Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #423: Pulisic's debut at AC Milan, celebration pod

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

A goal (what a goal!) and an overall very strong performance in his introduction to Milan fans. Watke and Belz celebrate and break down the details.----Consider subscribing to Scuffed on Patreon. You get an exclusive episode once a week, plus access to the Discord and live call-in shows, by signing up here for as little as $2 a month: https://www.patreon.com/scuffed Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Scuff podcast, where we talk about U.S. soccer. Hey, everybody, Waki and I have convened to celebrate Christian Pulisic's debut at A.C. Milan. It was a wonderful performance, capped with a stunning goal. How are you feeling, Wachie? I'm feeling outstanding. I'm feeling like that was his best ever performance. Is that reasoncy bias? Maybe.

Okay, well, if I'll embrace the recency bias and declare with more confidence, that was his best ever performance. I do think it was his best goal he's ever scored. Certainly in the non-world cup goal category. Yeah. Because it's tough to, I don't think it would be fair to one of those two together. I definitely agree with that. No, it wouldn't be, it's not the same category. But, but yeah, as a pro for club, I can't think of a better goal that he scored.

And he scored some nice goals, you know. But this was, uh, I, I didn't know he had it. I didn't know he had it in him. No. To just unleash from 20 yards like that. He didn't have space to, there wasn't enough space to do that shot. Yeah, like just a slight, what's the term for it?

Back motion before he kicked it. You know, he didn't have a big wind up? Wind up, back swing? Yeah, back swing. I feel like we're not quite getting the word, but I don't think we should get bogged down in it. No. So you're thinking there was probably a 20-20 restart game that was better than this? I mean, that one where he, they, they lost, Chelsea lost 5'3 to Liverpool.

I think he scored twice in that game. Like, roofed one left, I mean, roofed one left foot and then roofed one right foot, you know, and just looked totally unstoppable in that game. Yeah. But I don't think either, either goal was on the level of this one. Okay. I think everything, you know, and to do it in his A.C. Milan debut, you know, there's a big club, a lot of expectations. Uh, great to make a first impression. and he did that, you know.

How many starts is he guaranteed as a result of this performance, do you think? Well, I have him locked into the attacking trident for perpetuity now, but realistically, like, in this hypothetical, I have to imagine a scenario where he comes out in his, if I'm trying to think about what's his quick exit from the starting lineup, I don't really want to do that

because it involves him being really terrible. So I'm going to defer to answer that question and say he's just there for pretty much all season And it's the next season and probably all the way to the World Cup Yep They're going to have trouble keeping him at the club really he's going to be so good Yep, Real Madrid's going to want him probably Yeah I was thinking like even I know we don't want to talk about it

But even if he was terrible for the next three games He still starts the next five You know Yeah it counts for a lot. Let's go through the timeline. Why don't know that? Because we're not going to, you know,

it's not going to be an hour long episode, but we're going to cover it in some detail because we don't get moments like this very often. Fourth minute. Well, one other thing we should mention is, you know, there was some thought that Chukuehese, Samuel Chukuehese, the backup left, right winger. You know, he's going to be putting pressure on Pulisic.

And some people in the Milan, you know, ecosystem would have liked Chukueueza to start over Pulisic. Obviously not Pioli. Fourth minute, first touch, he receives it on the sideline, plays it back to the right back, conservative. Opening minutes were taught on both sides. Milan, definitely not afraid to play it back to Minion the keeper, and he was just, you know, blasting it long. It was not a beautiful approach from A.C. Milan, I didn't think. Not an easy game for them.

Bologna, pretty good. What'd you say? Yeah, this is a real, a real opponent. I don't know a ton about Bologna. We're just really starting this full serial experience in earnest, now that we all the boys are there. They were a real team. They were out there to try to win the game.

