The AC Milan and U.S. midfielder is injury prone, and needs time to rest and recover for a program obsessed with success in 2026
Christian Pulisic doesn't care about your feelings. He doesn't care about the United States. "Captain America" is anti-American, a Croatian born in Philadelphia who spent his best footballing years in Germany. He hates the badge, the shirt he has worn 78 times, and everything it stands for.
Pulisic doesn't . He doesn't understand American exceptionalism, the will to win. He won't pull himself up by his bootstraps. When the going gets tough, Pulisic accepts it. He is comfortable in defeat, and can live with the fact that he might not win every single game of football ever. Pulisic is a quitter who is willfully giving up on his country.
Or so we have been told.
Last week, the USMNT star revealed that he would not be playing in the Gold Cup. The attacking midfielder, arguably the best player in the U.S.'s history, has elected to take the summer off. There has been subsequent talk about recurring injuries. Pulisic supposedly has a hip flexor problem. He still hasn't recovered from a few knocks sustained over the course of the season.
And, predictably, the former USMNT star-turned-pundit contingent exploded. Pulisic is in the wrong, the talking heads insisted. Bad look for Pulisic. He is the leader of the U.S. squad, and should behave as such. Former USMNT star Alexi Lalas opined, "People are actually looking at this team and saying 'Why should I care if what you are doing leads me to believe that you don't care?' How the hell did we get here?!!”
But the truth is, Pulisic is absolutely doing the right thing – both for himself and for the USMNT at large.
The Gold Cup's value is decreasing year-on-year. At this point, it's more or less meaningless. And for a footballer who can't stay fit at the best of times, a summer off is not only preferable, but also entirely necessary – especially if he is to perform to expectations at a home World Cup just more than a year away.
Getty Images SportToo. Much. Soccer.
It is hardly a revolutionary thought to suggest that footballers are asked to play too much. Leagues and federations seem to throw extra fixtures into the calendar pretty much when they feel like it these days. Outside of the usual Serie A duties and Coppa Italia obligations, Pulisic played in an extended version of the Champions League and tinpot Supercoppa Italiana mini-tournament this season.
Had his team been slightly more successful over the past few years, he would also be expected to play in the Club World Cup (something Gio Reyna, Tim Weah and Weston McKennie are participating in for their respective clubs.)
Pulisic played 3,650 minutes of soccer this year for Milan alone across four competitions. He made 50 appearances, 43 of them starts, including Saturday's season-ending win for Milan. At 26, he has amassed nearly 25,000 minutes. That wouldn't be so bad if Pulisic wasn't already maddeningly injury prone. He has played nine seasons as a regular starter in top-level football, and never managed a full campaign without picking up some sort of injury.
Want to know why his numbers look so good this year? Natural improvement plays a role, but Pulisic simply missed fewer games. Since 2020, he has injured his Achilles tendon, calf (three times), thigh, knee, ankle, hamstring and hip flexor – and those are only the knocks that have been made public. There is virtually no part of Pulisic's body that has not, at some point, forced him to sit out.
The fact that he played last weekend for Milan – just days after saying he would skip the Gold Cup – doesn't look great, optically. But the club have jurisdiction here. And let's face it, Pulisic wants – needs – a summer off, and one more club game didn't really matter.
AdvertisementGetty ImagesThe necessity of load management
It is not uncommon in other American sports – the NBA, for example – for players to sit out. Basketball fans may be angry about "load management" and star players missing back-to- back games, but it's also imperative for long-term health. Lebron James – ironically, the man Pulisic is wrongfully compared to – cannot play an 82-game season anymore. He last did so for Cleveland in 2017-18, and has averaged 59 regular-seasons a game in seven seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers.
The same approach in increasingly happening in soccer on both sides of the Atlantic. Inter Miami have made a point of not risking Lionel Messi when he has a knock. Fans were furious last year when he skipped a game against the Vancouver Whitecaps, but it was important the legendary Argentine save his legs for the playoffs (although that didn't work out too well.)
