Please keep Christian Pulisic’s comments in context



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Chelsea’s Christian Pulisic has had little better work lately than interviews and TikToks, but the former has been taken out of context in the American media.

There is nothing more powerful in soccer than a strong narrative. They can make a manager whose teams really only have featured YouTube reels and a nearly empty trophy cabinet look like the sport’s messiah. Narratives can make a manager lose his luck (even if he still wins a trophy) seem like the cause of all the trouble when he “gives up.”

And the narrative can easily twist Christian Pulisic’s last words just as he did in his entire introduction to Chelsea. The U.S. media has been especially guilty of this, for obvious reasons, but that doesn’t improve the turn.

Most of the articles are executed with the line “No one in Chelsea saw me when I joined. “Boom! I got them! That line reinforces the narrative that fat old man Frank Lampard had his bias towards the English and ignored the Americans. prodigy. And, like the rest of the world, Lampard saw that Pulisic really was American Lionel Messi as soon as he started playing with him like he always should have!

Except that it ignores not only the context of the comment itself, but the first few months of Pulisic’s career at Chelsea. The comment itself mentions that no one noticed Pulisic when he arrived because they were half asleep. Pulisic is great, but nobody needs a welcome party in the middle of a jet lag night.

Pulisic himself understood that he had to earn his place, but he was also aware of the context of that. The media ignored all of that at the start of the season. They just saw that he wasn’t playing and surely, surely, there was a bias.

There was little mention of Pulisic’s injuries the previous season. Or the Gold Cup occupying literally the whole summer. Even being kind, Pulisic had played non-stop from January until his arrival at Chelsea and that is discounting the time he was injured for the rest of the season for Dortmund. The boy needed a break and Lampard gave him a break as he saw what he had to offer and how much he wanted to play.

Pulisic didn’t change Lampard’s mind as much as he simply got the rest he needed before Lampard made up his mind about him. The cries of the United States were understandable but without foundation.

But twisted phrases like “no one noticed me” (because they were almost asleep) in some poor context of me is ridiculous. Pulisic is the American golden boy and it would be hard to find an American fan who doesn’t want him to play. But he does not need to be pampered. He earned his place over time after being fit enough to return. There’s no need to retread on a path that was never real to begin with.

Next: Chelsea’s Willian may have a case for an extension after all

Pulisic will be a better player on his own merits than any narrative invented about him. East? It is as vague as the initial screams about its lack of playing time. And time will show that this is also correct.



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