Christian Pulisic is now debate bait, but past USMNT coaches have a unified take

New York Times

15 hours ago

In the months since Christian Pulisic riled American soccer, as he and his father sparred with former players after he skipped the Gold Cup and controversy swirled, his former U.S. men's national coaches heard noise, lots of noise, that they didn't understand.
They listened to fans and pundits questioning Pulisic's commitment to the USMNT. They saw a 'Captain America' and face of the program become a polarizing figure, certainly more polarizing than ever before.
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And in interviews with The Athletic last week, they pushed back.
'I really think it's nonsense, some of the stuff that was said this summer,' Gregg Berhalter, who coached the national team from 2019 to 2024, said. 'Because I know him, and I know how much he cares for it. I know that he would never ask for a break unless he absolutely needed it.'
Jurgen Klinsmann, Pulisic's first USMNT coach, also said he understood the player's desire to rest and recharge, with the 2026 World Cup looming.
'A lot of American media were negative about it, but they didn't look at the bigger picture,' Klinsmann said. 'And the interesting discussion, obviously, was that former players and pundits were very critical, but they did exactly the same thing in their careers.'
Bruce Arena, who succeeded Klinsmann, made a similar point. In 2017, he selected his Gold Cup squad almost entirely from MLS and Liga MX, giving every European-based USMNT regular that summer off.
'They're making this big stink about (Pulisic) not coming in,' Arena said of the 2025 discourse. 'We kept the entire group of European players away, because they were fatigued, and they needed a break. … So, for Christian to take a beating on that, I think, was unfair.
'This whole thing, I kinda find to be a little bit comical.'
It was comical but fierce, and it got to Pulisic.
Prior to 2025, his patriotic zeal had been a cornerstone of his personal brand. 'I feel like I've given so much to this team and, truly, no one wants it more than me,' Pulisic said last June. 'I promise you that.'
So he was taken aback by the storm that erupted this spring. When he opted out of the Gold Cup, a biennial regional tournament, he was miffed that supporters, including USMNT legends he once idolized, led a wave of blowback.
'To question my commitment, especially towards the national team, in my opinion, that's way out of line,' Pulisic said on a CBS Sports podcast. He bemoaned those who 'forget real fast the successes that you've had.'
What he might have miscalculated, though, was that his new USMNT coach had nothing to forget or remember.
Pulisic built equity with Klinsmann, Arena, Berhalter and their assistants. When Mauricio Pochettino took charge last fall, he did not fly to Italy to meet with Pulisic, nor call the AC Milan star to chat about leadership. He wanted to give all American players equal opportunity to impress him. 'What I like,' Pochettino said in October, 'is to discover.' He spoke about needing to 'feel' his new players, and 'what we want to feel from them is their commitment, their personality, their character, their capacity to adapt to a new era, a new way to approach the games,' he said.
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Previous coaches felt that from Pulisic. It's unclear whether Pochettino has. Their public back-and-forth in June — Pulisic said he 'didn't understand' Pochettino's rejection of his request to play in the two pre-Gold Cup friendlies; Pochettino responded: 'I am not a mannequin' — raised questions about Pulisic's once-ironclad place in the USMNT.
And it left a fanbase conflicted, feeding on the drama, debating Pulisic like never before.
Pulisic heard the discourse, and, in a recent episode of his 'Pulisic' docuseries, countered: 'Everyone has had their opinion on me and, in my opinion, disrespected me in a lot of ways, and just completely forgotten about what I've done for this national team for 10 years.'
There's a narrative that emerged amid the USMNT's 2024-25 malaise that the so-called golden generation didn't earn it; that the group of players ushered into the national team after their elders failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup won opportunities with reputation and potential, rather than on the field. As a result, critics say, they're too entitled.
Pulisic, though, did earn it. At 17, he jetted from his German club Borussia Dortmund to Columbus, Ohio, into a national team of hardened vets such as Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley. And 'you quickly, quickly realized: 'OK, yeah, this kid has something,'' says Matt Besler, a defender on that team.
