In America, the French actress Isabelle Huppert once said, Europe disappears: “They have everything. They don’t need anything. Deep down for them we are a kind of elegant Third World.” The history of American sports reads like a repetition of this blazing autonomy: from the development of baseball as a derivative of regional English games like stoolball and tut-ball to the evolution of rugby union in American football and the creation of basketball from the manipulation of a soccer ball. indoors, the US has specialized in fashioning its own kind of sporting modernity from the raw cultural materials of Europe, often relegating these older sports to the wastes of national memory.
But globalization — the great success story of the American free-market economy — and soccer’s unstoppable growth in recent decades have forced the U.S. to confront a disturbing reality: in the world’s most popular sport, global hegemony remains a middleweight at best. . The country that has it all now finds out that it doesn’t: emerging (almost) every four years from a middling confederation into the glory of the World Cup, the focus has shifted for once to other countries, the America that wants for nothing – so sure , so culturally self-reliant – now finds itself in need. She needs to prove that she has football muscles equal to her muscles in any other field. It must show that it belongs. And he needs, perhaps more than anything, to convince the world that he can produce a player in the men’s game equal to Haaland, Neymar, Salah or Mbappé.
For the past five years, America’s hopes of producing a world-class player have centered largely on one man: Christian Pulisic. To be sure, many fine footballers have emerged from these shores in recent times: Clint Dempsey is a folk hero at Fulham, Landon Donovan – although he struggled to build a club career in Europe – was never better than when he displayed with the national colors. And the country’s shot-stopper stock — including such stalwarts of recent English Premier League history as Brad Friedel and Tim Howard, a player who was once as determined in goal as he is now impenetrable as an NBC pundit – have historically been especially. Rich.
But outside of the women’s game, where America is now a nonstop conveyor belt of top-class talent, the U.S. has yet to produce a player with that tenacious specialty—that exquisite blend of skill, strength, personality and will to won. crossing national borders. Even players of a caliber one rung below the top continue to shun the USA, which is a real curiosity when you consider the country’s size and financial means and soccer’s domestic popularity as a participatory sport. Australia, a temperamentally similar country with a much smaller population and not one but three rival football codes to siphon talent away from football, has arguably produced three top-class players during the Premier League era: Tim Cahill, Mark Viduka and Harry Kewell. America has yet to produce one.
In this context, the expectations placed on Pulisic are high. A sense of all-American destiny beckoned him from birth. Born in the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania—home of the famous Hershey Company, the largest chocolate maker in a sugar-producing country—Pulisic grew up in a soccer-crazy household (both of his parents played college football and his father later became a professional indoor player) and made rapid early progress in the national ranks.
An appearance against Brazil in 2013 for the U.S. under-17 team shows just how good he was as a teenager — pulling the strings from wide, darting into space, timing his runs, burying chances his. All the speed, courage and control of his mature game were already there at the age of 15, with none of the self-doubt that has plagued him in recent years. The story from there is familiar: the move to Borussia Dortmund, the first-team debut at 17, the string of impressive performances and transfer rumours, the image of him slumped on the ground, head-on, after the defeat against Trinidad. & Tobago that denied the USMNT a spot at the 2018 World Cup. The passion, skill and commitment were all there, and soon the money on the table matched the scale of ambition of Pulisic, now nicknamed “Captain America” (a a name he is said to hate) for his inspirational performances with the national team.
At Chelsea, however, the story of Pulisic’s career has begun to take a more complicated turn. Injuries and managerial changes have left Pulisic starved of starting opportunities, and when he has been given a chance to use his stuff, he has often appeared hesitant and unsure of himself, qualities fatal to a player’s game. which relies so much of its efficiency in justice. and courage. Pulisic is now in his fourth season in England and has never been able to find a permanent place in Chelsea’s starting XI; Given the number of managers who have refused to put their faith in him, it seems fair to wonder if he will ever reach the top of the sport as he has seemed destined for so long. Among Chelsea fans, his name is now a byword for missed opportunities and wasted potential, a grim departure from the arc of his early career.
On those rare and increasingly remote occasions when he has put it all together – as during Project Restart, the highlight of his Chelsea career to date – the results have been thrilling. The hat-trick against Burnley at the end of 2019 – the first left-footed, the second right-footed, the third a header – showed Pulisic at his best: the casual two-footed, touch the feathered look, the willingness to get his man, that surgical turn of pace. In open space he is a dolphin breaking through the waves; in the corner he is a free spider. Above all, he is one of the sport’s greatest movers, bounding across the field with the unmistakable grace of a pianist as he commands the keyboard. The sheer versatility of Pulisic in his prime is something only half-baked metaphors can capture.
The beauty of Pulisic’s game on the pitch is even more remarkable when you consider his gentleness off it. Guarded, risk-averse, maybe even a little square: Pulisic has none of Cristiano Ronaldo’s swagger, Erling Haaland’s towering immensity or Kylian Mbappe’s brilliant eloquence. In speech and manner he looks less like a football player than a wealth management professional from a medium-sized regional town with some investment opportunities in municipal bonds and tech stocks he’d like to discuss. And still. Despite all this – the weight of national expectation, his early progress in the Premier League and the lack of Lampardesque charisma – Pulisic is liberated when he takes the field for the USMNT. All the doubts that consume his game at club level melt away and he is reborn as America’s star, the player through whom all good things flow. Gregg Berhalter’s system – built on relentless pressing, quick transitions, attacking at all costs and wide speed – is designed to get the best out of his number 10, and there’s reason for American fans to feel the excitement of true with the prospect of seeing Pulisic, in his first World Cup, released in a team where he is the undisputed talisman.
Given the ruthlessness of European club football today – its growing popularity, the money it attracts, the sheer scale of its fixture list – there is little doubt that in our era, truly great players must first be great. for their clubs. Although football is no stranger to late bloomers – look at the careers of Jamie Vardy, Olivier Giroud or Didier Drogba – and playing careers are undoubtedly growing longer, Pulisic has been talked about since he was a teenager, which carries its own kind of psychological burden, and at 24, time may be running out for him to fully express his talent at club level. But for the next few weeks, the question of whether Pulisic can live up to his country’s footballing potential and become truly “world class” is of little consequence. The boy from the chocolate city just has to be very good and America will remember Qatar fondly.
