Christian Pulisic is on his way to AC Milan in the newest chapter of his professional career.
AC Milan acquired Pulisic on Thursday in a permanent deal from English Premier League side Chelsea, both clubs announced. Pulisic’s contract will run until June 2027 and includes an option until June 2028.
Pulisic joined Chelsea from Borussia Dortmund in 2019 for a reported £58 million. A former UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup, and FIFA Club World Cup winner, Pulisic totaled 26 goals and 21 assists in 145 combined appearances for Chelsea.
“I’m delighted to be here, and I’m excited and honored,” Pulisic said Thursday in his opening press conference. “Everything truly is special at AC Milan. You can breathe in the history, and you just want to come here. The initial talks started when I was away on international duty and, although it took a bit of time to get the agreement sorted, I made the decision to accept early on.”
“I spoke to [manager Stefano] Pioli and got a real sense that he wanted to have me, and I’m grateful to him,” Pulisic added. “For me, it’s a new start. I also spoke to a few members of the ownership. AC Milan are really well supported in the U.S.; ever since I was a kid, I can remember the passion for these colors there.”
The U.S. men’s national team star struggled for the Blues during the 2022-23 campaign, scoring just one goal and adding two assists in 30 combined appearances. He missed part of the second half of Chelsea’s season due to a knee injury, while the Blues as a whole struggled for consistency in the EPL.
Pulisic recently helped the USMNT win a second-consecutive Concacaf Nations League title in June, scoring twice in the semifinals against Mexico. He also started a 2-0 finals victory over Canada.
The Bianconeri finished fourth in Serie A last season with 70 points earned. Pulisic joins up with former Chelsea teammate Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who also joined AC Milan this week.
I hope he gets him a nice mansion in Dalmatian peninsula in Croatia by the water, by Northern Italy. Welcome to AC Milan Pulisic.
I’ve increasingly started looking at “soccernomics” as the first indicator of a team’s true potential and I personally think AC Milan is a better fit for Pulisic than Chelsea ever was. There are 14 “superteams” that spend €100+ million on players and Chelsea (who spent €258 million euros last year) was the fourth biggest-spending club in the world, behind only PSG (€353 million), Real Madrid (€298 million), and Bayern Munich (€276 million), and Chelsea spent more than Barcelona (€242 million in total payroll.)
If players are paid what the market deems them to be worth, Pulisic was not a starter on Chelsea. In that massively-spending club he was just the fourteenth-highest field player, which means of the 10 field positions there were 13 guys ahead of him on the perceived pecking order. If wages are fair (they aren’t, of course, but it’s a rough indicator) he’d have needed to be €10+ million-a-year guy to be starter-level on a team that spends at Chelsea’s level. Pulisic’s wages say he was being paid like a first-off-the-bench guy by Chelsea’s standards and for the majority of his career that’s exactly what he was for the Blues.
AC Milan is a very good, very historical club. They are also no longer quite a €100+ million-a-year superteam. AC spent just (I know, ironic word, “just”) €92 million last year. For the sake of comparison MLS’s highest spending team, Toronto, spent the equivalent of about €21 million this past year. Even if Pulisic as reported shaved his salary from €9+ million a year at Chelsea down to under €6 million with AC Milan, that still leaves Pulisic as the third-largest fish in the Rossoneri pond, behind only Ismael Bennacer (€7 million a year) and Rafael Leao (€6.4 million a year.)
That doesn’t just make Pulisic a likely starter, it means AC Milan is paying him to be a featured guy. Which is exactly where he wants (and where we need him) to be. And the fact that Serie A is a more tactical and less brutally physical league is similarly likely a better fit for Pulisic, who was often injured in the Prem and coincidentally is not a large guy.
Nothing is going to be just handed to Pulisic, of course, and no one ever is certain how a move will work out, but AC Milan has invested in him like a star and he’s going to be given every possible benefit of the doubt. And that is very different treatment than he ever got with Chelsea.
Well said, quozzel. This move will work out for Pulisic in the long run. As for “soccernomics”, it is a positive step to see the steady increase of transfer fees for US players. Even seeing Messi move to Miami is a big, bold step for MLS.
Larry someone pointed out in the last article the Bianconeri is Juventus (literally the white and black). Rossoneri is AC Milan (the red and black).