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<\/p>\nIf you walk around Times Square and stand in the glow of the commercials flashing all around, it\u2019s possible to succumb to a delusion that the USMNT is still in the World Cup.<\/p>\n
Blown up and out of all proportion, Christian Pulisic intermittently looms over the crowds. He is reaching for the World Cup. Panglossian ads have not been pulled after the USMNT\u2019s exit against Belgium. Turn on FOX and Pulisic keeps scoring from a corner kick in an imaginary final against Brazil. Archive footage of him either standing over a penalty or a free kick in real life is spliced together to make it look genuine. His AI-generated right foot then curls in the unlikeliest of goals. It\u2019s a thin line between manifest destiny and a strain of derangement syndrome.<\/p>\n
In Fantasyland, Kurt Andersen\u2019s 500-year history of the United States, he makes the argument that religion, entertainment culture, internet fragmentation and market-driven media incentives have all created an environment where fantasy and reality become difficult to distinguish. Perhaps an updated version will have a chapter on the USMNT and the 2026 World Cup. After the Bosnia & Herzegovina game, FOX\u2019s pundits got carried away.<\/p>\n
Landon Donovan didn\u2019t see why the USMNT couldn\u2019t go all the way. When the presenter Rebecca Lowe asked Zlatan Ibrahimovic if they could win it, Ibrahimovic, a senior advisor to the executive team of Pulisic\u2019s club, AC Milan, replied: \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Pulisic reaches out for the World Cup in Times Square, an advert that has continued to run since the U.S. exited the tournament (Getty Images)<\/p>\n
In the end, the 16th-ranked team in the world left the competition in the round of 16. \u201cWhy not us?\u201d turned to \u201cWhy never us?\u201d A miracle did not happen. Marvel superheroes did not emerge. Captain America got injured. It calls to mind yet another commercial, one that has Pulisic in a hotel lobby where he improbably joins forces with Lionel Messi. They appear on the same side, only it\u2019s Pulisic, not Messi, who scores the winner. But here\u2019s the thing: Pulisic is not quite the player he is marketed as. He would not share the same set as Messi without being American in the lead-up to a World Cup in North America. Talented though he undoubtedly is, he cannot win games by himself. The players who can \u2014 Messi, Kylian Mbappe \u2014 remain in the tournament. He has been held to a standard set by ad executives rather than his own very good \u2014 but not great \u2014 ability. Pundits lose sight of this.<\/p>\n
The marketing has given a false impression. Pulisic has benefited from it, of that there can be no doubt. Since his teenage years, he has been seized upon in the much the same way Freddy Adu once was as the American face of the global game. Except Pulisic actually had the bona fides. He has played for Dortmund, Chelsea and Milan. He was part of a Champions League-winning team. Doing that downstream of the 1994 World Cup, MLS\u2019s inauguration and David Beckham\u2019s efforts to make the U.S. embrace soccer<\/a> laid the foundation not only for a player like Pulisic to emerge, but to monetise like no other player in American soccer player in history.<\/p>\n His endorsements deal must be the envy of some of his critics among ex-USMNT players. The cost to Pulisic comes in expectation management. How do you live up to this hype? Unless your career gets a second wind and goes to another level, at 27, you can\u2019t. It is, in part, why disappointment in Pulisic plumbed new depths since Belgium shattered the American dream of a run to the quarter-finals and beyond.<\/p>\n The team as a whole looked overawed by the occasion. The controversy surrounding the suspension of Folarin Balogun\u2019s red card<\/a> clearly affected preparation. Belgium\u2019s unexpected line-up without Romelu Lukaku, Kevin De Bruyne and Jeremy Doku also seemed to confuse the players and, at the end of the day, the U.S. lost 4-1 to a team that beat them 5-2 in March.<\/p>\n Who do you scapegoat? President Donald Trump? US Soccer? Matt Freese<\/a>? Minds were made up by a post-match interview rather than an actual performance. When Pulisic talked through his injury-enforced substitution with FOX\u2019s Jenny Taft, he said: \u201cI mean, I just twisted my ankle and sprained my ankle. It\u2019s just frustrating to end like that, of course. And now I get time to rest, so it\u2019ll be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n \n The Athletic revealed that Pulisic suffered a microfracture in a challenge with Youri Tielemans (Photo: Carl Recine\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n The line did more damage than the contact with Youri Tielemans that caused him to go off at a time when his team was in need of the kind of World Cup comeback other players have been able to inspire in this tournament. \u201cYou would have had to drag me off the field,\u201d Donovan said. His FOX colleague, the two-time World Cup winner Carli Lloyd, posted on X: \u201cYou rest when your playing career is over. Period.