Yeah. Actually, I thought they were on balance, probably the better team on the day. Just didn't have Pulisic. Yeah, they didn't have the difference maker. Six minute mark Pulisic makes his first real contribution wins it in the press after Zeru closes a guy down

kind of grabs back at it with his left foot and springs forward in the same motion plays a quick accurate pass to Laos surging into the box Layau gets a half decent attempt off the shot is deflected Whenever you're watching Pulisic and he's doing

a multi-direction move all in one motion that means he's locked in for the day and good things are going to happen that's the thing to look for at home there were a few signals that he was locked in right in this game that was one of them

yeah we got another one come up here yep 710 mark carries it inside from the right lays it off then receives it in a pocket in the middle turns carries it to the left taps it to Theo Hernandez Hernandez plays it over to layout Pulis continues his run all the way to the corner Laow gives him the pass into the corner.

And then Pulisic sort of faces his defender up, tries the meg, a mega guy to play layout into the box. It actually makes it through the guy's legs, but it doesn't, it gets slowed down and cut out. And this is the second signal sign. This is the Meg attempt. And not just an attempt. I think it hits a couple wickets. Almost gets to it.

Not, if I'm correct, if always successful Meg, there may be a, but that's not really important in terms of the sign. I mean, it did. It went through the wickets, even if it touched them. So I guess it's technically a successful Meg. But more importantly, you can see that he's out there to, he's out there to do some stuff. It's on the attack. He has the initiative on things.

And defenders, there's a stretch at Chelsea where it didn't feel like defenders were scared of him anymore. more. And there was some, there were times today when they, they did seem scared of him. They did. Even after he, this Meg doesn't quite come off, even in Momentary DeVite, there was something kind of regal about his bearing, you know, he just sat down for a while. He just sat down and contemplated things.

Yeah. Which I think that's, maybe that's the third sign we've seen. There's probably more signs than even we're noticing. if we go back and watch the tape. In the 11th minute, he gets his hockey assist, and it's layout trying to do a wall pass with Drew through the middle. He feels some contact, goes down, I don't know, somewhat dramatically. Ref's not interested.

The ball has cleared out to Calabria, who one touches it to Pulisic, and then overlaps. Pulisic just kind of casually dribbles towards the penalty area, shifts it onto his left foot. And then floats a ball beyond the back post for Reinders. Quite a player. Rangers also very impressive in this game, I thought. Rangers cushions it across the goal with his left in step on the fly

as the ball was about to float out of bounds, sends it across the six, and Giroux is alert to it, meets it with his right foot, clean finish, 1-0, Milan. Bullisicamin positive. Very, very positive. There have been, I've seen some negative nancy's out there saying maybe his real talk. target on that cross was layout and it just accidentally floated to Rangers. First of all, I don't agree on that. Second of all, even if that is what happened, he had two men running toward a dangerous space. You put the right type of ball in there. It's not, you don't need exactly one thing

to happen. Right. And if he was trying to play a wide, it would have only been because he knew then the ball would come across to Girut, his, his buddy, who he wants to get going. So it was just any way you analyzed the play was an outstanding ball from him. It was. Outstanding from Reinders, too. It must be said. That's quite a play from him. But yeah, Pulisic saw all the angles,

I'm sure. I'm sure of it. And you then cut away from the moment of embrace with Juru. Pulisic and him. Yeah, ridiculous. Come back to it later, but let's see that full thing play out. Obviously, that's

person filming, it may not know the director of the game. may not know how important that storyline is because maybe it's the first game with these two. I noticed this, when Messi scored his goal for Inter-Miami on Saturday night, they cut away to the crowd, to the back of Tata Martino,

celebrating with a bunch of other gray-haired assistant coaches. Like, just keep the camera on the goal score. I think it's just to force a habit they get into. That's a, I would say, clear example of something not to do. Keep it on Messi. keep it on Pulisick and and Cheru. And then after words,

the announcer tells us the modern term for this is a pre-assist to what Pulisic did. But we can keep calling it. Hockey assist. Which do you prefer? I think we do hockey assist.

I don't mind if other people do pre-assist. Yeah, I'm not going to... And I could come around to it. And then he does an aside about... I think he had prepared on aside about the pronunciation of Pulcic's name. He goes through all the variations quickly.

