The American Christian Pulisic, a star of the Top 75 of the World Cup? “He will come back to this point”

Entering the 2025-26 Serie A campaign, United States men’s national team star Christian Pulisic was in career form, recording 10 goals and 3 assists in his first 15 appearances for AC Milan. “You could argue that in the first half of the Serie A season he was the best player in the league,” said FOX Sports soccer analyst Alexi Lalas. However, since the start of the calendar year, Pulisic has not scored a single goal for Milan despite maintaining his place in Massimiliano Allegri’s starting lineup, and he has not scored for the United States since November 2024. Pulisic’s drastic decline in form comes at an inopportune time for the United States, who will co-host this summer’s 2026 FIFA World Cup with Pulisic as leader. The question now, with just over a month until the tournament begins, is which version of Pulisic will the United States get: the one from the first half of the European season or the one who ranked 79th in the FOX Sports rankings of the 100 best players at the World Cup. “He’s the Christian who was in the first half of the season,” said FOX Sports analyst Maurice Edu. “And I say it’s that Christian because when you look at his work, both at club and country, he’s like so many American players where he constantly has to reinvent himself and show up and prove himself every time he changes clubs, every time he’s given a different challenge. His response to everything that happened this summer with the national team is a reflection of who he really is.” Pulisic, in a controversial decision, decided not to participate in the 2025 Gold Cup, which he returned to his national team in September and had an assist in the Americans’ 2-0 victory over Japan. Since then, Pulisic has been unable to make his mark on the U.S. men’s national team, most notably in the U.S.’s two high-profile friendlies against Belgium and Portugal, in which they conceded a total of seven goals and scored just two, U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino said. “Christian Pulisic, in his time, is a top 100 player, that’s for sure,” Holden said. “I don’t know if Pochettino was referring to that moment, but like many of these players, these guys are going to have dips in form. “I feel good about him at 79.” But Holden also recognizes that there is a considerable gap between Pulisic and the elite players around the world, and it is not due to a lack of ability. “On his talent alone, Christian Pulisic is among the top 40 players in the world,” Holden said. “But what is that? What differentiates this level of players from the best, the Messis, the Ronaldos, the Mbappés, is that they don’t suffer as much from the mental aspect of the game when they go through these big drops. Their drops are smaller, but they are still very elite. Even his coach, Allegri, came out and said he’s a sensitive player, and he carries the weight of when he doesn’t score and all these different things.” [Lalas Reacts To Allegri’s Remarks: ‘Last Thing You Want to Be Called’] Pulisic has three Serie A matches remaining, plus two World Cup warm-up matches against Senegal and Germany, to get back on track ahead of the United States’ World Cup opener against Paraguay on June 12. “I’m not worried about Christian Pulisic,” Lalas added. “I think he’ll bring it. Like I said, you don’t want to be called sensitive because what people think when you’re called sensitive is that you’re soft.” “He will come back to this,” Edu added. “All it takes is this goal to open that door again and let him walk through it again and he’ll be the guy we need him to be.”