Pulisic clear to play for USA against Netherlands as Berhalter faces familiar foes - The Guardian

The US manager credits the Dutch for helping him with his soccer education as his team look to upset the odds and book a place in the World Cup quarter-finals.

Berhalter, whose United States team will play Van Gaal’s Netherlands on Saturday in the last 16 of the World Cup, doesn’t believe him for a second.

Berhalter was a fresh-faced 23-year-old center-back for a mid-table Sparta Rotterdam side that beat Van Gaal’s Ajax team – who had played in the Champions League semi-finals only 11 days earlier – thanks to an 88th-minute winner.

That the biggest game of his three-and-a-half-year tenure will come against the Netherlands carries added meaning for Berhalter, who has become the first man to play for and manage an American side at a World Cup.

“Just about spacing and the positional game, third man, triangles,” he said.

And I wasn’t good enough hitting with my laces, so I had to practice, practice, practice so I could play him a ball that he wanted