The last few months could hardly have gone better for Christian Pulisic as he continues to excel both for his club AC Milan and his country the United States.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport writes, the last two outings with the United States have brought two goals and an assist. The first goal was a cheeky free-kick against Brazil and the second came in the Copa America opener against Bolivia, a curling shot that went in off the crossbar after a corner routine.
Thinking back to 12 months ago, Pulisic landed at Milan amidst (legitimate) doubts, ones that were understandably present after a last season at Chelsea full of anger, confusion and physical problems. However, he is now worth at least double the €20m the management ‘gambled’ when they signed him.
Christian is unquestionably the best signing of the 2023 summer transfer window and now everything seems to have clicked for him. When adding up club and country in 2023-24, ‘Captain America’ is at 20 goals and 13 assists.
When we think of leaders within the Milan squad names like Mike Maignan and Theo Hernandez often come up, yet Pulisic rarely gets mentioned despite the fact he is the icon of his national team, the symbolic player and of course the captain.
It is thanks to the former Dortmund man that football in the United States is continuing to grow in popularity, and it is very much thanks to him that Milan are growing exponentially in that market, something Gerry Cardinale might have seen a year ago.
Recent research by the media company Men in Blazers and YouGov has highlighted Milan’s crucial role in the growth of Italian football in the United States. According to the results, the Rossoneri fanbase in the USA increased by 50% in the last season (the data says that, with 43 million fans, they are the most followed Serie A club).
At the same time the US public’s interest in Serie A has increased by 27%. Call it the ‘Pulisic effect’, the ‘Pulisic drive’ or whatever you like. In the meantime he continues to shine for his country, with a trip back to USA between July and August for a preseason tour presenting a practically perfect scenario.
This is absurd. Milan doesn’t have 43 million fans in the United States. A report of YouGov in 2022 found that 8% of people in the United States identify as soccer fans, which is 26.4 million people. Even if the figure went up in two years, it is preposterous to pretend that pretty much more than all of them are Milan fans. The 2022 World Cup had an average viewership of 3.59 million people per game. And that’s the World Cup!!! The MLS viewership on TV is about 340,000 people per game. Given these other numbers, does anybody really believe that Milan has 43 million fans in the USA? I wish!
Yeah one year ago they were saying that the club had 500 millions fans around the world. I don’t know where they get these numbers, they probably combine the followers on each social media. Another evidence that we shouldn’t believe these guys.
It says that’s people following Milan. I doubt that number. But I’m sure it includes casual fans. 43 million does seem a bit excessive I agree
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Suggest that pulisic should immediately replace the bunch of fools and clowns consisting of furlani, moncada, ibra and cardinale ….. we need a ray of hope in this milan shambles ….