I mean, even that criticism is split. There's some blaming part of the goal on Freese's error on him not going down and subbing off. Then from what I see there's a significant crowd including Landon saying he should have played thru it and you'd have to had physically remove them from the field. In general both arguments are incorrect. It is normal after a hard tackle/hit for a player to attempt to shake it off for a few mins. And the coaching staff would have and did correctly give him the chance to do just that. It's just the nature of getting kicked in this game. Some times it hurts like hell and then the pain subsides.
In the end the whole team played pretty badly, pretty much across the board. Belgium absolutely tried to expose Ream and he didn’t really hold up but that doesn’t let everyone else off the hook.
The moment may pass for him, I don’t really see a way it passes for USMNT fans generally speaking, maybe a great Copa America could move the needle, but I think we are far too WC centric for that. I hope I’m wrong and he can show up and out for 2030, but I’d also be lamenting our continued player development issues if he did. I think CP has the superior mentals and close control to LD, maybe I didn’t make my point well. Slight little winger inside forward types with questionable mental who are really awkward and insular off the pitch come in different packages I guess.
Simple question. And it goes beyond just Pulisic but to the team in general. what is the freaking point of all this social media bashing because they flamed out against a world class team. Should they have been better? Sure and the players were agree. But this incessant bashing of them is just plain pointless and in fact in poor taste.
Maybe its semantics. Belgium's current FIFA ranking is #8. They just lost to Spain 2-1 by a pretty bad keeper gaffe after Courtois had to be taken off for injury. Pretty world class to me.
I quibble with the idea that Belgium are “world-class,” but that term has a built-in “YMMV” caveat anyway. People would be less upset if France had beat us 4-1. But a lot of people would still be upset—or pretending to be. The point of all the nastiness is primarily making money for the pundit and the pundit’s employer. An easy way to do that is to overhype a player who will get you engagement. As long as he’s succeeding, you get engagement from people watching him do well. When he falls short, you get engagement from people who want to have feelings about his “failure.” (This also works for actors and musicians.) Personally, I think the other thing is that a lot of ex-players (like a lot of people) want to feel superior and relevant. Crapping on a current player based on a lot of “in my day” tripe works for feeling superior and relevant. Plus, getting engagement for crapping on a player gives you relevance even when you don’t actually feel superior to the current player. Some of these guys seem to crave attention so much that they’ll gladly get it by throwing someone under the bus. I mean, the number of blowhards expressing strong opinions about Caitlin Clark (pro and con) is way bigger than the number of blowhards who have any opinion about her. They ain’t weighing in because they’re WNBA diehards.
The term "world class" is vague enough for players, with it ranging from world Best XI to anything anyone wants it to be. I have no clue what it means to have a "world class" team in that context. What's the point of the phrasing?
It’s the definition of toxic fan base. ******** Carli, ******** Landon, ******** Sydney, ******** Sauerbrunn
Frankly, he just can't seem to stay healthy. By the time WC 2030 rolls around, I am not sure he's still able to stay off the injury list.
The Donovan shit is kind of shocking to me. Dude had mental health issues his whole career. Walked away from his club for 4 months*. And then he wants to blame the entire match on Pulisic. He talks about how Pulisic’s dad isn’t nice to him (Donovan). Well dude maybe if you had a dad looking out for you, maybe you’d have not had your struggles. Maybe Donovan is just jealous. Also, Puli’s goal against Iran deserves every bit of the praise that Donovan’s against Algeria gets. Puli sacrificed his body. Landon made a long run for a tap in.
^ For sure Landon is envious of Pulisic. He has the club career and success fans would have dreamt of him had he remained in Europe permanently.
Total nonsense. Donovan in his whole career missed les time than Pulisic, Adams and Co are missing on average year due to injuries. Not a single plyer on this team has his mental strength.
Neither him, nor Adams will be there at 2030. Should accept it now and build the team based on this assumption.
Yes I’m definitive if he’s healthy. If Christian Pulisic is healthy, he’s going to start in the 2030 World Cup. The manager, whether it’s Pochettino or another manager will literally pencil him in 2030 starting right now unless he’s hurt. It’s just that simple. He’s that much better than everyone else on our team when he’s healthy. Don’t really understand why we’re going back-and-forth on this on this thread.
The whole mental strength thing is ridiculous. Players can’t control injuries. Some players get more than others. Doesn’t mean that they’re not mentally tough. Such a silly and wrong way to look at sports. People that say that usually haven’t played sports growing up.
There's a lot of media, podcasters, and commentators out there talking right now that aren't half the player Pulisic is. ................................and its always worth reminding ourselves that he does have signature World Cup moments in 2022. People do know that Landon Donovan was great in 2002 but not great in 2006. Yes, good players sometimes have bad tournaments. When Pulisic retires from the national team folks will be able to say "He was great in tournaments A, B, and C. Tournaments X, Y, and Z weren't his best." Pulisic just can't seem to stay healthy. Something's not right. Its really strange that he had such a fantastic first half of the season for Milan and then nothingness since. I don't know what that is. Everything I've heard has been hearsay. .............but he was very good against Paraguay until he had to go off with the calf injury. Those Paraguayan defenders aren't chopped liver, as we've found out. He skinned 'em.
Best players get a lot of attention, some of it will be negative. I really haven’t seen much out of line criticism post World Cup barring the specific question of Pulisic leaving the game after the kicking incident.
He’s not clearly so much better than everyone else on our team, though. We’ve got a slew of guys like McKennie, Tillman, Balogun, etc. that are in his general class, even if they play differently. More importantly, winger is a position, especially ones that provide value off the dribble, that often fall off a cliff of usefulness once they lose a half step of quickness due to aging. Most of them peak very young, and the decline phase can be very rapid in the 30s. If he loses that explosive acceleration he used to get past guys, he’s still going to be skilled, but he’s not going to create a ton of value. I don’t know if that will happen, or if we’ll have someone to fill his shoes, but the idea that if he stays healthy this can’t possibly happen ignores basic human anatomy.