No U.S. men’s national team fan needs the reminder—especially not this week—but sometimes to get to where you want to go, you need to look back at where you’ve come from.
For Christian Pulisic, the images of his face buried in his shirt upon the devastation of the U.S.’s failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup were brutal then and remain so now. Here was a 19-year-old playing a bigger role than should have been necessary coming to grips with utter humiliation—at no fault of his own—following the infamous defeat in Trinidad & Tobago that sealed the U.S.’s fate.
Pulisic was the lone U.S. player to score in Couva in October 2017, and he’s one of the few remaining holdovers linking back to that group. He has gone on to win U.S. Soccer’s Male Player of the Year award three times since. For all of the U.S. talent sprouting up at top clubs in Europe, he remains the standard bearer for his rising generation. He’s a Champions League winner who has excelled in spurts at two of the biggest clubs and in two of the biggest leagues on the planet, and he’s still just 23. He’s more than held his own in the face of extreme hype. But while there have been times for others to step up throughout ’22 World Cup qualifying, the U.S. truly needs Pulisic to be its closer over the final three matches.