He says he doesn't know. No one knows even Pulsick doesn't know, which is basically correct. Yeah. Pulsick, you know, he doesn't care. I don't think that much about how people pronounce his name, right? Or he's given up. I think he has a name where you give up. And it wouldn't make sense to continue caring.

Some people say belts. Some people say bells. I don't care. I'm just like Christian Pulisic. I don't know how someone arrives at belts. I don't people do. Seems like a... Euro snobs, say belts.

12 minute 45 second mark. It tries to open up on the touchline and in step one touch it to Ruben Loftus cheek, puts it out of bounds. That's okay. Bologna is threatening. Honestly, like I said, look the better team overall. Scoreboard notwithstanding.

Layal's not having a great game through 20 minutes, which I'll be lying if I said it didn't take a little bit of satisfaction from that, you know? We have to do that here and there. Although normally if someone, one of the players has had a great involvement, I try to set that stuff aside and just get into the team spirit. But I understand you going another direction with it. Well, yeah, because, you know, it's when he starts having a hard time out there. And I was like, well, then I try to find other people play.

Like, oh, he's not good. He's having a... Right. It's really his fault. Seriously, though, layout does draw a lot of attention, as he should. Even when he's not playing that well, he looks dangerous. Bologna is possessing in Milan's half with ease. There's a siren blaring in the vicinity of the stadium.

There must be a thoroughfare nearby on the way to a hospital. And then we get the goal, which is mainly why we're here today. right? Yeah. Starts with a long ball to Giroux's head. At midfield, he nods it over to Loftus Cheek, who thighs it perhaps accidentally over to Pulisic. And then it's that trademark slaloming run

from outside to inside, past two guys, and a lovely one, too, with Girou in traffic. It's kind of an outside of the boot return from Zhu, and that's outstanding. And then Pulisic takes two touches as he approaches the 18, and then just ropes it, far post. eyes down till well after it leaves his foot strikes it as clean as I've ever seen him hit a shot from distance hit side netting a few inches inside the post just a gorgeous goal from 20 yards did you go into immediate

rewind and watch over and over again mode as you're watching the game um I think I went I think I probably watched it 15 times and was just getting more and more emotional as I went were you did you tear I was fully tiered up. Nice. I may have had to do like a huffing breath catch. It's water dropped down. Is it the, is it what he's been through? Is it the injustice that he suffered at the hands of Chelsea and Chelsea fans?

It was everything. You know, it was all, it was everything all at once. Yeah. Thinking about his mom and dad. Think about the family. Think about the, I think a lot of it was how creative goal it was. And I did feel very happy for him. You're right.

There wasn't that much space for the shot, though. He had to get it off quick. He hit it very hard as well. And he did things in the buildup lead up to it. They were all good. Yeah. Just zip, zip, zip, zip, bang. Beautiful. Let's play the Italian.

This is the commentary posted on AC Milan YouTube channel. Great U.S.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.S. A. U.S.S. A. U.S. Splendidio three angle. Christian Poleseek. Fah a good-0 for us. C.P.P.P.P.S.A. 2-0 for us. Great USA chant. Mm-hmm. I don't think he did in these light here. Listen to that, I didn't realize that until I heard this calling of it. Should he have?

No, I think it's okay to, it's okay to not do the knee slide. A few people pointed this out. It's a really good point. He didn't lose his feet when he took the shot. You know when he was younger? A lot of times he would have a wind up and take a big shot and he would just fall. I mean, he had a stretch where every single goal he scored he fell down on. Yeah.

It's when he kept his feet, which, oh man, that adds a little bit of swagger to it. I like connecting that to the celebrate, stand on the feet with the celebration. I'd say do seem related to me now. It's a new, it's a new leaf. It's a new leaf for CP. There's a root connection reestablished, you know? I mean, I guess we got it a little bit on the first goal, but this is a real connection. I would say it continued, not reestablished.

