"I can't even imagine the weight that's on his shoulders," said Tyler Adams. That's not concern. That's the honest truth about what Christian Pulisic is walking into at this World Cup.
In Europe, Pulisic settled the debate years ago. He's a starter at AC Milan, one of the game's iconic clubs, scoring goals in one of the world's elite leagues. He can't walk into a restaurant on that continent without turning heads. The football world there has long since made up its mind.
America hasn't. And that's the problem.
The unfair burden of being the face of U.S. soccer
It was never a fair ask. Landon Donovan carried the same weight for a generation, and even his legacy in the U.S. remains complicated despite everything he accomplished. Asking one player to single-handedly shift a nation's sporting culture — to pry kids away from the NFL and NBA, to convert casual viewers into obsessives — is an impossible brief.
And yet, here we are. USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino put it plainly: "He needs to be an important player for us during this competition." When your own manager frames it that way publicly, the expectations are already set, whether Pulisic likes it or not.
Pulisic, for his part, isn't pretending the spotlight doesn't exist. He's just trying to manage it. "There's so many good players around me, I genuinely don't feel like I have to do anything on my own," he said before training on Thursday. "I feel like it's a really good dynamic that we have."
That's a player who has clearly thought about this a lot. An introvert who does the commercials and the interviews anyway, because when the USMNT failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, he was the one crying on the field. He cares. Deeply. That's never been the question.
What Pulisic actually needs to deliver
Soccer in the U.S. is in a genuinely different place than it was in 1994. Messi moves the needle the way LeBron does. EPL games are easier to access than out-of-market NFL fixtures. The growth is real.
But real fervor — the kind that sustains a sport through generations — still hasn't arrived. This World Cup, on home soil, is the clearest shot at changing that. For it to land, the USMNT needs a run. A proper one. And a run requires Pulisic producing in the moments that matter: goals, assists, the kind of play that breaks into highlight loops watched by people who don't usually watch football.
The USMNT opens against Paraguay on Friday, June 12. The odds on how far this team goes will shift with every match, and Pulisic's output will be the single biggest variable in that equation. A quiet group stage from him and those deep-run prices get a lot less attractive fast.
Adams' words are probably the most honest thing said about the situation: "I hope he doesn't feel the pressure to carry it all. Just be himself and grow into each game."
The problem is, being himself might not be enough for a country that still needs convincing.
