On Wednesday, March 8, German soccer club Borussia Dortmund faced Portuguese club Benfica in the second leg of a Champions League tie that very well could have defined the club’s season, one way or another.
The first leg had seen the Germans batter their opponents’ goal for 90 minutes yet still leave Lisbon with a one-goal deficit. As fans of the Bundesliga side had seen so often this season, luck just wasn’t on their side.
The problems didn’t stop there for Dortmund head coach Thomas Tuchel. In the preceding two weeks, midfielders Marco Reus and Mario Gotze had been ruled out due to injury and illness, respectively. Dortmund needed goals but were in short supply of talent to fetch them. So the 43-year-old did what he has increasingly begun to do when in need of inspiration: He turned to Christian Pulisic.
Fortunately for him and the ravenous Westfalenstadion crowd, the breakthrough took just four minutes, when the 18-year-old American reached a corner at the front post and flicked it towards the back post for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to calmly knock home.
The Pennsylvania-born talent then doubled Dortmund’s lead with another quick intervention, this time 14 minutes into the second half, when Lukasz Piszczek played the forward through, allowing him to carefully dink the ball over the oncoming goalkeeper.
With a goal and an assist, Pulisic had almost single-handedly saved Dortmund’s Champions League campaign.
Aubameyang would later bag two more goals and leave the pitch with a hat trick and a man-of-the-match award, but the evening belonged to someone else. Pulisic had once again performed at the highest level, showing just why he’s considered one of the most exciting talents in the sport right now.
Although the winger has enjoyed most of his goals and assists in demolition jobs, such as the 6-2 win over Bayer Leverkusen last week and the 6-0 win over Darmstadt at the start of the season, he’s also stepped up with crucial breakthroughs when it mattered.
His goal and assist to let Dortmund take a point at Ingolstadt in October, his setup for the late equaliser against Real Madrid and an assist in last month’s DFB Pokal clash against Hertha Berlin were all vital to keeping Dortmund’s season on track.
Despite only making his debut for the first team a little over a year ago, the U.S. international has already become a vital cog in Tuchel’s ever-growing machine of young brilliance. Within 13 months, Pulisic has gone from being in awe of the likes of Reus and Aubameyang to standing shoulder to shoulder with them and often winning games just as they do.
Of course, the young prodigy is well-versed in emulating those who inspire him. Christian’s mother and father both played the sport at George Mason University. His father, Mark, earned the title of top goalscorer three out of the four years he played there before moving on to play for the Harrisburg Heat in the National Professional Soccer League.
“The fact that he grew up in a soccer family is certainly a factor,” former U.S. national team coach Bob Bradley told Bleacher Report when asked about the rise of the young Dortmund player.
“I remember his mom and dad when they were playing at George Mason University, and I know that Mark played with some guys that I coached. What it means is that Christian grew up with soccer around him all the time.”
He added: “Being around good examples is where you start to get an idea of what the game is all about.”
Bradley first learned of Pulisic’s talent when a former player, Richie Williams, told him about a kid he was coaching at the U.S. under-17 program in Bradenton, Florida.
“Everyone knew that Christian was a really talented young player who was coming through our program,” he notes. “Obviously when I was then in Egypt, Norway and France and before he came through at Dortmund, I was very aware of what he was doing but I had not seen him play that often.”
Yet you’d be hard-pressed to avoid clips of Pulisic’s exploits on the pitch now. Every well-tuned football fan across the world is fully aware of the young American’s talent and the waves he’s been making at Dortmund this season. Although tightly edited into short Vines or elaborate YouTube videos, there’s no denying that Pulisic’s talent seems to have already transcended the initial, unjustified buzz most young players have thrust upon them after the slightest note of success.
“There’s already pressure on Christian, and that extra burden doesn’t make sense,” Bradley said, referring to the euphoria on both sides of the Atlantic whenever the 18-year-old plays for Dortmund. “But you continue to see his progress. I love the way he plays, his movement, when he has the ball at his feet, and I think he’s at a really excellent situation at Dortmund.”
Yet it isn’t just Dortmund that offers a bright future for the former PA Classics talent.
At the international level, Pulisic now faces a United States team under new management in Bruce Arena, a coach tasked with taking the nation in a new direction from the varied yet somewhat ineffectual years of Jurgen Klinsmann. Therein lies a perfect opportunity to make himself indispensable to any new-look team for the future.
“He’s certainly going to be an important part of the national team,” Bradley added when asked if U.S. Soccer can build a new team around the Dortmund talent. “He can play on either side, he can come inside a little bit—the final answer is how you put your team together.”
When asked where Pulisic would play in his team, if he were still the manager, Bradley paused for a moment before answering: “Tactically, Tuchel is very clever. So even when they end up in something like a 4-3-3, where the wide players come inside and play off Aubameyang a little bit, [Pulisic] shows the ability to play from the outside in and put himself in good positions to create.”
He added: “I think the answer for every manager—whether it’s club or country—is how you put your team together, knowing that you have a very talented player and you want to take advantage of all of his ability.
“Bruce [Arena] will be interested in utilising all his talents to build a really good team. I think he recognises Christian is going to be a really big part of that and the rest will take care of itself.”
From a timid, 16-year-old boy arriving in western Germany to a Champions League and Bundesliga match-winner, Pulisic has enjoyed a truly meteoric rise in an astonishingly short period of time. Where he’ll find himself in the next year or two is anyone’s guess, but few would bet against him playing an even larger role for the German side and eventually for the United States national team for years to come.