\u201d<\/p>\n It was over the top. But an impression has formed: Part-Time Pulisic. Pick\u2019em Pulisic. He plays when he wants. Neymar had a similar reputation at PSG. But is it fair? Pulisic was on crutches in the team hotel the day after the USMNT\u2019s elimination. As first reported<\/a> by The Athletic, he suffered a microfracture in his right leg and did so attempting a shot to get his team back into the game. The injury would have ruled him out of the rest of the World Cup if the US had progressed and met Spain in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n When the news broke, remarkably, some people doubted it. It didn\u2019t seem to matter that it was confirmed by Milan and US Soccer. In light of the full facts, some felt Pulisic\u2019s critics should say sorry. Hadn\u2019t the ex-players become everything they used to hate themselves in their own playing days? Sensationalist talking heads, stepping out of their cleats to make clickbait?<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t owe anyone an apology,\u201d Lloyd posted<\/a>. \u201cMy comment wasn\u2019t about his post-game interview. He skipped Gold Cup last summer because he wanted to rest and be ready for WC. He ended up resting the whole year. That\u2019s the facts. Nothing personal against him.\u201d<\/p>\n How Pulisic handled that decision a year ago has come back to haunt him. He didn\u2019t get out in front of the story of his withdrawal. By the time he did, it was too late and he misspoke as he did after Belgium, revealing he would actually have played the friendlies preceding the Gold Cup, just not the Gold Cup itself because: \u201cI was starting to think what is best and what is going to be best for me going into next year and going into the World Cup and was that to play eight more games and then get no rest at all, go straight into preseason and then grind another year and then go straight into the World Cup? That\u2019s not what I felt was best for my body.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Pulisic was heavily criticised after the U.S. exited the World Cup (Getty Images)<\/p>\n None of this detracted from his love for the national team, but it did reduce sympathy for him. In soccer, they talk a lot about rest defence. It\u2019s about using the ball to take a breather. Your opponent then has to chase after it. They tire out. Pulisic needs to learn to do the same with the microphone. Ultimately, rest is no defence in his own personal comms strategy and crisis management. His past year has been weaponised against him. You\u2019ll have heard the stat. It\u2019s become a go-to for Taylor Twellman and Nick Wright. How Pulisic scored only once between January 1 and the start of USMNT\u2019s training camp for the World Cup.<\/p>\n Pulisic\u2019s form in the first half of the season in Milan was unsustainable. He averaged a goal or an assist every 65 minutes, deciding big games against champions Napoli and their successors Inter. However, he couldn\u2019t always start and didn\u2019t always play 90 minutes, even in a season when Milan were without European football. In the second half of the campaign, he was afflicted by bursitis. Most of all, he struggled with Milan\u2019s style of play under Max Allegri. It was low-block suffer-ball and, after over-performing up to Christmas, Milan not only regressed to the mean, they collapsed through it, going from title contenders to falling out of the top four on the final day of the season.<\/p>\n Some of the responsibility, naturally, fell on the players. Milan\u2019s owner, Gerry Cardinale, found fault with everything. The day after the season ended, he took drastic action, dismissing chief executive Giorgio Furlani, sporting director Igli Tare, technical director Geoff Moncada and Allegri. That\u2019s the environment in which Pulisic prepared for the World Cup. Once his rest is over, he will, of course, return to Milan. He is expected to be out for several weeks as he recovers from the microfracture sustained in Seattle.<\/p>\n It raises the question: what does Pulisic\u2019s career look like after the World Cup in the US? He in effect has two years left on his contract with Milan, as the club retains the option, at the end of this coming season, to roll it over for another year. Should he stay? Milan have been through four coaches in Pulisic\u2019s time at the club. They have failed to qualify for the Champions League in back-to-back years. During his time at Dortmund or Chelsea, he never missed out on the competition. The inability to replace Olivier Giroud when he departed for LAFC at the end of Pulisic\u2019s first season has been a problem.