Christian Pulisic ‘wanted’ to be with USMNT despite injury

Christian Pulisic’s hamstring injury may be proving worse than the initial, overly optimistic projections, but the 22-year-old still wanted to join up with the US Men’s National Team for the current international break.

That’s according to US head coach Gregg Berhalter, who praised his sometime captain’s commitment to the cause and the team.

“Christian is in camp and he’s listed as day-to-day. It really says a lot about Christian that he wasn’t playing for Chelsea but he wanted to come into this camp and be around the team.”

-Gregg Berhalter; source: Fox Sports via SBI

That’s all well and good and Berhalter may appreciate it, but amid all the coronavirus restrictions, it seems extra frivolous to be jetting around while carrying an injury that’s already ruled Pulisic out for two games.

Fortunately, the US training camp is only in Cardiff, where the players will be tested every couple days before playing a friendly against Wales on Thursday (Nov 12) and then against Panama in Vienna on Monday, November 16. All players in the squad of 24 are based in Europe, further reducing COVID-19 concerns, though some, like Werder Bremen’s Josh Sargent were prevented from traveling anyway.

Pulisic may have turned 22 less than two months ago, but he will be one of the older players in the group with an average age of 21 years 300 days, and featuring ten (10!) uncapped players, including BVB’s Gio Reyna, Bayern’s Chris Richards, Valencia’s Yunus Musah, and Barcelona’s Konrad de la Fuente.