A long-term plan with mixed results: how Matt Crocker’s US Soccer tenure stacked up

Matt Crocker speaks during Mauricio Pochettino's (R) first press conference as head coach of the U. S. Mens National Team at Hudson Yards Photograph: Stephen Nadler/ISI Photos/Getty Images Sporting directors live in the mid-to-long-term.

While the coaches they hire and players they recruit have to deal with the highs and lows of week-to-week performance reviews, the executives watch on and make sure the project hasn’t veered off course. With a club, the rule of thumb is that it can take at least three transfer windows to start seeing tangible evidence of progress under a new sporting director. In international soccer, it often takes multiple cycles.

Matt Crocker arrived at US Soccer in April 2023 pledging to guide the program into a brave new era while acknowledging that initiative would take time to actualize. As it turned out, he never game himself that time. US Soccer announced on Tuesday that Crocker was stepping down as sporting director , and he’s reportedly due to take up a similar position with Saudi Arabia.

Related: Can the USMNT and USWNT become ‘America’s favorite sports teams’? Their CEO thinks so Because of that long-term thinking, evidence of immediate returns on his seven-figure salaried position with the US is therefore scarce. Crocker’s first headline task was to determine whether to keep Gregg Berhalter for a second cycle as USMNT boss after the team’s round of 16 exit in Qatar.