how to better himself—back in the day as a player then later on as a coach—and he's always had that. Brian is somebody who is about relationships, and he’s really, really good at that piece, and that just comes natural to him. He had that within the [U.S.] playing squad and he still possesses those qualities.”
“They’ve been very few and far between where there’s ever been any conversations. … It’s not about us anymore,” McBride says. “There’s times when you can interject possibilities from experiences, but to get into detail is only necessary unless there’s an issue or some fear. Curiosity is great, and you can quickly go over it.
Defender Joe Scally, who grew up in New York as a friend and teammate of Gio Reyna, says that Claudio “never really did” tell stories about 2002. Even Gio admits that his father “doesn’t really like to talk about himself.”The current squad’s only World Cup veteran, DeAndre Yedlin, was 8 in the summer of 2002.
Both he and Stewart were on the bench at times in Korea. Berhalter, a defender, didn’t play a minute during the group stage, then took the field as Arena switched formations and helped the U.S. shut down Mexico and then, nearly, Germany. The lack of overt ego within that 2002 squad, and the absence of players putting their own ambitions above the team’s, created an advantage, the trio says. You can’t account for bounces or fate during a World Cup.
"What the guys don’t realize is that what we're doing is based on what we've learned from the World Cup and what we learned from the national team,” Berhalter explains. “In 2002, we had a really close team. And that’s why we were very intentional about how we wanted to create this environment with this group. So even though we're not saying explicitly, ‘Listen guys, in 2002 the group was really close, and when we’re really close we're going to be good.
Yedlin explains, “I know there’s going to be times when I don’t play. But it’s, ‘What can I do to have the guy in my position and everybody else on the field be at their best?’ The better the team does, the better I do.
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