For Sebastian Berhalter, shot with the U.S. team

Some youngsters grow up with video video games and summer time camp. Sebastian Berhalter grew up with the World Cup.

He was 13 months outdated when his father, Gregg, performed in the event for the first time and 5 when his dad was called back. And 4 years in the past, when Sebastian was already a skilled in his own proper, he went to Qatar to watch his father coach the U.S. to the spherical of 16.

Yet none of that ready the youthful Berhalter for his own World Cup debut earlier this month.

“It’s ridiculous,” Sebastian said. “Before the game, I just kept chuckling to myself, like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ Literally I couldn’t believe it. Playing for my country, it’s the best feeling in the world.

“I just can’t believe that happened.”

Nor might he consider what occurred next. Because after making appearances off the bench in the team’s first two group-play video games — both of which ended in U.S. victories — Berhalter began the third recreation. And with a purpose and an help in a loss to Turkey, he already has more World Cup targets and assists than his dad.

In fact, he’s the only American with a purpose and help in the same World Cup recreation in the last 96 years. Not dangerous for your first start in the event.

His father still has bragging rights in one class, however, since the 2002 team he performed for is still the only American team to win a knockout recreation in a World Cup. Sebastian can match that Wednesday in Santa Clara when the U.S. performs Bosnia and Herzegovina in the spherical of 32 of this summer time’s expanded event.

“They’re a good team,” Sebastian said of the Bosnians. “It’s a round of 32, so do or die. I think you play every game like it’s a knockout game. For us it’s, it’s keep doing what we’ve been doing.”

If Gregg supplied the inspiration and the street map that guided his son to the World Cup team, the youthful Berhalter had to wait for Mauricio Pochettino before he might take his first steps on that street. That got here in the spring of 2025, about 11 months after his dad had been sacked as coach, when Pochettino, the new supervisor, gave the youthful Berhalter his first national team call-up.

He’s gone on to make 16 appearances for the U.S., including three in the World Cup. And that’s one thing Gregg is satisfied couldn’t have occurred as long as he was coach.

“I think about it all the time,” he lately told ESPN. “I never could have picked him.”

The scrutiny would have been too fierce, he feared, the whispers of nepotism too loud. Sure, Michael Bradley performed more than 50 internationals video games for his father Bob, including 4 in the 2010 World Cup. But he was already on the team when his father took over from Bruce Arena, who gave Michael his first call-up.

So, Sebastian had to wait. He had to play for three MLS groups, win an MLS Cup and three Canadian Championships and grow to be too good to ignore in order to get his first shot with the national team — one which got here from Pochettino, not his father.

Neither Berhalter has regrets.

“What I know,” Gregg, now coach and sporting director of the Chicago Fire, told ESPN, “is that everything is in the place it’s supposed to be. This is how life is. It’s his turn. It’s his time now.”

And he’s taking part in as if there’s no time to waste.

After making his worldwide debut in a pleasant with Switzerland last May, Sebastian performed 5 full video games in the Gold Cup last summer time, then scored his first worldwide purpose in a pleasant with Uruguay less than three weeks before main the Vancouver Whitecaps into the MLS Cup against Inter Miami.

So, when the time got here for Pochettino to title his World Cup roster last month, it was clear Sebastian, 25, had earned a spot.

“He’s a monster. He’s a monster, in the way of how professional he is,” the coach said. “He’s the type of player who’s going to train, going to train, going to train. I mean, sometimes I have to say [to him], ‘Go inside, no?’“

After stumbling in the group-play final, which Turkey won with a goal deep in stoppage time, the U.S. will have no room for error in its first elimination game. It’s a game in which history may — or may not — be on the Americans’ side.

On one side, the U.S. is winless in its last 13 games against European opponents. On the other, its last win over a UEFA team came in December 2021, in California, over Bosnia and Herzegovina, a team to which it has never lost.

There’s an omen in there somewhere.

“Our goal is to win the World Cup,” Sebastian said. “That’s what we want to do. It’s always been our mission and we’re still taking it one game at a time.”

There’s also the household file guide to assume about. One more victory and Sebastian can have more World Cup wins than his dad. Two more and he’ll be in the event quarterfinals, which is as far as his father went in his first World Cup.

In Qatar, Sebastian was the one in stands, cheering on his dad. In this event, the roles have been reversed. And Gregg told his son he couldn’t be happier about or prouder of how issues have labored out.

“Four years ago, I was waiting for him to come up in the stands. Now, he was waiting for me to come up in the stands,” Sebastian said. “That was special.

“When you hear words that your dad is proud of you, that’s a cool moment.”