Off the field, his former teammates and coaches say, Pulisic was 'quiet' and 'respectful,' wide-eyed and observant. On the field, midfielder Kyle Beckerman recalls, he was 'fearless.' In training, he would skin defenders nearly twice his size and age. They had tuned out the hype attached to his name — 'when you come into the national team camp, none of that really matters,' Besler explains — but 'it didn't take very long for people to understand: 'Hey, you've gotta give this guy the respect he deserves on the field,'' Besler says.
By the fall of 2016, soon after turning 18, Pulisic had become a USMNT regular. Arena, after replacing Klinsmann at the helm, flew to Germany to meet him. Dave Sarachan, a longtime Arena assistant, remembers Pulisic being 'very Landon [Donovan]-like' in their first training sessions of 2017. 'His technical ability, and quickness, and pace,' Sarachan says, 'immediately struck you that he belongs here.'
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What Arena and Sarachan remember most vividly, however, are the tears that gushed from Pulisic after the USMNT lost in Couva, Trinidad. He had scored the lone U.S. goal of a decisive World Cup qualifier, and 'he was the best player on the field for us,' Arena says. 'If we had other players that stepped up like Christian did at his age, we would not have lost that game.' But they did lose it, 2-1, and fell short of reaching that 2018 World Cup in Russia. 'It crushed him,' Arena recalls. In the locker room afterward, Pulisic 'was in a state of shock,' Sarachan says. 'He was kinda uncontrollable.'
'So,' Arena continues, 'when I hear 'his lack of commitment,' and all of that — I don't buy into that. I think it's misinterpreted.'
Sarachan's reading of the memory, and of Pulisic's anguish, was and is: 'This really meant something for him.'
When Sarachan took charge of the USMNT after Arena resigned post-Couva, he, too, flew to Germany for a Dortmund game and dinner with Pulisic. At that table, they sketched out the rest of the 2017-18 calendar and spoke about which national-team camps Pulisic would attend. He stayed in Dortmund, far away from friendlies against Portugal and Paraguay, in the November and following March. 'I love coming into national-team camps,' a 19-year-old Pulisic later said, 'but … I have to make the right decisions, and keep myself fresh.'
When Pulisic did finally grace a Sarachan camp, 'he put club first,' Sarachan recalls. He was the last of 22 players to arrive (after fulfilling obligations to Dortmund and sponsors elsewhere). He was among the first to depart (before two U.S. friendlies in Europe). His performance in a friendly against Bolivia, Pulisic's only USMNT game between October 2017 and November 2018, 'was a little bit of a token appearance,' Sarachan recalls. At halftime, the interim coach approached Pulisic and said: 'It would be nice if you were sweating.' Pulisic, Sarachan recalls, half-smiled.
Sarachan, though, didn't blame Pulisic for prioritizing himself. For the national team, 'that was a dead year, in many ways,' he says.
Instead, he sensed the same thing he senses now. 'We know Christian. And I know his love for his country and his team,' Sarachan says. 'And he'll be there when it counts. He'll be there when it counts.'
Berhalter sensed something similar when he, too, flew to Germany and sat down with Pulisic shortly after getting the USMNT job in December 2018. They dined at an Italian restaurant, and Pulisic, Berhalter recalls, was initially 'guarded' and 'skeptical.'
But 'what I gathered most from the conversation,' Berhalter says, 'and that led to be true throughout my tenure, is how much he cares, and how much he wants to be successful with the national team.'
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His caring took many forms. And in the early days, his relationship with Berhalter 'wasn't always smooth sailing,' the coach recalls. 'There were definitely some rocky moments.' On Oct. 15, 2019, in Toronto, Berhalter subbed him out of a 0-0 game against Canada. Pulisic complained and expressed frustration. Berhalter approached his star in the locker room after and explained: 'We weren't happy with his performance. … We made this decision based on what we thought was best for the team.'
Pulisic, Berhalter recalls, 'was really upset.' But he grew to appreciate a coach who challenged him and delivered honest feedback. After scoring his first goal under Berhalter, then hurting his right thigh in a March 2019 friendly against Chile, Pulisic went to a nearby hospital for scans. When he returned late at night, Berhalter called him down to an office and broached a possible reason for the spate of niggling injuries: 'Look, maybe you need to train harder. You need to train more like you play.'
