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SBI USMNT Man of the Match: Christian Pulisic

On a night when so few U.S. Men’s National Team players looked up to the task, Christian Pulisic tried valiantly to keep his side in the fight.

The USMNT suffered a 3-0 defeat to Mexico at MetLife Stadium on Friday night, and one of the only bright spots as far as Gregg Berhalter’s side was concerned was Pulisic. The Chelsea attacker tried to make things happen, both on the dribble and with his passing, but in the end it still was not enough to prevent the lackluster USMNT from suffering a lopsided loss.

Pulisic’s biggest contribution came in the first half, as he bombarded forward on a diagonal dribbling run that saw him fearlessly take on multiple Mexico defenders. Pulisic pulled off some crafty moves with the ball on the play, too, before hitting a pass to an open Alfredo Morales that ended up producing a harmless scuffed shot wide.

The midfielder continued to try and set up chances for his teammates after the break, but the USMNT was unable to pose a threat in front of goal.

The USMNT will now look to fill his void in the attack against Uruguay without Pulisic, who Berhalter confirmed would be returning to England before that match.

Comments

  1. Jordan Morris MOTM. Easy selection. Even though he came on late, earned us our first corner. Then continued to beat his defender 1v1. Earned a PK. Had a breakaway. Took a couple shots on goal. Basically, besides Aaron Long, he was the only person to do anything at all.

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  2. Pulisic played well. He made some good runs, he was passing well. He was drawing fouls that weren’t being called. The only person that knows why Pulisic gave the PK to Sergeant is Pulisic. I don’t know why people here are trolling Pulisic calling him a wuss and gutless. My only guess is Pulisic was trying to get Sergeant a goal. It didn’t work but that was Sergeant’s fault. The game was lost at that point and goal was never going to matter.

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  3. What if Pulisic giving the pk to Sargent was him showing his confidence in Sargent as the future at striker? I think it was his was to indirectly tell everyone he wants Sargent starting in the future as opposed to others.

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    • I completely agree. Pulisic was frustrated by a number of things and Sargeant came on (and Morris too) and things started happening. If we are not careful, Pulisic is going to be like Ryan Giggs for Wales and give up internatinoals.

      Zardes and Boyd were basically invisible. I appreciate GB’s loyalty to Zardes as an MLS player for GB’s crew team, but Zardes has the touch of Jozy, the shooting boots of a post-prime MB and the movement of an injured John Brooks.

      This board complains routinely about has beens. Can we get rid of Zardes as a never was?

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  4. Seems like it would be a more spirited debate to discuss who the least valuable player was out there. A number of excellent candidates

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    • I’m going to say LVP, Steffen. His distribution was as bad as I’ve seen (and I watched most of his Crew matches). Gave up the goal on that pass to Morales who should’ve done better with it. His diagonal balls to the FBs were going out all night and his long balls to Zardes weren’t much better, even when he wasn’t under a lot of pressure.

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