The Equalizer: Cordeiro wins, the revolution loses

U.S. soccer fans can stop holding their breath. After three rounds of voting at the Annual General Meeting in Orlando, Fla., Carlos Cordeiro was elected by voting delegates to the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) presidency, ending an emotional, turbulent and nasty election.

In an election swarmed with eight candidates, many people in the soccer community hoped the elected president would revolutionize a federation that has failed in too many of its endeavors.

Unfortunately for them, Cordeiro is not this candidate. Before running for USSF president, Cordeiro was the USSF vice president and has been deeply entrenched in the organization for years. Before that, he worked at Goldman-Sachs. Cordeiro will bring his business acumen and governing competence, but he is severely lacking in the soccer department.

Luckily for the U.S. soccer community, Cordeiro knows soccer is not his speciality. One of his stated goals is to bring in general managers for both the women’s and men’s national teams; this new position will oversee the daily operations of each national team.

Perhaps most refreshing is Cordeiro’s promise to invest in the grassroots organizations of the game.His campaign commitments included making youth soccer and coaching licenses more affordable, two issues that plague the development of players in the U.S. As a Latino immigrant himself, he has said that he will increase involvement within that demographic, an area that the USSF has completely failed in — most publicly and recently in the Jonathan Gonzalez saga.

Walking a tight line between in-house expertise and a candidate for change, Cordeiro’s stance in the past makes many wary. In Hope Solo’s pre-election speech, she accused Cordeiro of standing by while the USSF treated the women’s national team members like "second-class citizens." The swath of diehard promotion/relegation advocates will be quick to dismiss Cordeiro’s pro-MLS stance and are already looking to start a new Federation from scratch on Twitter.

Perhaps that will be Cordeiro’s biggest challenge (aside from dealing with numerous lawsuits and bringing the 2026 World Cup to the States, of course): Unifying a fractured soccer culture whose division was brought to the fore ever since that night in Trinidad and Tobago.

That night made it clear to the U.S. soccer community that change was needed. Maybe that’s why Kathy Carter, who for many represented everything that was wrong with the USSF, failed in her campaign. And for the "change" frontrunner, Eric Wynalda, perhaps his harsh, revolutionary campaign scared the voting delegates, many of whom have little interest in such a vigorous shakeup of how soccer functions in this country.

After that night in Trinidad and Tobago, I wrote this in The Equalizer: "Hopefully the leaders of U.S. Soccer will see the need for a comprehensive overhaul of our domestic game and begin to pressure for the dismissal of Gulati. Until then, U.S. fans should expect only more heartbreak."

The delegates recognized change was needed in voting for Cordeiro. But is the change he envisions enough? How will we know? Only the future will tell.