The same routinely happens with older players in the Premier League. In the twilight of his Man City career, Kevin De Bruyne became a bit-part super sub for Pep Guardiola's side. The same can be said for Luka Modric, who made 57 appearances for Real Madrid as a 39 year old, but started back-to-back games just three times – despite Los Blancos suffering from a crippling midfield injury crisis.
This is becoming standard practice now in all sports. Not needed? Don't play.
Getty Images SportDoes the Gold Cup matter anyway?
There's a chance for silverware here, and a USMNT without Pulisic is significantly less likely to win a trophy than one with him. Get your star player in a team, and you have more of a chance to win football matches. Duh. Of course, the implicit argument in Pulisic's decision to sit out is the devaluation of the Gold Cup.
And on the face of it, that doesn't look very good.
This is America, and Americans want to win everything. Historically, the Gold Cup was a fine measure of relative talent in CONCACAF. Brazil and Colombia have also competed in it. But mostly, it was a bragging rights between the U.S. and Mexico. Win this, and you're the best side in the confederation. There's something to be said for that.
Increasingly, though, this seems to be a competition that only matters if you win it, and has been trending that way for a while. European stars have routinely missed opening fixtures before participating in the latter stages. Gyasi effing Zardes was playing in this thing in 2019.
In 2023, a summer after a solid performance at the 2022 World Cup, and a year before a home Copa America, the USMNT picked a squad that featured mostly MLS and Liga MX players. Pulisic didn't play – and in fact, hasn't featured in the Gold Cup since 2019.
McKennie, Reyna and Weah were also handed the summer off. That team topped their group, outscored opponents 13-1 before the knockouts, and lost to Panama in the semifinals (a team that increasingly knows how to beat the U.S., it seems).
Every window since, though, has served as proof that the CONCACAF Nations League means more. For one, there is World Cup qualifying and FIFA coefficients on the line with Nations League success. These are admittedly fine margins for the USMNT, who have already qualified for 2026 as hosts, but those games have more of a long term impact on the side's success.
The Nations League finals loss to Panama (again) in March led to the collapse of the American soccer psyche – a remarkable overreaction if those games didn't matter as much as the Gold Cup.
Getty Images SportPochettino's misguided promise
In a strange way, the manager is partially to blame here. Mauricio Pochettino, to his credit, has really pushed the whole "U.S. better than everyone" vibe. He understands it. That's the kind of talk that people want to hear. "We are the USA," he says about 5,000 times per news conference. Nobody really knows what it means, but it gets the people going.
But there's a disconnect between his squad selection, the players made available to him, and what he's saying. Thus far, the manager has rotated reasonably heavily, bringing in new faces when possible, chopping and changing as he chooses.
The result is a unit that has never quite looked cohesive, a load of fringe guys who are likely not going to be in the picture by the 2026 World Cup. Want to promise a World Cup quarterfinal? Stop acting like Brian White is your No. 9.
This, of course, is something of a contradiction. Pochettino can't really win either way. A criticism of this team has long been that the players are too comfortable, too used to having their spots guaranteed. There's no threat of rotation, no fire lit under them, we are told. But the backups, the other guys, aren't quite good enough.
For all of the nice noises about Tanner Tessmann – a fringe player at Lyon – it is entirely likely that the USMNT will start the same midfield in the 2026 World Cup that it did in 2022.
The issue is, Pochettino can't have it both ways. The manager cannot promise victory and also pick reserves. If every game is so vitally important, why is there such a strong MLS contingent – 17 players – in this camp? Why is McKennie not dragged away from Juve, or Reyna brought in from a Dortmund team he is destined to leave, Club World Cup or not?
Pulisic is, of course, the star man here. And yes, he holds the cards when it comes to his legs. But the perception isn't helped by his manager's words. Need to rotate and find the right balance by 2026? Say it. Temper expectations. Tell us that there might be some fresh faces, or new chances.
There is a way to acknowledge that they are going to to win without guaranteeing victory (also, let's be honest, if you can't beat Haiti, Trinidad and Saudi Arabia with a collection of MLS stars, that probably says more about the state of American soccer than one guy's legs).
