Jurgen Klinsmann was relieved of his duties as coach of the U.S. men’s national team on Nov. 21, 2016. Two years later, his successor will be named and, yes, it will be Gregg Berhalter.

A source who is familiar with the negotiations between Berhalter and the U.S. Soccer Federation told The Dispatch that the deal is done. Another source who is familiar with national-team workings said official word will come Tuesday or Wednesday. Yet another said, “Check back at the end of the week.”

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Multiple print and online outlets are reporting something similar: Berhalter will be officially named, and then introduced at a news conference in New York, by the end of this week.

“Named what?” Berhalter said during a brief telephone conversation Saturday morning.

The man has a sense of humor. He talked about delivering turkeys to needy people earlier in the week, about his family’s Thanksgiving gathering, about his excitement in attending his first Ohio State-Michigan game.

As for the coaching thing? The national team?

“No comment,” he said.

If something goes awry, U.S. Soccer does not have a Plan B. Again: The process has dragged beyond two years — 734 days, as of this writing — and by all appearances there is no Plan B.

Since the team made a premature exit from the last round of World Cup qualifying, the good folks at the U.S. Soccer could afford to take their time in naming the next coach. They took more than a year to install Earnie Stewart as general manager. It seems that Stewart spent the last five months waiting on Berhalter.

There are plenty of national-team watchers, including prominent writers who use words such as “futbol” and “pitch,” who have pointed out the messy edges to this prolonged coaching search. Over the past week, for instance, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo and ESPN have reported that only Berhalter and former Dallas FC coach Oscar Pareja were formally interviewed for the job — and that Julen Lopetegui, the former Real Madrid and Spanish national coach, might have been interested for a hot second.

Stewart has been criticized for passing on interviewing any number of qualified candidates — See: Tab Ramos, who coached the national U-20 teams to back-to-back CONCACAF championships and knows the American talent pipeline as well as anyone. He didn’t even get a sit-down.

Neither did interim coach Dave Sarachan, Atlanta United coach Tata Martino, Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes or Paraguay national coach Juan Carlos Osorio. (It was Osorio who, in his former station as Mexico’s national coach, halted the U.S. “dos-a-cero” dominance at Crew Stadium, marking the beginning of the end for Klinsmann.)

There also have been whispers of nepotism as Berhalter’s brother, Jay, is a prominent and influential executive at U.S. Soccer. Throw in the disaster in World Cup qualifying and it appears that our national soccer federation has failed to swathe itself in glory.

Crew fans, who have witness decades of history play out in their stadium, are among the most astute, staunch and realistic supporters of the national teams. They are neither surprised nor upset about the federation’s two-year coaching odyssey.

They are thankful to have had Berhalter’s around, particularly over the past year. As the city and its soccer fans engaged in an existential fight with the Crew’s owner and his league backers, Berhalter and his players did their jobs amid the smoke of this pitched battle. It was extraordinary what the team accomplished, and Berhalter’s name will be exalted in Columbus for generations to come.

Crew fans should know that the prospective new owners, the Haslam and Edwards families, are not about to let Anthony Precourt anywhere near the search for the next Crew coach. Technically speaking, MLS is running the franchise until the paperwork on the sale is completed, probably by the end of January. Jimmy Haslam, for one, has tens of millions on the table; it stands to reason that he has an open line of communication with the league.

By the end of the week, we may even discover that Berhalter, too, has been active in abetting a smooth transition in Columbus. That is how good people who try to do the right thing tend to operate.

Berhalter has the heart, brains and bona fides to be a successful national-team coach. If it’s a shame that the U.S. Soccer’s hiring process has been left open to criticism, the result is satisfying, and imbued with promise.

marace@dispatch.com

@MichaelArace1