<\/p>\n \n Pulisic celebrates scoring for Milan in December before his drought (Photo: Piero CRUCIATTI \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Divock Origi disappeared and retired soon after leaving Milan. Vast amounts of money \u2014 around \u20ac85m (or $97m) \u2014 have been wasted on Santi Gimenez, Alvaro Morata and Christopher Nkunku. Last season, it led Allegri to play Pulisic and Rafa Leao as a pair of counter-attacking strikers. They were out of position and often a long, long way from goal. It was only enjoyable when they were winning.<\/p>\n At the end of the season, Leao announced his intention to leave. \u201cI\u2019d like to try a new challenge in a new league,\u201d he told<\/a> SportTV. Pulisic has kept his counsel, although The Athletic understands, through people familiar with the situation, that he will wait and see before renewing his contract. Since he joined Milan, only Inter\u2019s strike partnership of Lautaro Martinez and Marcus Thuram have combined, individually, for more goals and assists (52 in 100 appearances) than the American. He is not the club\u2019s highest earner. Leao and Nkunku make more without the same output. Nkunku, in particular, had a very disappointing first season at San Siro.<\/p>\n If there are reservations about Milan\u2019s project, Cardinale has creditably sought to resolve them this summer. Earlier this week, in his first press conference since acquiring the club in 2022, he admitted: \u201cI\u2019ve been hands-off in my ownership, so the wake-up call for everybody is: those days are over.\u201d<\/p>\n He personally led the restructuring process, making Milan his No 1 priority, flying to Germany, Austria, Portugal and the UK to meet candidates for various roles. Allegri\u2019s replacement, Ruben Amorim, is his man, his choice. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to play, not to lose,\u201d Cardinale said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to play to win, which means we\u2019re going to look at a football style that meets that objective, and that is a high press, high possession, attacking style of football. It\u2019ll be\u00a0exciting football. It\u2019ll be fun to watch, and it\u2019ll be high-scoring.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Amorim wants Pulisic to stay in Milan (Photo: Piero CRUCIATTI \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n This should be music to Pulisic\u2019s ears. Cardinale and Amorim want him to be a part of Milan\u2019s future. They believe the project should have renewed appeal to him. \u201cHe is perfect for the way I think about football,\u201d Amorim said. \u201cEspecially here in Italy, where sometimes the teams defend so well there is less space between the lines, he is a player who can make the difference in that kind of space.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Pulisic won\u2019t be expected to play striker any more either. The Athletic broke the story that Milan agreed a club-record fee with PSG for Goncalo Ramos<\/a> and understands Amorim was in touch with Pulisic, as he was with all his new players, during the World Cup.<\/p>\n If Pulisic hesitates before committing to a new deal, he will have to back himself and deliver. In the grand scheme of things, the name most people will remember from the USMNT\u2019s World Cup will, for better and worse, be Balogun, not Pulisic.<\/p>\n Twenty-eight in September, Pulisic\u2019s next contract will perhaps be the last of his prime. As productive as he has been for Milan, it is worth remembering he was 12th in minutes across all competitions last season. As such, Pulisic needs, once again, to prove people wrong and show what he\u2019s worth if he is to attract a contract offer in line with his own expectations or, alternatively, generate interest from clubs competing in the Champions League. The ambition to play in that competition again makes leaving for MLS unlikely in the short term. A soft approach from New York City FC<\/a>, raised at ownership level, never led anywhere, as Cardinale\u2019s desire is to keep the player.<\/p>\n The rest is up to Pulisic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you walk around Times Square and stand in the glow of the commercials flashing all around, it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[119362,10535,113962,6090,1084,34640,403,99,1794,47812],"class_list":["post-758759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-associazione-calcio-milan","tag-champions-league","tag-fifa-mens-world-cup","tag-international-football","tag-premier-league","tag-serie-a","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-sports-business","tag-us-mens-national-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758759","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=758759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2284972211-1-scaled-e1783793161293.jpg\")
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