Christian Pulisic put his hand to his forehead and rubbed his brow, then pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I mean, what even is normal?” he said.
Two days before Pulisic and the U.S. men’s national team take the field against Bolivia to open their Copa America, Pulisic is sitting at a table with reporters in a hotel conference room in Dallas. He was responding to a question about whether it ever feels normal to see himself up on billboards, plastered and branded as the face of the U.S. men’s national team.
This has been Pulisic’s reality since he was a 17-year-old who broke through at Borussia Dortmund. His first real tournament with the U.S. came at the Copa America Centenario in 2016. At the time, Dortmund shut down interview requests to try to insulate a young American who was suddenly the sport’s new golden boy. U.S. Soccer limited interviews to postgame mixed zones.
Pulisic’s first tournament with the U.S. was the 2016 Copa America (Shaun Clark/Getty Images)
Pulisic is quiet by nature, maybe even a bit shy. The spotlight was never something he was seeking. Suddenly, he was being held up as potentially America’s first real soccer star. He seemed to wrestle with his newfound fame.
“I don’t think he wasn’t willing to embrace it, I think we just labeled a 17-year-old the next big thing,” said his teammate and longtime friend Tyler Adams. “I mean, you had to give the kid some time to kind of grow and mature.”
Eight years later, Pulisic has navigated through the inevitable volatility of a professional soccer career. He has had his ups — a $73million (£58m at current rates) sale to Chelsea and 11 goals and 10 assists in his first season, the 2021 Champions League trophy, big goals to win CONCACAF titles and scoring at the 2022 World Cup. But there have been dips, too — just 21 combined starts over his final two seasons at Chelsea and the failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup with a loss in Trinidad in 2017. All of it has left some sort of mark on him.
Pulisic, 25, now feels more comfortable in his place in the American soccer landscape and secure in his role with the national team. Only just now entering his prime, he has already left a mark on the sport.
His performances with Dortmund and sale to Chelsea opened new pathways for American players. Evidence of that is around him every time he flies into U.S. men’s national team camp. He has the most caps of any player on a young team that is now in a second World Cup cycle together. He has worn the captain’s armband in big games and scored important goals at key moments.
Pulisic has earned his place as a leader on this team, so seeing his face on a billboard isn’t necessarily the burden it once was.
(John Dorton/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
“It’s so cool, I appreciate the support, it’s awesome,” Pulisic said after overcoming the initial embarrassment of the query. “I don’t take it for granted for a second, my place in this team. I feel like I’ve given so much to this team and, truly, no one wants it more than me. I promise you that. So it feels great to have the support.
“The whole like ‘face’ thing. I feel like I get asked that a lot. And I just, I don’t even think of it like that at all, especially now with the team that we have. I don’t need to be the superstar for us to win games. It’s not like that. I want to put in good performances and help the team, but the team has my back. Always.”
Pulisic may not need to be the superstar of this team every game, but if the U.S. is going to make a run in this Copa America, it will need him to be a difference-maker.
“To be alongside of him on this journey over the last five years has been tremendously rewarding,” said U.S. coach Berhalter “And I think people just forget how young he was at the time (of the Copa America Centenario), right?
“So, for him a lot of it was maturity, a lot of it was trust, a lot of it was relationships, but all of it led to the same point of him being very comfortable with who he is, very comfortable within this group and a leader in his way, in his own way, an authentic leader.”
Historically, Pulisic has performed his best on the biggest stages. This year, he’s coming off his best season in Europe: 15 goals and 10 assists for AC Milan across all competitions.
“To say whether it’s my best season ever or whatnot, it’s easy to look at stats and stuff, but I’ve enjoyed the season a lot,” Pulisic said. “And I feel really confident and good coming into this tournament for sure.”
Twenty minutes into his debut with AC Milan last August, Pulisic picked up the ball near the right sideline just past midfield.
He slalomed through Bologna defenders, then found the foot of Olivier Giroud, who returned the pass. Pulisic received it in stride on his right foot, took a quick touch with his left and, with two defenders trying to close the space, fired with his right from just outside the box to the far post.
As the ball ripped into the side netting for a debut goal, Pulisic ran toward the corner flag, smacking his chest and screaming. The cameras zoomed in.
“Come on, baby!” he screamed.
(Grzegorz Wajda/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Pulisic had arrived in Milan a few months prior in hopes of a resurgence. His time at Chelsea had been up and down. He won the Champions League but never felt he truly had a chance to thrive. The goal in his Milan debut was almost freeing. Five days later, in his second game for Milan, Pulisic scored again.
Those first two games would fuel what became a breakout season at his new club: 12 goals and eight assists in Serie A, the first Milan midfielder to score more than 10 in a season since Kaka in 2005-06. He was nominated for Serie A midfielder of the season.
GO DEEPER
Christian Pulisic has found a home away from home in Milan, and USMNT will benefit
“A lot of times in life and in soccer it’s timing … those little things and those little moments,” Pulisic said. “I score a sick goal the first game, the next game just rolls over and it’s a tap-in. Momentum builds and you start to feel confident. You can’t explain it sometimes. It’s hard to say, but over time, over a few games, maybe a little bit of luck can flip your career right around.”
