USMNT legend Tab Ramos calls for U.S. Soccer official to step down after World Cup exit

After a disappointing end to the 2026 World Cup for the USMNT, people are starting to call for sackings in the U.S. Soccer department.

Up until the Belgium defeat, USMNT supporters were on cloud nine after wins over Paraguay, Bosnia and Australia, but the Round of 16 quickly brought them back down to earth.

Now, everyone is painting the World Cup out to be an absolute disaster.

At times, the USMNT played some fantastic football under Mauricio Pochettino and looked like they could go deep into the competition.

But it all changed after the controversy surrounding Folarin Balogun’s red card reversal by FIFA, which gave Belgium the fuel and piled the press on the backs of the players.

USMNT legend Tab Ramos earned 81 caps, scored 8 goals, and was the first player in U.S. history (alongside Eric Wynalda and Marcelo Balboa) to play in three consecutive World Cups.

He was speaking with Tom Bogert for InsideAmericanSoccer show on YouTube.

And he is of the belief that Cindy Parlow Cone, who currently serves as the President of the United States Soccer Federation, should step down from her role.

“After we didn’t qualify for the 2018 World Cup, Sunil [Gulati] had to step down from U.S. Soccer. That’s accountability.

“For me, this World Cup was not successful on the field.

“So now, it’s time for accountability. And that’s not just with the coach, but that’s with the people above the coach, right? Because this is what happens. It happens in every club. It happens on every team. Somebody is accountable because you brought the coach in, and it didn’t work out. And what happens? I want to hear.

“Apparently, before the World Cup, there was a new offer made to [Mauricio] Pochettino to continue for four years. Who made that offer? If we don’t have a technical director, if we don’t have somebody who’s running the way that soccer, and I’m talking about soccer, I’m not talking about business, I’m just talking about soccer.

“If we don’t have the one person there who’s now dictating, what do we want to look like going into the future? Not how many shirts we want to sell, not how much we’re going to fill the stadiums.

“We need to hire that person so that person can hire the coach, and now we can move in a new direction. So I’m hoping this is what’s going to happen, that there’s going to be some accountability from U.S. Soccer, that this is not going to be brushed off into, ‘Hey, we made $400 million in this World Cup.

“Nobody cares you made $400 million. What we care about is that our team gets better and that we get closer to what the best teams in the world look like.

“After we didn’t qualify for the 2018 World Cup, Sunil had to step down from U.S. Soccer, right? That’s what happens. That’s accountability. You have to leave and somebody new comes in. I think for me, with what I’ve seen from the senior national team for the last eight years, at some point it has to fall with the person above.

“Which for me, it’s the president. So at this point, I think what would be good for U.S. Soccer is if we had the president step down. We can vote for a new president who has new ideas, new ways of doing things.

“And I’m not saying the business part. Again, JT Batson may be the greatest business CEO ever. He can stay there. That doesn’t really affect or matter to me at all.

“What matters is that we need to have more soccer people. And I think at this point, we likely need a new president, we need a new sporting director who will hire the new head coach.”