USMNT coaching search: Top candidates to replace Gregg Berhalter

U.S. Soccer fired men's national team coach Gregg Berhalter on Wednesday, and now, with a home World Cup less than two years away, it is back to square one: searching for a new USMNT head coach.

The search, which is now underway, will be "much more targeted" than previous U.S. Soccer searches, sporting director Matt Crocker said Wednesday. Crocker will lead it. And "I'll be more inclined to go hard and go early with specific candidates that I feel meet the criteria that we're looking for," he said.

On a 15-minute Zoom call with a handful of reporters, though, Crocker also said he'd consider "a really wide pool of candidates." When asked if he had a preference for domestic coaches or…