The rooftop barbecue buzzed past midnight at the luxurious Marsa Malaz Kempinski, with the messy emotions of World Cup elimination wafting off into the Middle Eastern night. It was Dec. 4, the end of the road for the U.S men’s national team in Qatar, and the end of a four-year journey that concluded with sadness but yielded pride. Players, families, coaches and staffers gathered at their team hotel 24 hours after their loss to the Netherlands. They fraternized and feasted, and commemorated a campaign that many at U.S. Soccer viewed as a successful one.
Inside Gregg Berhalter's leadership quest, and how it inadvertently ignited a USMNT mess
