CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2014 Christian Pulisic says he feels \u201cevery game\u201d that he\u2019s going to score, and it\u2019s not too hard to tell he\u2019s getting tired of talking about it.<\/p>\n
The best way for the USMNT\u2019s superstar to stop the question from being asked, though, is for him to put the ball in the net \u2014 something he last did all the way back in December.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter how bad things are, I like to look at the positive light,\u201d Pulisic said Saturday. \u201cI\u2019ve had this happen before in my career. It\u2019s difficult times. Sometimes one will bounce off your knee and go in. It seems like everything will go in after that. So that\u2019s just the way things work. I feel pretty confident.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aside from avoiding any injuries, which coach Mauricio Pochettino pointed out was the first goal of Sunday\u2019s friendly against Senegal, getting Pulisic a goal would qualify as one of the most important things the USMNT could get out of the first of its two sendoff matches.<\/p>\n
After two losses to powerhouse opposition in the March window, a result against a formidable Senegal side wouldn\u2019t hurt, either. <\/p>\n
Though Senegal doesn\u2019t necessarily have the cach\u00e9 of Belgium and Portugal, who beat the USMNT in March, or Germany, who the U.S. will face next weekend in Chicago, it\u2019s just as good as any of them.<\/p>\n
Christian Pulisic dribbles during a United States match in March 2024. AP Photo<\/p>\n
The Teranga Lions won January\u2019s Africa Cup of Nations, though they were later stripped of the title because their players left the field during play to protest a penalty decision. <\/p>\n
Their lineup features world-class talent like winger Sadio Man\u00e9, striker Nicolas Jackson and center back Kalidou Koulibaly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey wouldn\u2019t have won AFCON for no reason, right? I think that\u2019s a testament to their ability they have as a team,\u201d center back Mark McKenzie said. \u201cI think for us, we\u2019re focused on using this as a test, obviously, but at the end of the day, we need to focus on fine-tuning our game, fine-tuning what we want to get across in this tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
A win in a friendly match doesn\u2019t mean anything, and the result comes second to the USMNT getting its tactics right, and trying to settle a few key questions about who should start, including in goal between Matt Freese and Matt Turner.<\/p>\n
While Freese has been the clear No. 1 for the last year, the door creaked back open for Turner \u2014 the USMNT\u2019s starter in Qatar \u2014 when he was in net against Belgium in March. <\/p>\n
Christian Pulisic is pictured during an October 2025 match for the United States. AP Photo<\/p>\n
That, combined with Turner having outplayed Freese in the early part of the MLS season, makes things interesting.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou obviously wish you had the body of work with the national team in the last year to also rely upon, but I think form at the club is also really, really important,\u201d Turner said. \u201cThe club performances are a way you can build that trust with the manager without being fully present, obviously, with the national team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christian Pulisic reacts at the end of a May 24 match for AC Milan. AP Photo<\/p>\n
Pochettino indicated Saturday he plans to rotate players heavily during the game and try his best to avoid any unnecessary risks. <\/p>\n
Given that Senegal plays a different style than Paraguay, the USMNT\u2019s first group stage opponent, it\u2019s best to be careful making assumptions about how one game might carry over to another.<\/p>\n
Still, a victory would certainly shift the conversation around the USMNT, and bring some confidence to a group that was deflated back in March.<\/p>\n
A Pulisic goal might do the same thing for the team\u2019s biggest public face.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, any time you get a good result it gives you a bit of confidence,\u201d Pulisic said. \u201cWe want to start the game strong and come out with a good result. I\u2019m sure we\u2019re gonna test a couple things, move some guys around. Maybe it won\u2019t look exactly as it would in [World Cup] games, but we want to use this to try to play, to put on a good performance, to get a good result.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2014 Christian Pulisic says he feels \u201cevery game\u201d that he\u2019s going to score, and it\u2019s not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,56978,3,403,99,21,19,22,20,25,47812,132455,24,84938,153412],"class_list":["post-675072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-christian-pulisic","tag-news","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-mens-national-team","tag-us-soccer","tag-usa","tag-world-cup","tag-world-cup-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}