by Christian Pulisic is still half a century too young to serve in the US Senate, but no such age restrictions apply to the Italian sports lexicon. As Milan prepared to face Newcastle in a Champions League group game last month, the Gazzetta dello Sport named him along with Olivier Giroud as the two players their team-mates would look to for leadership . “Milan must trust experience,” wrote the journalist Marco Passotto, “she must trust her senators.”
At the age of 25, Pulisic is 12 years Giroud’s junior. But he had already made 53 Champions League appearances – just 13 less than the Frenchman, and 18 more than any Newcastle player.
It’s one of the reasons why Milan wanted Pulisic in the first place. When the club returned to the Champions League after a seven-year absence in 2021, it did so with a brand new European team. More than half of the starting XI for Milan’s tournament opener against Liverpool back then had never played a Champions League game. No one could better Simon Kjær’s seven games in the tournament.
For Milan supporters, Anfield that night felt like turning back the clock. Their team led 2-1 at half-time, and footage of one fan crying in the stands went viral.
For generations, Milan have been defined by international success – their seven Champions League/European Cup wins are second only to Real Madrid, and their five Uefa Super Cups remain joint-top of any team. . Juventus is the most successful club in the country in Italy, but the Rossoneri were rivals on the continent.
No more. That final was 3-2 2-1 and Milan finished bottom of their group. A young squad did not have the knowledge to lead this new phase. Even as they pushed through to the semi-finals one season later, it was no accident that Giroud scored or set up almost half of their goals.
He was at the heart of things again and Milan recovered 1-0 down to beat Newcastle this month. When Rafael Leão pulled the ball back into a crowded penalty area and Fikayo Tomori hung an attempted shot with the outside of his boot, it looked like a panicked scramble had begun. But the ball broke to Giroud, who laid a calm first-time pass for Pulisic to convert instead.
Milan’s two “seniors” had delivered when the team needed them. Samuel Chukwueze came off the bench to score an 84th-minute winner, but it was Pulisic’s goal that turned the tide of a game in which the Italians had previously been in danger of being overwhelmed.
This was a pivotal moment in Milan’s season. Manager Stefano Pioli had described the Newcastle game as a “crossroads”. In the end a win was not enough to get them into the Europa League – Paris Saint-Germain’s final with Borussia Dortmund denying them progress to the Champions League finals. But that was much better than crashing out of all of Europe.
Before the start, there were suggestions that Pioli’s job was at risk. The club’s erratic form, with five wins and just three defeats in the previous 10 games, was growing frustration.
There were extenuating circumstances. Milan are battling a major injury crisis, with five of their top six goalkeepers currently out of action and Leão returning to Newcastle after missing a month with a hamstring problem. But tensions were raised when neighbors saw Inter topping the table. Each team in Milan has won Serie A 19 times, meaning the next to do so will be the first to affix a second gold star to their club crest.
During this difficult stretch, Pulisic’s performances have been a rare bright note. He had started the season playing on the right wing but switched to the left while Leão was out. On both sides, he has a consistent delivery.
Pulisic is second on the team with six goals across and second with four goals. Dig into the performance data and you find a similar pattern – not top in any category but close in many. Pulisic registered the second most shots on goal, the third most successful dribbles and the fourth most passes among Milan players. According to Serie A player tracking, he has covered more ground while sprinting (a separate category from total distance covered) than any team-mate apart from Tijjani Reijnders and fellow American Yunus Musah.
More interesting than the numbers are the conversations. Pioli recently held a tactics seminar for a select audience of journalists at the Milan training ground. According to veteran reporter and commentator Paolo Condò, the manager talked about shaping his team to encourage opposition goalkeepers to play the ball out to the side occupied by Pulisic, knowing that he will be more diligent in tracking west of Leão.
Pulisic’s work rate is commendable, but it will be his goals that will make him memorable in Milan, his best so far being the one he scored against Frosinone this month. Milan were up but struggling against opponents who have had a few noses hidden since their return to Serie A. Morale was low after Dortmund’s midweek win left Pioli’s side bottom their group in the Champions League.
When goalkeeper Mike Maignan sent a long ball over the Frosinone defence, Pulisic had everything to do. Even after he cleared the ball with one touch, two defenders were still on his heels and didn’t have the speed to run away from them. Pulisic showed composure to hold back the first pair and defend the ball from a third that arrived late on. His chip without looking to put the ball into the net, knowing that some lift was needed to get it over the three opponents who were now between him and the goal, was amazing.
Renowned Italian sporting director Walter Sabatini, who has worked with Roma, Lazio and Inter, and who recently took a job at Salernitana, was in awe. “That act alone is worth three 4-0 wins,” he said. “It was unreal, beautiful, I want to say it’s deceptive [how he tricked the defenders].”
In a summer when Milan overhauled their squad, bringing in not only Pulisic but also Reijnders, Musah, Samuel Chukwueze, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Noah Okafor and Marco Pellegrino for a combined cost of more than $110m, it is not hyperbole to say yes the first of which is most significant. Without Pulisic’s goals and assists, it would have been much worse without Leão.
As it is, for all the criticism aimed at Pioli by some fans, Milan are still third in Serie A – nine points behind Inter but also five clear of fifth. The manager has repeatedly insisted that finishing in the top four is the main objective but that he would like to do “something else”. A deep run in the Europa League could pave the way for this season to feel like more of a success.
For Pulisic alone, there are more goals to follow. “I want to be more open,” he told Gazzetta in an interview early this season, “more extroverted, speak in Italian maybe. Italy will help me.”
So far, his limited interaction with the press has been in English but these are early days. Between covering for injured teammates and being needed to fill a leadership role on a new team in a new country, the 25-year-old Milan veteran had plenty on his plate.