For Pulisic, the season was almost about belief. The club and manager’s belief in him. The belief he found in himself as each performance built on the last and as he went week after week without a setback. At Chelsea, it often felt like any semblance of momentum was halted by something. An ill-timed injury. One “down” performance that led to a spell on the bench. A manager change.
The goals and assists at Milan showed that Pulisic could deliver in the final third, but it might have been another stat that meant more: 44 games and 39 starts with more than 3,000 minutes played.
“It was massive for me to experience that and know that I can do it,” Pulisic said. “That I can keep myself healthy for most of the season, I can put in consistent good performances.”
What happened at Milan felt like an extension of Pulisic’s evolution after playing for the U.S. at the 2022 World Cup. Pulisic was the USMNT’s best attacking player in Qatar. He set up the opening goal against Wales and scored against Iran in the group finale.
Pulisic scores against Iran in Qatar (Ulrik Pedersen/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
Just getting to that stage was a sort of release. Pulisic was just 19 years old when the U.S. lost in Trinidad and failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. It delayed what had felt like an inevitability: that he would get to play on the sport’s biggest stage. And it significantly dialled up the pressure around the national team for the next four years.
Simply stepping on the field in Qatar seemed to unlock a permission to enjoy things a bit more.
“It was something that was on my calendar forever,” Pulisic said. “Everything I was doing was to prepare for that moment. That was the best experience of my life. Just to have that under your belt and get that experience definitely helps now, moving forward.”
Pulisic was speaking during an interview as part of a “Bring the Heat” ad campaign for Degree built around the Copa America that also features Brazil star Vinicius Junior, Argentina forward Julian Alvarez and Mexico’s Santi Gimenez. The campaign was yet another example of the billing Pulisic gets as the most recognizable American face of a sport that is entering an unprecedented era in this country.
This summer’s tournament is setting the stage for when the World Cup arrives in the U.S., Canada and Mexico in two years. The hope is it will be a massive springboard for a sport that has seen its popularity grow immensely over the past 15 years. And as much as the questions about being the face of the program still feel awkward, Pulisic understands that he carries those responsibilities.
It’s part of the reason he used some of his time off between the Colombia and Brazil friendlies and the Copa America to visit his youth pitches in Miami.
“This game has given me everything,” Pulisic said. “So I’m just I’m grateful to be in this position. To have kids that look up to me, I never would have imagined it, but having this is incredible. So anything that I can give back or support and hopefully try to push that next generation, I owe everything and I’m going to continue to do that because that’s what’s important to me.”
Pulisic also seems to understand that being the face off the field is buttressed by being a leader on it.
In his early days with the national team, Pulisic seemed content to defer to the more experienced players, even if they didn’t quite have his profile. That was partly due to his more shy nature, but also partly because he felt he still had to earn his way. There’s no doubt now that he’s more than earned it.
“He’s done a lot of things people will never do in their career,” Adams said. “And I think you have to kind of give credit where credit’s due.”
Berhalter said Pulisic’s growing confidence in the leadership role has been been “a great process to watch, especially up close.”
“He’s a guy that doesn’t need to say much but when he says stuff people listen,” Berhalter added. “And he’s a guy that goes out there and just works hard. That’s how he leads. He’s always training hard, he’s always working hard in the game and he sets a really good tone, because when your best player is also your hardest working player, you know you’re doing something well.”
Pulisic and Berhalter during the recent friendly against Brazil (Jeremy Reper/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
Notably, Pulisic was the first national team player to come out with public support of U.S. Soccer rehiring Berhalter. He has since backed the coach in several other interviews. After the 5-1 friendly loss to Colombia, Pulisic’s frustration in the mixed zone was evident, saying the team was “nowhere near the level of what we need to play at if we want to win games.” It was about the team holding each other accountable, Pulisic would say later.
“For me, it’s really important to lead by just the way I conduct myself every single day in training, around the hotel, around the guys,” Pulisic said. “Also what I do on the field in the game and show them that way.
“I mean, if you ask anyone, you guys also know I’m not the most vocal person on or off the field at all. So when I need to say something, I hope that I have a voice that people will listen to. That’s my goal. I don’t say much. I try to just put my head down and work and work and I hope people around me see that and that can have a domino effect on everyone.”
The Copa America is a crucial opportunity for the U.S. to test itself against some of the world’s best teams. To do so, they’ll first have to get through games they are expected to win against Bolivia and Panama, and then a showdown with Marcelo Bielsa’s Uruguay.
For a U.S. team that has growing expectations around it, the Copa is an important measuring stick, but also a testing ground for how deserving they are of the hype. There is belief around what this team can be, but at some point, it will have to be put out on the field for everyone to see.
It’s a path Pulisic understands better than anyone.
“Now it’s time to prove ourselves,” Pulisic said. “We’ve learned a lot, we put in some good performances in the World Cup, we’ve shown people like ‘OK, this team can play.’ And now it’s about not just putting in those performances but finding a way to get results in the biggest matches.
“That’s the next step for us.”
(Top photo: John Dorton/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)