In the first 50 minutes Pulisic has created 3 of Milan's goalscoring chances and misses with a header for the other. Musah was subbed off at half- time.
I don’t fully agree with that second point. The level of violence legally allowed back then was higher, and pre-VAR it, and more severe line-crossing, was more common. There’s a chance that this level of violence could have filtered out a player like Pulisic. Clint had a “deterrence” factor that Christian lacks, but overall he is not getting more rough play than our past top players who didn’t have the benefit of VAR.
Pulisic subbed at minute 86, giving his ailing hip four extra minutes of rest before a summer of golf, snorkeling and jet skis.
I’m all for Pulisic taking the summer off, but if Milan is complicit with him, why did he play at all today? I know I’m repeating others here, but it doesn’t sit right with me, seems hypocritical or just not true that Milan would co-sign the fatigue/injury bit.
100 100 Milan appearances for CP11 👏🇺🇸 #MilanMonza #SempreMilan pic.twitter.com/Ps2Fs12FUc— AC Milan (@acmilan) May 24, 2025
Blows the narrative that Pulisic is tired and nursing an injury if he plays in a meaningless end of season game.
What neither Clint or Landon suffered was a hamstring tear as bad as Puli’s in the FA Cup final. I haven’t seen the pre tear bursts or acceleration since. Clint and Landon in general were able to handle physicality better than Puli. All that being said 100+ games in the last two years for Puli is not something I thought he’d be able to do three years ago.
I get that it doesn’t seem to match up well. But there’s a possibility that, although he’s physically able to play games, he needs to take downtime off-season to fully heal to prevent worsening injury. For me, he’s done enough for the USMNT to earn the benefit of the doubt in this case.
I will say, Tyler Adams is the captain, Pulisic is, whatever the hell he is, the marketing piece, but he's not Captain anything. If he ever was, he certainly won't be after this. But yeah, needless to say, Tyler is the captain period, and even though I've argued that Pulisic's injury history and heavy minutes the past two seasons make a rest understandable, it is worth noting that Tyler Adams has
Interesting and fair point, but I also think it's simply patently obvious that Pulisic is just an injury prone player much like Tyler Adams has been, period. 17/18: 2 minor injuries lead to 2 games lost. 18/19: 5 different injuries cause games lost in August, October, December, February and April. Moves to Chelsea 19/20: Injury in December of '19 causes 1 game missed, 2nd injury causes him to miss the rest of the season until the covid shut down. 20/21: September Injury, November/December Injury 21/22: August injury knocks him out for 3 months, Minor injury in March. 22/23: Injury in early January knocks him out for 3 months. Moves to Milan 23/24: Misses most of November with contracture injury (I don't know what that means), 24/25: December injury costs multiple games, Muscle fatigue issue in January, rumored thigh issue since March. Basically he's been mostly healthy since moving to Milan, but was just completely smashed by injuries virtually every season from '18-'19 through '22-'23, interestingly almost all of which occurred in England (makes you wonder). To my mind anyway, he just flat out seems fragile, and I've been completely surprised at how healthy he's been since moving to Italy (maybe we need to hire their Physio's), so maybe it's less of a problem since leaving England, but I don't hate the idea of him resting, but it is a god awful look at this point and is not remotely helpful in terms of WC prep. Not sure how to feel about it. I definitely go back and forth, feeling like I get it, because of how fragile he has been in the past, versus viewing this as bull----, especially after he played today which may have been the most tone deaf decision involving the USMNT since the fall of '17.
Ehh, in reference to the landy cakes thing you're responding to, I don't think that's analogous, Donovan played non-stop rarely ever missing anything, you scroll through his national team commitments, and you see some pink, but very little, and probably what's most telling in a comical way is that DONOVAN PLAYED EVERY SINGLE CAMP CUPCAKE WINDOW that took place between 2000-2008. He only started skipping cupcake in '09 (he played in all 7 that took place between 2000 and 2008), it definitely looks like basically before he took his mental health sabbatical on and off from 2011-2013, he basically played in virtually every window, every cycle, which is not coincidentally why I argued at the time in '11-'13, that mental health or not, if anyone deserved a break, it was him. No breaks pretty much ever, played nearly all the dumb --- friendlies, nearly all the qualifiers, all the gold cups, all the wc matches, all the confederate cup matches, and yep, all camp cupcake camps from 2000-2008 that were held. So for me, landy cakes makes sense of course in other contexts, but in terms of service to the USMNT, he was a part of the warrior class that never refused a call until it finally started risking literally killing him, at which point he took a break. Pulisic took a huge chunk of time off after the misery of Couva, basically over nearly 18 months between Couva and Gold Cup '19, he started 4 games total (the full internationals of late '18, the last Sarachan matches, and the first two games of Berhalter's First full internationals, but otherwise, he was off. In fairness, some of these windows he was injured for (September/October of '18 windows), but otherwise he was healthy and just didn't come. Landon didn't really start doing that at all until he was 30, and suffering a severe mental health crisis. So, for all the SoCal Landon stuff, he was an iron man basically from 2000-2010.
There's a large difference between playing one game here and committing to a tournament, that with the friendly window, is going to be a month of practicing and playing.
Yes, on a couple of different podcast episodes over the last few years I have mentioned that Pulisic is not especially durable.
Man I’m slow; I didn’t realize that was an accurate way to describe these upcoming games. Gotta get to my local deli tomorrow
"Christian Pulisic is one of 10 outfield players to appear in at least 50 club matches for teams in the top 5 European leagues across all competitions in each of the last two seasons." 50 - Christian Pulisic is one of 10 outfield players to appear in at least 50 club matches for teams in the top 5 European leagues across all competitions in each of the last two seasons. Busy. pic.twitter.com/iv9aACFhjA— OptaJack⚽️ (@OptaJack) May 24, 2025
Puli has chronic non degenerative hip pain from playing a fairly heavy amount of pro soccer....which is normal. He needs the shots because he doesn't know how/want to play with pain is all. His camp should of just said he wants a rest. Now people think he doesn't care and is falling apart.
Also..................Milan pays him a gazillion dollars. If he can go, he should go. Try to help them finish the season as well as possible. People on this board sometimes behave as if the USMNT is the first priority for these players. Its not. Club soccer is their day job. Club soccer is where they make their money. Pulisic is only 26 years old and has 78 caps already. He's played a lot for us. If he wants to take a break this summer because he wants to heal and rest before a big 2026, then go for it. He's taken three of the last four Gold Cups off too..........................