Sebastian Berthalter proves he's ready for USMNT, lives up to father's expectations as he reaches World Cup

Two years ago, when Sebastian Berthalter's World Cup dream was about to come true, his father, Gregg Berthalter, told him he wasn't good enough for the USMNT. Greg Berthalter was the national team coach at that time. Before a training camp in January 2024, Sebastian asked Greg if he would get a chance to join the team. "We had to have an honest conversation," Greg said. He told Sébastien that the team was "looking for the best players in MLS" for that particular camp and that Sébastien was only a marginal starter for his club, the Vancouver Whitecaps, at the time."So I had to tell him, this is not easy. You don't want to tell your son this, because you care about him. But part of my job is to tell him the truth." And that's what made this moment, Sebastian's World Cup moment, so special to him. Greg wrote to his son, "I saw the disappointment on your face, heard the disappointment in your voice, but from that day on I saw something changing."

"I saw you take responsibility for your dream. From that moment on, I saw you work harder." Over the past two years, Greg has watched his eldest son rise to the top of MLS, come to the USMNT, and now, amazingly, be included in the 2026 World Cup. When Sebastian learned he was on the team, Greg, who was fired by US Soccer in 2024, was his first call. “My father was very proud,” recalls Sebastian. "He's not the most emotional person, but I could tell he was proud of me."Shortly afterward, he was on the phone with his mother, Rosalind, and both began to cry. They were proud because Sebastian, like no other player, has earned his place in this US World Cup team that begins its journey in Group D against Paraguay on Friday. They worked hard, struggled, and believed when no one else believed in them. Even when he was an MLS reserve player, he believed he could reach soccer's biggest stage, "and people were laughing at me," says Sébastien. But he embraced this doubt.

"Sometimes," says Sebastian, "people have to call you crazy." Sébastien was born into a football family, and this was certainly his base. He grew up around the USMNT, a team which Greg represented 44 times as a defender. He spent his formative six years in Germany, where Greig played for two clubs.She said last week, "It made me realize how important football is, and ... how much they live and breathe it. Going to those games, watching my dad play, seeing the passion of the fans, it instilled that intensity and passion in me."

However, Sebastian did not have early talent. At age 16, he would tell people he was going to turn pro, but "I was probably 5 feet 10 inches, 110 pounds," he recalls, "and everyone else was much bigger than me." He was invited to a youth national team camp. "And the coach finally told me I wasn't good enough," says Sebastian.

He took that coach's name down in the basement of his family home, and as he passed it over the wall while playing with a ball, he thought: "I'm gonna prove this guy wrong, and I'm gonna prove everyone wrong." Greg remembers how hard the ball hit the basement wall.He resided in Columbus at the time, where Greg Crews was the head coach and Sebastian was at the academy. “He would come home from academy training, have a quick dinner, and then go down to the basement, and work another hour almost every day,” recalls Greg. "He was a thoroughly hard-working individual." Greg saw that hard-working attitude again in 2020, as the world shut down to control COVID-19. By then, Gregg had become the coach of the USMNT. Sebastian, who left the University of North Carolina to turn pro in Columbus, came to Chicago to be with his family. During lockdown, Greg wrote out workout plans for Sebastian in red ink.Day after day, they would jump on a field near Lane Tech High School, and Sebastian would attack those tough sessions. "He tried to push me until I broke," Sebastian said of his father. "And I was definitely leaning in." Sometimes, he went against Greg. “But I never broke,” adds Sebastian. "And that's the biggest thing they discovered about me, and I discovered about myself.""It doesn't matter what happens, I'm not going to stop." He began to see complete exhaustion as an advantage – because he knew his opponents were even more exhausted than he was. He began to prefer extreme cold or heat, because "if everyone is in the same heat as me, I know that mentally I am stronger than anyone on the field." Now, he has become somewhat famous in USMNT circles for his tireless intensity. "He's an amazing player," says teammate Max Arfstein.

He wears short sleeves and shorts in the snowfall. He drinks a Grande Dark Roast Red Eye – a large brew coffee containing an espresso – 45 minutes before every match. And "He can play two matches in a row," American coach Mauricio Pochettino recently praised. "He's a phenomenal player." But still, a few years ago, he was a nobody. He was never on his father's USMNT depth list.He believed he could get there, but he also believed he was nothing. Sebastian spent November 2022 in the dream world of a football-loving 21-year-old. He went to Qatar as the coach's son and the USMNT's "biggest fan". He also took part in other matches, sometimes two in a day. “He saw almost every country play,” says Greg. He saw some of the game's biggest stars and discovered Doha. One day, he bought a miniature World Cup trophy.However, that trophy was not just a souvenir or a toy. It was a promise. Sébastien took it to his apartment, looked at it every day and said to himself: "I'll be at the next World Cup." At the time he was a Whitecaps reserve, having never scored a goal or assisted in MLS. In Qatar, he imagined being at the World Cup games; But in reality, he was far from them. He said to himself: "Okay, I know my time will come. I know my time will come." He aimed to focus on the 2024 Olympics, which was mostly an under-23 event for which he would be eligible. However, "I wasn't even close to making that Olympic team," Sebastian admits. Then he realized that he needed to focus on daily work and not on huge goals. They had to believe, yes, “but then you also have to do the work,” he says.So that's what they did. He succeeded in getting a spot in Vancouver, rotating through 2024 and 2025. He received his first national team call-up last spring. He tried to break into the US starting lineup at last summer's Gold Cup. He represented everything Pochettino wanted to see in the USMNT. “He always tries to give his best, he is always 200 percent,” Pochettino said. "He's the type of player who wants to train, wants to train, and sometimes you have to say, 'Hey, go in.'" Gregg, now the coach of the Chicago Fire, watched Sebastian's progress from afar and was filled with pride. He also thought, sometimes, how complicated it would be if he were still the national team coach. “It would have been very difficult to choose him,” says Berthalter. "I know myself, and I know that if he was good enough, I would pick him and deal with all the other things. But with all the noise and all the (visibility), it would have been much more complicated." And so, as he prepares to see Sebastian follow in his footsteps, he's grateful. “The thing I'm most grateful for is, no one can say I picked them for the national team,” Gregg said. “He did it all on his own.