USMNT star Christian Pulisic has called the scandal involving Gregg Berhalter and the family of Giovanni Reyna as 'extremely childish’.
Berhalter stepped down as head coach of the USA national team after they crashed out of the World Cup. Pulisic and co progressed through their group with seven points - including a 0-0 draw with England - before losing to the Netherlands in the last 16.
The controversial period of scandal started before the tournament in Qatar when Gio Reyna was reportedly close to being sent back home for his lack of effort within the squad. The Borussia Dortmund star played seven minutes in the group stage before featuring for 45 minutes in the defeat to the Dutch.
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Reyna's situation resulted in the start of a formal investigation against Berhalter when his parents - Claudio and Danielle - revealed years of texts, emails and calls to US Soccer chiefs as part of their complaint regarding the treatment of their son in the U.S set-up.
An investigation followed, ordered by US Soccer, which was based on a domestic violence incident involving Berhalter and his now-wife Rosalind in 1992. The former USMNT head coach admitted to kicking his wife after she hit him during an argument in a bar when they were 18. The incident was placed into the spotlight, forcing Berhalter to step down.
However, recently, it was concluded that there is no evidence that Berhalter 'has engaged in violence against another person prior to or thereafter' with Rolinda. The report also found that Reyna's parents did not commit 'blackmail or extortion'.
Now, ahead of the upcoming international break, Pulisic has slammed the scandal and has backed Berhalter. "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%," he told ESPN.
"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."
Anthony Hudson, who was Berhalter's assistant, named Reyna in his 24-man squad for the upcoming CONCACAF Nations League fixtures with Grenada and El Salvador. For the first time in a while, there's a feeling of optimism that the USMNT can go a step further in future competitions.
"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."
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