Early on in his Chelsea career, one could possibly say “you can take Christian Pulisic out of the United States Men’s National Team, but you can’t take the USMNT out of Pulisic.” Now the extremely talented young winger is struggling massively all around.
For both club and country, one could easily describe Pulisic (and the USMNT program at large) by invoking this quote from Ernest Hemingway: “the world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”
I guess we’ll just see if these rough patches make Pulisic and/or US Soccer stronger in the end.
Pulisic is struggling to find his way into the team at Chelsea, and it’s a situation that won’t likely improve any time soon. Like a bet with a big payoff at mm88, Chelsea’s solid start to the season was not predictable. The odds were long on the Blues being as successful as they have been thus far. It’s just a shame that the woes for club now extend to country.
Last night he was subbed off in the 60′ of the USA’s 2-0 loss to Canada in CONCACAF Nations League play. It was America’s first loss to Canada since 1985!
It was a new low for US Soccer, but then again we said that, almost two years ago to the day, of the disastrous loss to Trinidad & Tobago that saw them eliminated from 2018 World Cup qualifying.
Potentially the new nadir is yet to come for US Soccer as they have been lacking an identity and direction for some time.
It took a year for head coach Gregg Berhalter, the brother of the program’s CEO Jay Berhalter, to come into the side and you’re seeing the ill effects of that lost year right now.
When Pulisic was subbed out and replaced by Arriola on the left flank in Toronto last night, you saw his frustration, anger and even tears. Berhalter would later reveal that Pulisic was suffering from cold and flu like symptoms. While that is true, it still doesn’t truly explain why everything fell flat last night.
He didn’t have a great night on the pitch, but at least, at that point, he showed some passion. The rest of the team certainly did not. Pulisic said heading into the break that he was going to make sure his frustrations at Chelsea didn’t carry over to international duty.
He seems to be wrong about that, but then again the issues here go well above and beyond just the 21-year-old winger from Hershey, Pennsylvania. For both club and country, things may not get better any time soon for Pulisic.
Also, if you’re looking for some epic takedowns of the USMNT, read this Joe Prince-Wright piece at NBC Sports, and/or watch Taylor Twellman put the program in its proper place just like he did two years ago.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com on Twitter here and his cat on Instagram at this link.