Matt Crocker is leaving his position as U.S. Soccer\u2019s sporting director with immediate effect to take a similar role with Saudi Arabia, multiple sources told me on Monday.<\/p>\n
Assistant sporting director Oguchi Onyewu, head of women’s development Tracey Kevins and Dan Helfrich, the organization’s COO, will assume Crocker’s duties in the lead-up to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will be co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico this summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Matt Crocker was responsible for hiring Mauricio Pochettino as the U.S. men’s national team coach. (John Dorton\/ISI Photos\/USSF\/Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n Crocker arrived from then-English Premier League club Southampton in 2023. He successfully recruited U.S. women\u2019s national team coach Emma Hayes and men\u2019s coach Mauricio Pochettino during his almost three years as the U.S. Soccer Federation\u2019s chief on-field executive. Hayes promptly led the women\u2019s team to its fifth gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Crocker also landed Pochettino, considered one of the top managers in the global game following stints at Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain, in September 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n The U.S. men kick off their World Cup campaign on June 12 against Paraguay in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n “I anticipate zero impact on World Cup preparation as a result of Matt’s decision,” Helfrich said Monday in an exclusive interview. “Mauricio and his staff have full control of the preparations for this summer’s tournament, and we have full confidence in them. This transition in no way impacts those plans, which have been long-established.”<\/p>\n Helfrich added that U.S. Soccer has already embarked on “a thoughtful and comprehensive search for a successor” for Crocker.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I anticipate we will look both domestically and globally in that process,” he said. Former USA defender Onyewu, who represented the Stars and Stripes at the 2006 and 2010 World Cups, was a candidate for the job that ultimately went to Crocker three years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n In April 2023, Crocker was hired after Earnie Stewart, a three-time World Cup participant and National Soccer Hall of Fame inductee, left to take over Dutch club PSV Eindhoven.<\/p>\n Crocker, a native of Cardiff, Wales, then hit the ground running.<\/p>\n USA women’s team manager Emma Hayes was another hire made by Matt Crocker. (Photo by Mike Egerton\/PA Images via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n Crocker\u2019s experience leading U.S. Soccer in the years before the 2026 World Cup no doubt made him\u00a0attractive to suitors across planet f\u00fatbol<\/i>. The deep-pocketed Saudis will host the men\u2019s tournament for the first time in 2034. Crocker, whose r\u00e9sum\u00e9 also includes a stint as head of development for England\u2019s Football Association, was heavily involved in the planning and design of the new Arthur M. Blank U.S. Soccer National Training Center near Atlanta. The sparkling $228 million facility opens next month and will be the home base for the U.S. men prior to their final two World Cup tuneups, against Senegal on May 31 and four-time champion Germany on June 6.\u00a0<\/p>\n Moroccan Nasser Larguet, who has served as Saudi Arabia\u2019s technical director since 2002, is expected to leave his position this month, per multiple reports.<\/p>\n “If you’re going to compete at the highest levels in the sporting world, you expect that team members will have other opportunities,” said Helfrich. “Soccer in our country and the federation overall are in a better place than several years ago when Matt joined, and we’re grateful to him for those contributions.”<\/p>\n World Cup Tiers: <\/strong><\/i>Stacking All 48 Teams, From First-Timers to Favorites<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n Several different scenarios would see the USA and Saudi Arabia meet at this summer\u2019s World Cup. If Pochettino\u2019s team tops Group D and then advances to the round of 16, the Saudis could be its opponent in Seattle on July 6.<\/p>\n If both finish second in their respective groups and win knockout games in the new round of 32, they\u2019d play each other on July 7 in Atlanta. If they both advance as third-place finishers in group play and then win their first elimination match, the countries will clash on July 4 in Philadelphia. And if both win their groups, they\u2019d be on a collision course for the July 10 quarterfinal in Los Angeles.\u00a0<\/p>\n In theory, the 16th-ranked U.S. and No. 61 Saudi Arabia could also face off in the semis or in the July 19 final in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The Green Falcons have reached the knockout rounds just once in six previous World Cup trips, when the United States last hosted the event in 1994.<\/p>\n The World Cup will run from June 11\u2013July 19, 2026. Spread across three countries, the tournament will culminate with the final on July 19 at New York New Jersey Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. All 104 tournament matches<\/u> will air live across FOX (70) and FS1 (34) with every match streaming live and on-demand within both the FOX One and the FOX Sports apps. A record 40 matches, more than one-third of the tournament, will air in prime time across FOX (21) and FS1 (19).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Matt Crocker is leaving his position as U.S. Soccer\u2019s sporting director with immediate effect to take a similar role with Saudi Arabia, multiple sources told me on Monday. Assistant sporting director Oguchi Onyewu, head of women’s development Tracey Kevins and Dan Helfrich, the organization’s COO, will assume Crocker’s duties in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}