{"id":3751,"date":"2026-05-05T03:04:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T03:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=3751"},"modified":"2026-05-05T03:04:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T03:04:43","slug":"usas-christian-pulisic-a-top-75-world-cup-star-hell-get-back-to-that-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=3751","title":{"rendered":"USA&#039;s Christian Pulisic A Top-75 World Cup Star? &#039;He&#039;ll Get Back To That Point&#039;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            POPULAR SEARCHES\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            BROWSE BY\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>At the start of the 2025-26 Serie A campaign, United States men&#8217;s national team star Christian Pulisic was in the form of his career, recording 10 goals and 3 assists in his first 15 appearances for AC Milan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>&#8220;You could make the argument that in the first half of the Serie A season, he was the best player in the league,&#8221; FOX Sports soccer analyst Alexi Lalas said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>However, since the turn of the calendar year, Pulisic hasn&#8217;t logged a single goal for Milan despite maintaining his spot in Massimiliano Allegri&#8217;s starting lineup, and he hasn&#8217;t scored for the United States since November 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>Pulisic&#8217;s drastic dip in form comes at an inopportune time for the U.S., which will co-host the 2026 FIFA World Cup this summer with Pulisic as its leading man. The question now, with just over a month until the start of the tournament, is: which version of Pulisic will the U.S. get: the one from the first half of the European season or the one that came in at No. 79 in FOX Sports&#8217; ranking of the Top 100 World Cup players.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>&#8220;It\u2019s the Christian that was in the first half of the season,&#8221; FOX Sports analyst Maurice Edu argued. &#8220;And I say it\u2019s that Christian because, when you look at his body of work, both for club and country, he\u2019s like so many American players where he constantly has to reinvent himself and show up and prove himself every time he\u2019s moved clubs, every time he\u2019s been tasked with a different challenge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>&#8220;His response to everything that happened in the summer with the national team is a reflection of who he really is.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span>(Photo by Image Photo Agency\/Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>Pulisic, in a controversial decision, decided to sit out of the 2025 Gold Cup, which was the United States&#8217; final competitive international window before the World Cup. He made his national team return in September window and picked up an assist in the Americans&#8217; 2-0 win over Japan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>Since then, Pulisic hasn&#8217;t been able to leave his mark on the U.S. men&#8217;s national team, notably being held scoreless in the United States&#8217; two high-profile friendlies against Belgium and Portugal, in which they conceded a combined seven goals and only scored two.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>Following the loss to Portugal, U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino said that he thinks that his roster lacks a player in &#8220;that top 100,&#8221; which FOX Sports analyst Stu Holden doesn&#8217;t agree with.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>&#8220;Christian Pulisic, on his day, is a top-100 player, for sure,&#8221; Holden said. &#8220;I don\u2019t know if Pochettino was referencing in the moment, right now, but like a lot of these players, these guys are going to have dips in form.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>&#8220;I feel good about him at 79.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span>(Photo by Perry McIntyre\/ISI Photos\/ISI Photos via Getty Images)<\/span> <!--&gt;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>But Holden also recognizes that there is a sizable gap between Pulisic and the elite players from around the world, and not for lack of ability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>\"On talent alone, Christian Pulisic is a top-40 player in the world,\" Holden said. \"But what separates that level of player from the very, very best \u2014 the Messis, the Ronaldos, the Mbapp\u00e9s \u2014 is that they don\u2019t suffer as much from the mental aspect of the game when they go through these big dips. Their dips are smaller, but they\u2019re still very elite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>\"Even his coach, Allegri, came out and said that he\u2019s a sensitive player, and he wears the weight of when he doesn\u2019t score and all of these different things.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6><i><strong>[Lalas Reacts To Allegri's Remarks: <\/strong><\/i><i><strong>'Last Thing You Want to Be Called'<\/strong><\/i><i><strong>]<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>Pulisic has three matches left in the Serie A campaign, plus a pair of World Cup warm-up matches against Senegal and Germany, to get back on track before the United States' World Cup opener against Paraguay on June 12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>\"I\u2019m not concerned about Christian Pulisic,\" Lalas added. \"I think he\u2019s going to bring it. As I said, you don\u2019t want to be called sensitive because what people think when you\u2019re called sensitive is that you\u2019re soft.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>\"He will get back to that point,\" Edu added. \"It just takes that one goal to get that door open again and let him walk through it again and he\u2019ll be the guy that we need him to be.\"<\/p>\n\n--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY At the start of the 2025-26 Serie A campaign, United States men&#8217;s national team star Christian Pulisic was in the form of his career, recording 10 goals and 3 assists in his first 15 appearances for AC Milan. &#8220;You could make the argument that in the first half of the Serie [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}