Ventnor City's B.J. Callaghan could be MLS's coach of the year. Could the USMNT come next?

When Nashville SC manager B.J. Callaghan emerged from his postgame news conference at Subaru Park on Saturday night, he was greeted by a bunch of old friends from his college days at Ursinus.

It was a reminder of his many ties to the Philadelphia area, roots that he still wears proudly as he travels as a coach for the world’s game.

Callaghan, 44, grew up in Ventnor City, N.J., as a grandson of famed former Villanova men’s basketball coach Jack Kraft. Callaghan graduated from Ursinus in 2002, then spent over 20 years rising through assistant coaching jobs at his alma mater, followed by St. Joseph’s, Villanova, the Union, and the U.S. national team.

» READ MORE: At least the Union don't have the worst record in MLS this year

In 2023, a twist of fate in the Reyna-Berhalter scandal that engulfed the U.S. program led to Callaghan getting the top job while Gregg Berhalter was out. When Berhalter returned, Callaghan returned to an assistant role, but with his reputation enhanced enough to earn Nashville’s trust in 2024.

That, after so long, was the first time any soccer team had hired Callaghan to a head coaching role. And the way things have gone since then, it likely won’t be the last.

Callaghan now has a 35-23-12 record in the Music City. Nashville won last year’s U.S. Open Cup, not just the first trophy in the young club’s history but the first championship for any professional sports team in the city.

This year, the squad sits atop the Eastern Conference by four points through 10 games and has reached the semifinals of the Concacaf Champions Cup. The second game of that series against Mexican power Tigres UANL is Tuesday on the road (9:30 p.m., FS1, TUDN).

That led Callaghan to rotate a lot of his lineup on Saturday in Chester, a perennial test for a soccer coach. The veteran trio of Hany Mukhtar, Andy Nájar, and Cristian Espinoza — whose signing was the heist of the offseason, after San Jose botched his contract paperwork — sat for the first 62 minutes. Many regulars didn’t play at all.

» READ MORE: Union earn a crucial point following a scoreless draw against East-leading Nashville SC

“It’s like playing Sudoku on expert level for your first time,” Callaghan said after the game ended in a scoreless tie. “I think it’s just about making sure that we stick to having real clear ways of preparing, real clear ways of training, and real clear ways of recovering. And you have to kind of pull each lever at the correct time, and be surrounded by a really great group of guys that are willing to put in the work and do whatever role is asked for.”

Though the Union played well, Nashville taking a point out of Chester meant Callaghan passed the test.

“Philadelphia put in a really good performance, you have to give them a lot of credit,” he said. “Of course we want to win — I think the guys that we brought on off the bench were a signal to that. But at the end of the day, we’ll take a clean sheet on the road. We’ll take a point knowing that we’ve got to turn this around and play a second leg semifinal on Tuesday.”

» READ MORE: With the World Cup headed to Philly, Safe-Hub has plans to bring the excitement to Kensington

Tuesday’s game will be daunting, with Tigres bringing a 1-0 aggregate lead back home to Mexico. But whatever happens, if Nashville stays among the elite in MLS this season, Callaghan will be a top contender for Coach of the Year.

From there, another door might open, with something familiar awaiting.

Mauricio Pochettino is probably going to leave the U.S. national team after the World Cup. He reportedly has offers awaiting from European clubs, and it will benefit the U.S. program to have a fresh voice in for the full cycle leading to 2030.

Yes, Pochettino said in March that he wasn’t opposed to staying. But that was before the sporting director who hired him, Matt Crocker, left last month. However slim the odds were then, they fell even more after Crocker’s departure.

» READ MORE: U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker leaves his job two months before the World Cup

So, who should come next?

There are plenty of big names in the world’s game who have said they’d like to work in the United States some day, with current Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola atop the list. The governing body has the money and the smarts, and can call on its college sports-style big donors to top up the bank account if needed.

But even some of those shouters might quietly admit there are also American coaches who can do the job.

Jim Curtin and Steve Cherundolo are waiting at home to make their next moves, the former still enjoying his buyout from the Union and the latter back in Germany where he raised his family. North Jersey native Pellegrino Matarazzo has made history at Spanish club Real Sociedad, winning this year’s Copa del Rey — the national cup tournament — to become the first American manager to win a trophy in one of Europe’s big five nations.

» READ MORE: The USMNT’s World Cup auditions are over. Now it’s time to project the tournament roster.

In MLS, Mikey Varas has done great work building San Diego FC into a team that plays pretty and successful soccer with young Americans. (One of them, David Vazquez, was poached from Philly after Union boss Bradley Carnell didn’t play him.)

Callaghan brings something none of them can match. Yes, his time as interim U.S. manager was brief, but it was successful and ranks as experience in the hot seat.

Now, with hindsight, that counts.

Even better, all seven of his games in charge were in official competitions, not friendlies. Callaghan led the Stars and Stripes to the 2023 Concacaf Nations League title with entertaining wins over Mexico and Canada, then reached the semifinals of that year’s Gold Cup with arguably the U.S. men’s national team’s B squad.

It’s all that experience that makes Callaghan’s candidacy look even better.

» READ MORE: B.J. Callaghan’s rise to leading the U.S. men’s soccer team has roots at Villanova

That doesn’t mean he’s a slam dunk for the job. There are three key obstacles to get past.

First is that in February, Callaghan signed a contract extension in Nashville until the summer of 2029. It’s not known whether there’s an out clause should U.S. Soccer come calling.

Then there’s how U.S. Soccer would pass the time between the World Cup and the end of the MLS campaign. There are two FIFA windows in that span, an extra-long one from Sept. 21-Oct. 6 and a traditional one from Nov. 9-17.

(That stretch is why MLS ends its regular season on Nov. 7 and starts its playoffs on Nov. 18. The upcoming flip to a winter-centric calendar means 2026 is the last season this will be a problem.)

» READ MORE: How Philadelphia's World Cup setup became the envy of fans in New York, Boston, and beyond

Finally, is that U.S. Soccer presumably needs to hire a new sporting director, who will then pick the next manager. The timeline for that isn’t clear at all right now. But once the hire is made, whoever it is will likely want to get moving.

The vastness of the soccer world means there are always lots of candidates for any coaching job. That will be the case again this time with the U.S. men. Still, there will be some obvious names on the board, and Callaghan will be one of them.

Saturday marked the first weekend of a month that will end with the start of the U.S. team’s World Cup training camp. The time will pass quickly, and it will pass quickly during the tournament, too.

So the opportunity was there to ask Callaghan, and he wasn’t surprised it came up.

“I mean, listen, my entire career journey has been built by just trying to be as good as I can be in each stop,” he said. “It took me 25 years to become a head coach. I’m really happy being at Nashville. They’re the team that took the chance on me, gave me my opportunity, and I’m just going to continue to work as hard as I can at Nashville.”

That obviously wasn’t a “no.” And while there’s time before anyone has to get to “yes,” there’s no doubt Callaghan will have a lot of people backing him.

They won’t just be his old friends from Ursinus.

The World Cup in Philly

Nine nations will compete in five group stage matches this summer, plus two more in a knockout game on July 4. Here’s what you need to know about those countries — and what those fans need to know about Philly. Click here for more.