{"id":392478,"date":"2026-07-09T20:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T20:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/392478\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T20:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T20:30:08","slug":"steve-cherundolo-to-coach-usmnts-under-23-team-through-2028-olympics-nbc-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/392478\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Cherundolo to coach USMNT\u2019s under-23 team through 2028 Olympics \u2013 NBC Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former American defender and Los Angeles FC<\/a> coach Steve Cherundolo was hired Thursday by the U.S. Soccer Federation<\/a> to lead the American men’s under-23 team through the 2028 Olympics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was not clear whether the 47-year-old from San Diego would become a candidate to become the national team interim coach if a new deal isn’t worked out between the USSF and Mauricio Pochettino, whose contract expires this summer. The national team can play four friendlies in the FIFA international window from Sept. 21 to Oct. 3.<\/p>\n

Cherundolo made 87 appearances for the U.S. from 1999 to 2012 and was part of three World Cup rosters. He played for Hannover for 15 seasons through 2014 and made 415 Bundesliga appearances, the most by an American.<\/p>\n

He\u00a0coached the second-tier Las Vegas Lights in 2021\u00a0and\u00a0LAFC from 2022-25, winning an\u00a0MLS title in his first season\u00a0and the\u00a0U.S. Open Cup in 2024. He left LA after the 2025 to move back to Germany.<\/p>\n

Cherundolo was\u00a0inducted in the U.S. National Soccer Hall of Fame\u00a0in 2021.<\/p>\n

FIFA limits men’s Olympic teams to under-23 players who must be born on or after Jan. 1, 2005, with each of the 12 teams allowed three wild-card players over the age limit.<\/p>\n

Games will be played in Columbus, Ohio; Nashville, Tennessee; New York; Pasadena, California; St. Louis; San Diego; and San Jose, California. The U.S. receives an automatic berth as host.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe USMNT’s run is over, but they exit a tournament that also swallowed the sport’s giants. For the first time ever, no Germany, Brazil or Italy in the quarterfinals.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former American defender and Los Angeles FC coach Steve Cherundolo was hired Thursday by the U.S. Soccer Federation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[35946,48,52,51,47,50,49,1083,3366],"class_list":["post-392478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-2028-los-angeles-olympics","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-soccer","tag-usmnt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}