Christian Pulisic is proper Chelsea as US media begins to turn on him

Chelsea’s Christian Pulisic is returning early from break as planned, but not before turning the US media against him. That makes him officially Chelsea.

It is a badge of honor for a Chelsea player to be criticized in the media for something ridiculous. Frank Lampard was England’s best player of the generation (that is not up for debate) but the media still found ways to hound him. John Terry did many, many things he should not have but the media was always looking for a way to burn him at the stake. And now Christian Pulisic is facing the same sort of criticism from US media.

The USMNT played an absolutely terrible match against their rivals Mexico. Pulisic was easily one of the best players and the only one who seemed capable of changing the match. Afterwards, Pulisic said the US played with fear against Mexico. Nothing too crazy to say after back to back defeats to Mexico. But US media commentator Alejandro Moreno thought differently.

Moreno is well known in the US soccer media. Formerly an MLS player, the Venezuelan has become well known for simply screaming the loudest in the room no matter what he was saying. Moreno went after Pulisic’s comments, and his leadership, in part because he felt Pulisic should be the one getting out ahead of that fear before the match.

Think that one through for a second. Pulisic is a leader on the USMNT because he is easily the nation’s best player. But how many leaders on any team in the world need to go in a locker room before a match and say “do not play with fear?”. None. That is because it is a given. No team in the world goes out onto the pitch thinking they should play scared. So to say Pulisic is not a leader because he did not instruct his team of this is ridiculous.

But really, this is just another commentary going on in the US right now around the sport. The US waited a year to hire Gregg Berhalter (formerly of the Columbus Crew) while having an interim tread water. This came after failing to make the World Cup in truly embarrassing fashion and electing the former president’s vice president to the presidency of US soccer.

It is not even that Berhalter has been bad necessarily, but he has been naive. He wants his side to play like a fully functioning Pep Guardiola Manchester City and that is simply not possible. On the other side of the match was Tata Martino for Mexico, who by all accounts should have got the US job but was never even interviewed because he does not speak English.

To put this into Premier League terms, it would be like hiring Sean Dyche in 2016 after having Guus Hiddink at interim for a year while never calling Antonio Conte because he did not speak English. Then blaming Eden Hazard for criticizing the team after a 3-0 loss rather than admit the manager just is not up to snuff.

This is not new for Pulisic either. He was once called out in a rant by another “if you scream loudest in the room you are most right” commentator in Alexi Lalas before the failure to qualify for the World Cup. Since then, the US soccer media has been bending over backwards to talk about how everything is okay and it is really those that criticize that are the problem.

Pulisic is the US’ best player. Nothing he said after the Mexico defeat was wrong. But the US soccer media will go after him anyways because that is easier than actually addressing issues in the federation. They will be quick (and have been) quick to jump on his performances for Chelsea as well despite him still being by and far the best US player.

Pulisic returns early to Chelsea as was preplanned by the USMNT. But he does so with rocks being thrown at him for the simple crime of being right. Pulisic is a leader for the US because he is one of the few willing to say the truth of the situation. And like any true Chelsea player, he will be hounded for that fact until he is forced out of the picture.