CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2014 Relief could be seen on Christian Pulisic\u2019s face as he sidestepped goalkeeper Mory Diaw and buried a shot into the net for a first-half goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow maybe we can stop talking about it,\u201d Pulisic said later.<\/p>\n
Pulisic had a goal and an assist as he\u00a0ended a five-month scoreless streak\u00a0for club and country in a confidence-building\u00a03-2 U.S. win over Senegal\u00a0on Sunday, the Americans’ next-to-last World Cup warmup before their June 12 opener.<\/p>\n
America’s top player finished his AC Milan season scoreless in a career-high 19 club games since Dec. 28 and was without a goal eight straight U.S. matches since November 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt this confidence, like I have played really well in recent months, but all everyone seems to want to worry about is goals. so hopefully we can stop talking about it,\u201d Pulisic said. \u201cWe have games ahead and I have to be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pulisic’s goal seemed like an emotional relief, as if weight had been lifted off the shoulders of the 27-year-old.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all happy for him and we didn\u2019t doubt him for a second,\u201d said midfielder Weston McKennie, who has\u00a0known Pulisic since he was 13. \u201cPeople that don\u2019t know him may not know his abilities or what he is capable of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alex Freeeman side-footed a pass ahead of a streaking Ricardo Pepi down the right flank. Pepi ran onto the ball and took a touch, then perfectly weighted a pass into the penalty area ahead of a streaking Pulisic.<\/p>\n
Pulisic took a touch, rounded Diaw and slotted into an open net with his right foot from a tight angle for his 33rd goal in 85 international appearances.<\/p>\n
He pumped his fists downward as he ran toward toward the corner flag, He first threw a fist in the air. Then he slid to both knees and repeatedly pumped tightly-closed fists in raw emotion.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,” said Pulisic, who played just the first half. “I think you could see it my reaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino had predicted last week that the drought would come to an end in the World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe performance of Christian, for 45 minutes, was really, really good,\u201d Pochettino said. \u201cHe still has the potential to improve. But I think it is the way that he is training from day one. How way he played for 45 minutes was the habits that he created last week. Every day training with this attitude, with this commitment, with this energy. I think now we need to try to extend (it) until 90 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am happy for him also because after a long time, a few months, he scored again. Obviously, that is important for our players in the preparation to the World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pulisic said he was more excited about the outcome of the match.<\/p>\n
The United States fed off the emotion and energy of a pro-American crowd of 57,741 in soccer-crazed Charlotte, home of this summer’s Major League Soccer All-Star Game.<\/p>\n
Pulisic had a goal and assist in the same U.S. game for the eighth time. Only Landon Donovan with 13 has had more since 1995.<\/p>\n
He was key to the first goal. Pepi took a pass from Antonee Robinson, spun between Iliman Ndiaye and Abdoulaye Seck and made an incisive pass that sent Pulisic streaking alone down the left flank. Pulisic took two touches and sent a cross just outside the 6-yard box for Sergi\u00f1o Dest, who beat Diaw for third international goal.<\/p>\n
Senegal captain Sadio Man\u00e9 scored twice following American mistakes to tie the score 2-2, extending his Senegal record with 54 international goals. He took advantage ofan Antonee Robinson giveaway to beat goalkeeper Matt Turner in the 44th and tapped the ball into the net in the 52nd after Nicolas Jackson had lifted it over onrushing goalkeeper Chris Brady.<\/p>\n
Folarin Balogun scored the tiebreaking goal in the 63rd.<\/p>\n
Headed to his second World Cup, Pulisic was smiling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m feeling a little more relaxed, even more now \u2014 and confident,\u201d he said. \u201cThat’s a really good result. That’s a strong team. That’s a really good team. So I think that we can feel good about it, but there is still a lot of work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2014 Relief could be seen on Christian Pulisic\u2019s face as he sidestepped goalkeeper Mory Diaw and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-677037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677037","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=677037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}