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Matt Crocker has unexpectedly left his position with U.S. Soccer just weeks after a significant tour of the federation's new national training center. His departure raises numerous questions about the future of U.S. Soccer leadership.
Matt Crockerâs abrupt U.S. Soccer departure brings many questions. Here are the answers.
On March 29, an overcast Sunday in rural Georgia, Matt Crocker strode across a vast pitch that represented the future of U.S. Soccer.
By his side was JT Batson, the CEO whoâd hired him. Together with U.S. Soccer president Cindy Parlow Cone and other leaders, they led a tour of the federationâs new national training center. âWe,â Crocker said, âwant to create an environment [here] where the community, the whole of football, soccer, comes together.â
And a couple weeks later, he left it all behind.
U.S. Soccer announced Tuesday that Crocker is departing his job as the federationâs sporting director. Multiple sources told The Athletic that Crocker has accepted a similar role with the Saudi Arabian Football Federation.
He informed higher-ups over the past two weeks, but many he worked with â some of whom spoke to The Athletic Tuesday on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss Crockerâs departure â found out less than 48 hours before the announcement. Some were âshockedâ or surprised.
Crocker, for months and as recently as March, had been speaking privately and publicly about his long-term plans for player development in the United States. On that Sunday at the national training center in Fayette County, Ga., he repeatedly used the words âwe,â âusâ and âour.â He spoke dreamily about âevolv[ing] and grow[ing] into this amazing facility.â Heâd been in weekly meetings about the design of the facility, which will open May 7. And although he didnât have an office, he had specific visions for how it would be used by players and staff â or even for the mid-May filming of videos that would âsay what youth development needs to look like in the futureâ and help instruct coaches nationwide.
He spoke passionately about subjects like that over the past three years, since taking the job in 2023.
So why did he move on so abruptly?
Crocker declined to immediately comment.
Three sources suggested to The Athletic that the Saudis had offered to pay him multiple times more than he was making at U.S. Soccer. (He received $658,787 in base compensation and $179,100 in bonuses and incentives in the tax year ending March 31, 2025.)
What seems clear is that he was not pushed out. He was respected and well-liked in U.S. Soccer sporting circles. Even across the youth soccer landscape, heâd been working to earn trust.
His departure, in that sense, is perhaps a blow to U.S. Soccerâs efforts to reshape and refine developmental pathways.
But, according to U.S. Soccer officials, including Crocker himself, it is not a blow to the USMNTâs World Cup prep.
Crockerâs role was a high-level strategic one. USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino and his staff, on the other hand, âhave done all the planningâ for the tournament, Crocker told The Athletic last month. âAnd hopefully, Iâm not needed. I think the only time Iâll be needed is if things arenât going too well.â
So, although the optics are troublesome and the timing âclumsy,â as one source put it, this is anything but a crisis that must be solved over the coming month.
Crocker was U.S. Soccerâs second-ever sporting director and, like other international soccer sporting directors, including his predecessor Earnie Stewart, his role and responsibilities evolved based on needs and wants.
He was the federationâs highest-ranking soccer official, a guru tasked with overseeing all of U.S. Soccerâs national teams. In that sense, he was the equivalent of, say, an NFL teamâs president of football or an NBA franchiseâs president of basketball operations.
But in international soccer, sporting directors canât trade or sign players. They lead coaching searches, as Crocker did twice in his first six months on the job; but most of the work is far less visible and more indirectly linked to success on the field.
âHe is responsible for setting the Federationâs sporting vision and performance strategy,â Crockerâs U.S. Soccer bio read. He led âthe technical direction of U.S. Soccer, with a focus on alignment, performance, and long-term player development.â
In other words, he was a big-picture strategist who worked to develop things like training methodologies and systematize things like scouting that could improve American soccer for years to come.
Crockerâs first priority after initial coaching searches, he has said, was âgetting our own house in order.â He worked to implement processes and philosophies among youth national team coaches and within U.S. Soccer departments such as talent identification and coaching education.
Then, he looked beyond the federation. âWhat I pretty quickly realized,â Crocker told The Athletic last year, âis that we can have a way of doing things, a philosophy internally; but the players that come to us are always going to be the same players, unless we impact the landscape.â
So he canvassed that landscape, traveling to dozens of different meetings and conventions, listening and learning about American soccer. He developed a âplan for changing and improving, hopefully, player development in this country,â he said. He codified it in the âU.S. Way,â and later a so-called âpathwaysâ strategy. And rather than dictate it to thousands of youth clubs across America â which is where â95% of player development happens,â he often said â he tried to invite and inspire them to join the movement.
