Christian Pulisic is supposed to be the face of American soccer. Right now, he's looking more like its most uncomfortable question.
A dip in form at club level has bled into his USMNT performances, and with the 2026 World Cup sitting on home soil — the one tournament where the U.S. absolutely cannot afford to be passengers — the timing is awkward. The question isn't whether Pulisic has quality. It's whether he has the consistency to carry a team when the pressure peaks. Those are very different things, and the evidence of late isn't convincing either way.
A rough patch or a ceiling?
There's a version of this where Pulisic rediscovers his sharpness, slots back into the USMNT's best XI, and the conversation looks overblown by the time the tournament starts. There's another version where this is what he is — a player who can influence games without ever truly dominating them. The U.S. needs more than influence on home turf. They need someone to take matches by the scruff.
Fan sentiment, pulled directly from Threads conversations, reflects a split — some patience, some genuine concern about the lineup and World Cup expectations. Neither camp is wrong to feel what they feel. If you're pricing USMNT outright or looking at player performance markets, Pulisic's current trajectory is a legitimate variable, not a minor footnote.
Italy's qualifying nightmare, and the stories worth celebrating
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Italy have somehow missed another World Cup. The Azzurri's exit from the qualifying playoffs isn't just an upset — it's a structural problem wearing the face of a bad result. Two World Cups missed in the space of a few years for one of the sport's historically dominant nations. The questions getting louder aren't unfair ones.
The flip side of that chaos is genuinely worth celebrating. Iraq ending a 40-year World Cup drought is one of the better stories in recent qualifying history. Congo and Sweden's runs added drama and proof that the expanded World Cup field is doing exactly what it was designed to do — creating room for more nations with real footballing stories to tell.
- Iraq qualify for their first World Cup in 40 years
- Italy eliminated in the qualifying playoffs for the second time in recent cycles
- Congo and Sweden both impressed in their qualifying campaigns
- The expanded 48-team World Cup format continues to generate debate — and results that justify it
Italy's collapse is the headline, but Iraq's return is the story you'll actually remember.