I don't think it ever went away. Fair, fair. Drew said after the game he was more happy for Pulisic to score than to score himself. What a man. What a brother. And it doesn't sound like a thing he's just saying. That's something he means. You can just tell it.

Even just hearing you read the quote, I can tell him means it. I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to say he means it. He's just also just scored so many goals. He doesn't really, like, why would he care about his own goals? He's won a World Cup. It's the first game of the season against Bologna. Who cares? Right.

For him, obviously, it means everything to us. Well, that's an interesting question. So what is the, what are the, what's the competition for most important games? I guess when he was at Chelsea in Champions League, it didn't feel that important because he wasn't that big of a part of the team this past season. You know, he did, he did help down Real Madrid a couple of seasons ago in Champions League. That was big. We have the big challenges.

Some of these games happened at empty stadiums and that affected how they felt. Yeah, 100%. It's tough to really say. The other thing I noticed from the goal celebration is how much Pulisic and Fikayo Tamori enjoyed each other. I think they saluted each other, right? They saluted. It seemed to be a, maybe an eyeglass element to it. Like he was looking through his thumb and forefinger.

It seemed familiar. I don't know, but I don't know exactly what it was. He said, Pulisic said, after the salute, he said, go on baby or something like that as they extended their hands to each other. And then I saw that, so I was like, wait, are they, he like sought out Tamori, you know, in the celebration. And I thought, well, oh yeah, they played together at Chelsea. And Tamori was playing some for Chelsea during Project restart. So he saw the, you know, he saw basically the best of Pulisic. and then somebody on the Discord

pointed out that they traveled to Greece together for vacation in that August of 2020 Oh Micanas with Tammy Abraham There's a very good picture of them all shirtless at a resort there

I know that because you did put it into the document for this episode that you sent me great picture He looks jacked Christian does in that photo more jacked than he's been, I think. Yeah, it looks good.

We all responded to the pandemic differently. He responded by just absolutely chiseling himself. That's not what I did for the pandemic. No, just for the record. Still recovering from that term. So 22nd minute. Should we move on? Anything more on the goal?

I mean, we could go on about this goal for a day. Yeah. Hours, but I think it is best. We keep going. Okay. Well, he's back to business in the 22nd minute with a very casual drag back and back heel along the touchline to Calabria. The crowd in Bologna kind of responded with a bunch of, hey, it's like raining down probably from the Milan section. But I, you know, I'd like to imagine the Bologna fans were appreciating it too.

This guy just scored this banger and now he's just like playing Rondo games with our outside left midfielder. That sounds like something that they would do. Again, I am mostly learning about them now, but I can go buy that. Bologna is a bit smaller of a city than Milan. I did look that up. Where is it? Where is it? I mean, I probably should have learned more about this team since Weston was there,

but I didn't. I would think protecting myself in terms of really investigating. knowing about all these teams in Italy, it's time to go all in and really know. Yeah, you don't, you can't protect yourself anymore. You have to go all in. Bologna's like, I don't know, not quite halfway from Milan to Rome

if you had travel down the boot. Hmm. I mean, that's not exactly right, but, you know, you get the idea. Yeah. Yeah. More chance creation in the 28th minute. He gets in transition after a nice bit of play from Giroux and Reinders to get out of pleasure.

pressure, out of pressure, into pleasure, I guess. And then Reinders out to Pulisic, who hangs a right-footed ball at the backpost. Drew takes it on the full volley, just a man full of panache, and thrashes it into the turf, bounces up. It's on frame, but gets punched over the bar by the goalkeeper. I think it's important to highlight that the trailing aspect of Drew's run. He's kind of behind the mainland attack. It shows some patience and composure from Pool Sick

and also just how much he wants to get a shit, Jeru. He could have put it in, just fired it in there. And maybe he would have in the past, but he finds the open Jeru there. He's very good. He does, that's a very good volley. That's not so good.

He makes that look pretty easy. It's not easy. Yeah, yeah, I agree. His little flicks, Drew's little flicks, uh, to, to connect in the buildup, he does some, he does some of them like, he looks a little bit like Sergenio Dest out there. Sometimes, like, uses his trailing foot to knock it, knock it over to the guy. What a man. What a pleasure he is. So, you know, things are actually kind of starting to slow down here in the, after the first 30 minutes.

