U.S. Soccer sporting director Earnie Stewart (left) and USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter have committed to a plan. And nobody, not even them, can be sure it's going to work. (Sarah Stier/Getty Images)

Earnie Stewart arrived with a vision. For better or worse, on a momentous Chicago morning last August, U.S. Soccer’s first general manager walked through the gates at 1801 S. Prairie Ave. to stabilize a rudderless program. He came with a plan. A few months later, he hired a coach to implement it. And finally, after years of clamoring for some direction, U.S. men’s national team fans had what they’d clamored for.

Stewart’s arrival represented a stark departure from the scatterbrained reign of Jurgen Klinsmann. A welcome end to the aimless interim. Stewart brought in Gregg Berhalter, and almost immediately, the program was everything we, the USMNT collective, had craved. It had definition. Purpose. A distinctive style, governed by a refined philosophy and core principles, and a coach who’d have time to instill them.

He’d have time because he’d need time. Because the on-field behavior he’d need to teach would take months, if not years, to engrain. The process, at times, would be painful. The results along the way would spark concern. Stewart knew this; acknowledged it; accepted it. Most rational fans agreed to the terms and conditions as well.

But now, less than a year after that acknowledgement, alarm bells are ringing. Not inside Soccer House, but all around it. The first 11 months of what we’d hoped to one day call The Berhalter Era haven’t been dreadful, but have ignited legitimate worry. Worry that the plan is misguided. That the coach is ill-suited. That the vision is, was, always has been idealistic and impractical.

Worry, however, is normal. The USMNT’s struggles, on the other hand, inspire fear. Because all those suspicions? They cannot possibly be confirmed until it’s too late.

Until another World Cup cycle is lost.

And Stewart, in all likelihood, will not act on them anytime before then.

Club USMNT

Before signing their contracts with U.S. Soccer, neither Earnie Stewart nor Gregg Berhalter had spent a day of their non-playing careers with a national team. Stewart had helmed three clubs. Berhalter had managed two. And his plan, essentially, was to treat the USMNT like a third. To install a complex system, replete with nuanced decision trees and principles of play. And to drill players in that system until they mastered it.

Evidence of the plot was everywhere this past summer. On one brilliant June day in Minnesota, after U.S. training, Weston McKennie made the relevant comparison before I could even ask about it. “We work on a lot of the tactics in Germany,” he told Yahoo Sports of his time with Schalke. “And we watch quite a bit of video. And we do the same thing here.”

View photos Weston McKennie has noted similarities in how Schalke and USMNT manager Gregg Berhalter run training. (Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images). (Getty More

Berhalter is known for his borderline-maniacal attention to detail, and he has applied it to his new gig. He and his staff have done everything to maximize their time with players, such as flying drones at practice and poring over the film they capture for hours afterward. Coaches even communicate with players outside of international windows, sending instructive video clips via apps. “As much as I want,” Aaron Long told Yahoo Sports of the exchanges with coaches. “I can contact them, they watch every game, they reach out to me after some games.”

But the inescapable reality of Berhalter’s job is that club teams spend roughly 36 weeks together every year. National teams, on average, get only eight. They can’t purchase players based on need. They often convene for fewer than 10 days at a time, rarely with consistent attendance. They rely on players’ abilities to absorb information, store it away in their brains after leaving brief training camps, retain it beneath club teachings, and access it months later.

At best, therefore, a four-year national team cycle is analogous to one club season. And a few months into one club season is no time to panic about a new manager. Berhalter’s opportunities to hammer home concepts, even through a full year on the job, have been relatively scarce. He has had his three best players on the field together for a grand total of 62 minutes. His tenure, when considered in those terms, is still nascent.