42 September 2019 FourFourTwocrowds of 81,000. Significant setbacks for this
level-headed youngster are seen as “tough”,
“disappointing” or something to learn from.
At Dortmund, Pulisic was one of very few
fully established teenagers at a major club.
He’d played 60 first-team games by the time
he turned 19. At the same age, Lionel Messi
had made only 34 Barcelona appearances;
Cristiano Ronaldo, a combined 53 for Sporting
and Manchester United.
Pulisic took everything in his stride – until he
met Messi. In 2016 the pair were chosen at
random to do a doping test in the bowels of
Houston’s vast NRG Stadium, following the
Copa America Centenario semi-final between
the USA and Argentina. Messi is a fellow
diminutive dribbling attacker with a low
centre of gravity, who played on the wing in
his teens and who loves to run at defenders –
who, in turn, love to foul him. Eventually
Pulisic wants to play centrally as a No.10.
“I had to get my phone to have a picture
taken with him,” Pulisic admits in an exclusive
interview with FourFourTwo, which takes placeC
hristian Pulisic’s life has moved
fast. He’s only 20 years old,
but already Chelsea’s new
£58 million signing from
Borussia Dortmund – the
most expensive American
footballer of all time – is
a record-breaker hailed
as the man who will be
America’s first global soccer
superstar. He’s the youngest
player to score for and captain
his country; the youngest
foreigner to score in the
Bundesliga and play
Champions League football for Dortmund. He
talks about these milestones in the way other
teenagers discuss classes they’ve attended.
This attitude has helped Pulisic to get where
he is today. He wasn’t fazed by playing with
the bigger boys as a kid, nor by moving around
so frequently that he “didn’t really do high
school”, nor by working under six managers in
five years in front of football’s highest averageCHRISTIAn
PULISICin his Chicago hotel before USA’s Gold Cup
final against Mexico. “We couldn’t really
communicate, but he was really nice about
the whole thing. He probably gets it a lot.”
Messi, like many of the world’s greatest ever
footballers, is a barrio kid; a street footballer
from a working-class background. Pulisic is
different: a slice of the American dream, but
with the success that has eluded even their
finest soccer players.
The world’s richest country has yet to
produce a truly world-class footballer, with
Landon Donovan the most lauded so far, but
Pulisic is looking like he could be that man.
Earlier this year he was runner-up to Kylian
Mbappe in the inaugural Kopa trophy for
under-21s. It was awarded during the
Ballon d’Or ceremony and voted for by the
previous 33 Ballon d’Or winners. Justin Kluivert
came third. Trent Alexander-Arnold was sixth. Pulisic’s story reads like a childhood fantasy.
“I lived next to a theme park by the chocolate
factory,” he says in measured, softly-spokenAbove Pulisic has
played 22 Champions
League ties, marking
him out among the
Chelsea young guns
Right Starring in the
USA Under-17s’ 5-1
thrashing of England
in November 2014