I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I sort of feel like Milan went. into conservation, energy conservation mode. I don't know how long after they went up to zero. It did seem to be, that's at least how the game played out. So I'm willing to give them credit because they were up to nothing.

I think Bologna was good. It felt like they closed it out and they were just managing it from there. Yeah, it did sort of. But I think there are some good reasons for that. It's in a way game. Bologna was pretty good. and yeah.

So anyway, nice combo with Ruben Loftus Cheek. In the 31st minute, Loftus Cheeks passed to the overlapping Calabria is too heavy for him. Calabria is an interesting player. He's like, he plays right back. He's the guy who kept Dest out of the team sheet for a whole year or a whole semester at A.C. Milan. He's not a super impressive player, you know, but he kind of runs things for A.C. Milan. He's like telling everybody what to do, sliding into the midfield, kind of plays as a

inverted fullback in possession, and he's not fast. So he, you know, loft his cheek is playing it as if he's playing it to like one of those fullbacks at Chelsea. And, you know, that's not, that's not what's going on here. You got to, you got to play it a little softer. Yeah, no, no, no, we're all just, we're all adjusting to the new teammates. Yeah. Okay. He nip, nutmegs a guy again in around the 31 minute mark. to get into space running down the right, right. Just feels like he's, you know, he's having his way with the entire field. And then he blasts a low cross off the first defender's leg.

And this is a time, it really looked like he was pinned at the sideline there. And the reason he, then he just skins the guy. And watching it back, the reasons he was able to skin him is this was a time when a defender was scared of him and was kind of giving him space but doing it in the wrong way. where he actually, the defender put himself on the sideline. And he just easily goes, I guess there was a bank, but it looked easy. It did look easy. Yeah.

It did look like they were scared. They were backing up. You're in trouble when you're backing up against, uh, pull us like, now you are, apparently. You got to come in and press him. Yeah. He's, he, I noticed in the 33rd minute he's stepping on, you know, they're just knocking around Milan's trying to take the air out of the game a little bit.

But I noticed as they were knocking around, he steps on the ball with the sole of his right foot kind of rolls it back and forth under his right boot. Just casually, real confident and then plays it back to Calabria. Yeah, some good defending, some useful things in the second half. But the game sort of just slowed down from there. And then he came off in the 73rd minute. It's not that he didn't do anything after that point. I noticed he had a couple, like, 30-yard progressive carries.

Crucially, I noticed that when Laossoc gets in behind down the left, Pulisic is making determined runs at the goal mouth. And one time, Leau got in behind and Giroux went, I think this was like right after halftime, Drew headed for the cutback. So Zhu kind of faded towards a penalty marker. Pulisik saw that and immediately darted to the space that opened up at the 6th. So I think he's going to score in a lot of different ways.

He's going to make an impact in a lot of different ways. His offball movement is like one of the things he's improved the most in his time as a professional. I think he's quite intelligent and good at it now. And he's going to get service from Laiao from the left side. things are looking good I can't wait for Moosa to be in there with him yeah what did you think of that midfield

for Milan it was Crunich Loftus cheek and Rangers Rangers kind of looks undropable to me honestly yeah is he gonna is Moose gonna be a rotation guy I mean I saw a tweet the other day

that Puelly sees him as an eight so he's like probably competing with Loftus cheek unless something happens and I thought Kroonich was the one who looked the most dropable, honestly. You just says he's going to go and get his minutes. I have confidence. All right, well, I think that's it, right? This is a great day, or yesterday was a great day.

We're talking about it today. Today's also a great day. Mm-hmm. And, you know, if you want to hear more Waki, I mean, honestly, if you want to hear more Waki, you got to sign up for the Patreon and get the Monday reviews because we do this usually with Vince who makes it more fun than it's much more fun than this one was. Yeah. But you know, links in the show notes.

Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.