Pulisic's initial thought was: 'Who's this guy to tell me this?'
But, Pulisic recalled in 2023, 'that's a moment that stuck with me for a long time.'
He began to train with game-like intensity. And by 2022, his injury troubles abated. They'd been the primary source of his inconsistency, a reason for 'discrepancies with his performance,' as Berhalter says. Once he learned to preempt them, he became the USMNT's most reliable player.
'We could count on at least an 8-out-of-10 performance from him every game,' Berhalter says. 'It got to a point where people knew: 'OK, this guy's gonna show up.''
He showed up that winter in Qatar, at his first World Cup. He scored arguably the most important USMNT goal of the past decade, and injured his pelvis in the process.
He also showed up when the spotlights dimmed and most of America forgot about him.
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'I'm amazed by Christian,' interim coach Anthony Hudson said after a March 2023 win in Grenada. 'Not only is he a talented player but, I can assure you, he just absolutely loves playing for his country. … [He's] such a big player, playing at a big club, a huge value on him, and we go to places like this, and he has no problem giving absolutely everything he has. He is an inspiration for the rest of the group.'
From that point forward, under interim coaches and Berhalter, Pulisic was the captain. There was never a formal declaration, but in every game he started, except one, he wore the armband. He was the player coaches turned to for pregame wisdom. He had become, in Berhalter's words, 'an authentic leader.' When he spoke, teammate Tyler Adams said last year, 'people look at him, people listen. And people want to follow him.'
So, when Berhalter was fired and Pochettino hired, a journalist asked the new boss: 'How much will you lean on leaders in the squad like a Christian Pulisic as you start your first camp? What will the leadership structure be?'
In his two-minute answer, Pochettino never named Pulisic, nor any other individual.
'I am a coach, and we are a coaching staff, who love to give the possibility to everyone,' Pochettino said. '… Different coaching staffs have different experiences with the player. And for me, the most important thing is to live the experience with them, see them, and see how they behave and how they act.'
Pochettino has since praised Pulisic individually. Last October, he called him a 'fantastic player' and 'one of the best offensive players in the world.' But his last two experiences with the AC Milan star this spring were, first, a March loss to Canada in which Pulisic appeared to wave away a substitution; and then a May call during which the player explained his desire to skip the Gold Cup.
Pochettino, speaking publicly in May, called it 'the best decision' for everyone, keeping in mind that 'the principal objective is the World Cup.' But he didn't seem particularly happy about it.
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Then, after Pulisic's podcast appearance, he pushed back on the idea that a player could choose when to appear for their national team. He also challenged the premise that Pulisic is the USMNT's top talent. 'You say he's the best player. Yes, he's a good player, of course. But he needs to perform,' Pochettino said on the eve of the Gold Cup. 'Because I'm going to judge him like [any other player].'
That, Pochettino and players have said, has been a theme ever since the Argentine coach arrived. His message, defender Walker Zimmerman said in June, has been: 'I don't care where you play, I care what you do. It's when you show up here, how you perform, and I'm going to evaluate you on that.'
Pulisic showed up for three games in the fall. But he struggled in two and has missed eight so far this year. His absence, and every subsequent comment, stoked a saga that will return to the fore next week when Pochettino names his roster for September's home friendlies against South Korea and Japan.
The force of the backlash likely 'surprised' Pulisic, Sarachan says. Pulisic himself, speaking in his docuseries about the criticism from former players, was more blunt: 'It sucks.'
He also reiterated a point he'll hope to back up over the next 11 months. 'Come after my performance, whatever you want to say, but to talk about my commitment, the commitment that I've given to this game, that I've given to my national team for 10 years — that's the only thing that starts to get on my nerves,' Pulisic said. 'But to be honest, it just fuels me to get back on the field, and shut everyone up, and show everyone what I'm about.'
Sebastian Stafford-Bloor contributed reporting to this story.
(Top illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Dylan Buell / Getty Images)
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