After playing a key role in his son’s rapid ascent, the father of American soccer’s would-be savior has resumed a deferred passionBlending into the background doesn’t seem to bother Mark Pulisic one bit. It was true last year while tucked away on the southern shores of Lake Ontario in Rochester, upstate New York. And it’s equally the case this year further south on the banks of the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Where it counts most, Mark has been the ultimate background figure for some time: as father to 19-year-old US soccer phenom and Borussia Dortmund attacker Christian Pulisic. Omnipresent as his young teen navigated the brisk transition from ordinary schoolboy to an entire country’s next great hope of world-classdom,...
A former technical director for the Premier League may just have the answer to US Soccer’s perpetual youth development bugaboo If the USA were to ever win a World Cup, there would be a long roll of people to thank. But this week another name was quietly added to that notional list:Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. Related: Christian Pulisic has succeeded in spite of American soccer, not because of it Continue reading...
The rise of maybe the best American soccer player ever, who’s been linked to Liverpool and Manchester United, doesn’t square with US Soccer’s problemsChristian Pulisic is already at one of the biggest soccer clubs in Europe. Borussia Dortmund are perennial Bundesliga challengers, consistent performers at Champions League level and average crowds of just under 80,000 fans per game, but still, this is only viewed as a rung on the young American’s ladder to the top. That says a lot about what is expected of Pulisic. He is a superstar in-waiting. Related: Arsenal will not sell Alexis Sánchez without a replacement, says Wenger Continue reading...
We need to figure out how to provide a strong education for players in the US, and it begins with continuing to grow our soccer cultureThe question Christian Pulisic tried to answer in his Players’ Tribune article this week is the million dollar one: how do you grow more Pulisics? This is not a new question. We’ve asked ourselves the same question about the Perezes, Hamms, Ramoses, Akerses, Reynas and Donovans. We’ve been producing great players in the US for decades – including Pulisic and several other promising young players we watched debut against Portugal on Tuesday night. But we haven’t been doing it at the rate that can make us a consistent world power on the men’s side.I commend...
A younger United States team with eyes firmly fixed on the future emerged from the ashes of a thwarted World Cup campaign on Tuesday night in PortugalWorld Cup cycles normally end with the World Cup finals and only then begin anew. But after a disastrous qualification campaign, the theme for the evening in Leiria, Portugal was that the new cycle for the United States started on Tuesday with a 1-1 draw against the European champions. “To get that kind of result against that kind of team is huge,” right back DeAndre Yedlin said in the immediate aftermath. “Obviously the feeling of not making the World Cup is not going to leave, but it’s something that makes it a little bit...