He had limited success â more than his predecessors, but less than he wouldâve liked.
âItâs a bigger beast than I ever expected,â he said of the youth soccer ecosystem in an interview with The Athletic last month. âItâs so complex. Itâs so political.
âItâs taken us a while for people within the system â important people who make decisions about the game â to start to believe and trust U.S. Soccer; [to trust] that we have the right people, that weâre building a robust plan that involves collaboration and working together. ⊠Maybe I underestimated how long that would take to begin to build that trust.
âIâm frustrated. Iâm frustrated at the speed of change,â he concluded. âBut, you can definitely see and feel, I believe, positive [indications] about how U.S. Soccer is perceived and its ideas about working together with the whole system.â
After hiring their coaches, Crockerâs influence on the menâs and womenâs senior national teams, on the other hand, was relatively minor.
One day at a USMNT training camp last month in Atlanta, for example, he strode onto the sidelines of a training pitch in a plain T-shirt, long after players and team staff had already arrived at Atlanta Unitedâs training facility.
He chatted with Pochettino, and of course the two communicated. Their relationship dates back to their stints at Southampton in England. Crocker had recruited the Argentine coach and supported him, especially during Pochettinoâs early days on the job.
But Crocker was not intimately involved in tactics or personnel decisions.
âHeâs not in the war room with Mauricio debating player No. 26 in roster selections,â one source said.
When asked on a recent U.S. Soccer podcast about preparing the USMNT for matches, Crocker said: âThatâs the Mauricio decision. My job is not to tell or dictate or get involved in those tactics. ⊠Mine is very much the broad lens of everything, whereas Mauricioâs is laser-focused.â
When asked last month if the World Cup would be busy, Crocker told The Athletic heâd be with the team in June, âbut outside of training and breakfasts with Mauricio and the staff, and whatever they need me [for], for me, itâs business as usual. The planningâs done. Youâve gotta let it take shape.
âThatâs why you appoint good people. You trust âem to do the job. So, Iâm there if they need me, but hopefully I wonât be needed.â
For that reason, U.S. Soccer does not feel like it suddenly has a World Cup void to fill.
The federation, instead, will take its time to appoint a successor or perhaps even restructure its sporting department.
In its Tuesday news release, it said that chief operating officer Dan Helfrich would âprovide executive oversight and support across the federationâs sporting operationsâ in the interim. Helfrich will work with assistant sporting director Oguchi Onyewu, a former USMNT player who was nominally Crockerâs No. 2 but focused on different areas and initiatives; with Tracey Kevins, who leads the womenâs youth national team program; and with others in the sporting department.
Helfrich, a former Deloitte CEO with extensive experience in soccer, became U.S. Soccerâs COO in January and has made a quick impression. He has involved himself in all sorts of federation activities, on the sporting side, commercial side and otherwise, sources said.
And he will, it seems, be heavily involved in the search for Crockerâs replacement â or in a restructuring â and potentially in the search for Pochettinoâs successor atop the USMNT.
Pochettinoâs contract expires after the World Cup, and although he has said heâs âopenâ to staying with the U.S. beyond 2026, the assumption is that he will likely move on.
Crockerâs departure now leaves the federation without an experienced sporting director to lead that post-World Cup process. And it seemingly leaves Helfrich in charge for the foreseeable future.
âHelfrich, in coordination with U.S. Soccerâs sporting leadership, will continue to guide sporting operations and support the Federationâs strategy through the next competitive cycle,â the federation said in its release.
As for Crocker, he âwill work with the team to ensure a smooth transition,â U.S. Soccer said. And he will join an executive leadership team meeting on Wednesday, a source added, in part to say âa proper goodbye.â
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
US Men's national team, US Women's national team, Soccer, International Football, Women's Soccer, FIFA Men's World Cup, FIFA Women's World Cup
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The specific reasons for Matt Crocker's departure have not been disclosed, leading to speculation and questions about the circumstances surrounding his exit.
Matt Crocker was hired by JT Batson, the CEO of U.S. Soccer, who has been involved in the federation's leadership decisions.
Matt Crocker served as a key figure in U.S. Soccer, focusing on creating a collaborative environment for the sport's development in the country.
Crocker's departure could affect the strategic direction and leadership stability of U.S. Soccer, particularly in relation to the new national training center initiative.

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