Christian Pulisic was one of the U.S. Men’s National Team’s only bright spots in World Cup qualifying and now, several months after the disaster in Trinidad & Tobago, the star midfielder has weighed in on what went wrong.
Speaking to ESPN, Pulisic says the USMNT’s loss back in the fall wasn’t due to a lack of chemistry or talent. Rather it was due to a lack of focus on the day, one that doomed them to a missed World Cup.
“There could be a lot of small pieces. It’s hard to say exactly,” said Pulisic told ESPN. “I think we put ourselves in a good spot and we made a mistake in the final game. That’s how it went. We weren’t focused. We weren’t ready to come out and finish the job. That’s really all there was.”
Since that loss, much has been said about where the U.S. fell short. In the immediate aftermath, chemistry issues were the talking point with Bruce Arena and Geoff Cameron taking thinly veiled shots at one another through the winter.
“I wouldn’t say [chemistry] was the biggest problem,” Pulisic said. “Chemistry issues, I was fine with Geoff. He was a good mentor of mine actually, he taught me a lot of things. It’s hard to say exactly what went wrong.”
Now, though, Pulisic is looking towards the future. Now the face of the USMNT program, the Borussia Dortmund winger is set to join the team this week for his first international match since the trip to T&T.
Over the next few months in years, Pulisic is expected to grow into an even more prominent role with the national team as he leads a new group of young stars towards the 2022 World Cup. He’s ready to embrace that role and the pressure that comes with is, starting with the upcoming friendly against Bolivia.
“It’s a lot sometimes, they like to put this label on you,” Pulisic said. “I’m just trying to live in the moment and do the best I can for myself and for my teammates, and that’s all I can really focus on.”
I don’t think the problem was just with the T&T game. Previous cycle vs. Panama there, when Panama needed a win and we were already qualified, we beat them 2-1. This time when we could have used the 3 points, we drew 1-1. We were lucky to tie Honduras there after destroying them at home. And we lost to CR at home, not even a close game. I think Arena made some tactical and several crucial personnel mistakes. And, too many complacent players. You can call it lack of focus, but I think complacency is a better description. Klinsmann got a lot of criticism, some deserved, but I think experience is showing that every player has to feel like his place is not guaranteed and they have to feel pressured constantly so that complacency doesn’t set in. Klinsmann was right about that.
Pulisic and McKennie will be the engine for the USMNT during the the next 4, and possibly 8 years. If our most talented young players (Weah, Sargent etc…) can stay healthy and live up to their full potential then we have a very bright future.
“It’s a lot sometimes, they like to put this label on you,” Pulisic said. “I’m just trying to live in the moment and do the best I can for myself and for my teammates, and that’s all I can really focus on.”
Maybe you’re finally realizing how stupid you are and have begun to quote others? Still not relevant to his post but at least it’s not your typical garbage, you ignorant sob.
You lose focus when you have a sense of entitlement or when you think you are something better than you really are. It’s And this goes for players to the president of the U.S. Soccer Federation. Everyone is sad we didn’t make the World Cup but I think it was a blessing in disguise. This embarrassing loss showed us what we already knew but didn’t want to admit, that we were not good enough (mentally, Physically, tactically). And we refuse to overhaul and team and bring in new young talent. Look at these players now, this very moment (like right now), and imagine that 7 MONTHS AGO THEY REPRESENTED THE BEST OF THE USMNT ?…….and were blocking the progress of 98% of the current USMNT:
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Dempsey – ? not a factor in Seattle
Bradley – ? the whole team is struggling
Altidore – injured ? the whole team is struggling
Howard – ? being blown out by MLS strikers, imagine what would happen in RUSSIA
Omar Gonzalez
Matt Besler
Graham Zusi
DaMarcus Beasley
Chris Wondolowski
Alejandro Bedoya
These players were the regulars possibly going to Russia to represent the USMNT (let that sink in a little)
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“The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today”…by Elbert Hubbard
You’re harping on the older players but my theory is the larger failure is the generation that came up after them — or rather didn’t come up. Nagbe, Acosta, etc. We needed to swap out the whole 2014 midfield for age and basically found no one world class. Except Pulisic if you think of him as a 10. I think the teens and early 20s coming up now are closer to what we expect from the USA (every so often someone as good as Reyna or Landon, etc.), but I think we went down in flames this time because it just never happened for the people who came in during the 20-teens. My theory is next cycle Bradley and Dempsey hand the baton right past Nagbe et al. to Pulisic and McKennie and some of the rest. Nagbe and Co. are going to have part of one cycle and that’s it. They’ll be bench/filler once the kids get up to speed.
I think the defense is going to fix itself. My areas of concern are finding a keeper at Howard’s level — not Guzan — and that the forward position that had gotten decent is going to start to show its age. Dempsey is old. Jozy will be getting old. Wood is a puzzler since he got hurt. We were near the lead in CONCACAF with them this last cycle. Will the offense fall off some?
I think you are right. As much as people want to heap criticism on Bradley, Altidore, Dempsey and essentially all the defense, there were no players aged 22-26 who stepped up to prove themselves better.
Relying on precocious teenagers to step up in great numbers to replace the older players in international games is just wishful thinking.
Frankly only a couple of the 22-26 year-olds made the grade and the US suffered for it.
well i’d argue that Arena and Co. was ignorant enough to bring a lot of those players you listed to the WC if we’d qualified, Bruce even said as much! Fans like to call Sarachan a Arena disciple, and if that’s the case then we are seeing some of the younger players they would have entertained bringing to the WC in the last several USMNT camps! Bruce and Co. weren’t stupid, they knew the WC is a young man’s tourney, when you consider how fast games come, it just sucked that he couldn’t get them to dig in and get a result to qualify for Russia! And to those who still think he should have brought in these players for qualifying, you’re wrong, because many of these players weren’t playing at all during that time, especially considering some are still reserve or lower division players!
Great. Let’s dig up this cadaver again and see if we missed something the first 7,000 times. And when we’re done, let’s talk about the 2016 election.
Out of curiosity, starting lineup changes between penultimate and last game:
Mex: 9 (L)
CR: 8 (L)
Pan: 2 (W)
Hon: 4 (W)
USA: 0 (L)
TnT: 2 (W)
Impression given: Mexico and CR, with nothing to play for, ran out B teams and lost. Our competition made 2-4 changes of starters and got results. We literally started the same XI and were the only team in our chunk of the table to lose.
My theory is, for all the glitches and mistakes and mediocrity if Arena had churned half the team or even run out a fresh unit, we win and all this is academic.
I also think he ran out a tired team on a heavy field, told them to hang back and defend and counter, TnT got lucky, and his tired unit had no legs to respond.
There was no luck about it. They beat us because we came out unprepared, assuming we would get the job done and quite possibly tired.
The ESPN reporter seemed to go softball without enough followup, “not focused,” kind of begs, “could you elaborate?” He doesn’t seem to want to criticize individuals including players who may be held over, but surely they could get him to talk about what he seems to suggest was a more “team” failure.
They did come out like they were wearing concrete cleats but I put that down to a lack of roster turnover from Panama as well as a heavy field. You could see from the pics that the storm they arrived after had dumped a lot of water on the field, but a smart coach could have moved the practice, done it on concrete, otherwise adjusted. But it just bears elaboration precisely how he feels they were not focused. You want the lessons learned.