USMNT star forward Christian Pulisic showed his quality by shining through for AC Milan in their 3-1 loss to Liverpool in the 2024/25 UEFA Champions League opener. The speedy winger helped the Rossoneri get off to a thrilling start at the San Siro and scored a brilliant goal in the opening minutes of the game.
Pulisic was definitely one of the best players for AC Milan and stood through even as they surrendered their lead because of some really poor defending. The 26-year-old already has three goals and two assists in five appearances for AC Milan so far this season, and looks poised to have a prominent campaign as long as he can stay clear of injuries.
But the USMNT star was involved in a rather awkward interaction after the loss to Liverpool when he appeared on the CBS Sports’ show to talk to Kate Abdo, Thierry Henry, Jamie Carragher and Micah Richards.
He spoke about the disappointing result and things going out of their way after the bright start, saying: “It was a good start to the game to get a goal, but yeah it’s extremely disappointing for us to concede goals like we did in the first half on set pieces. They made it difficult for us all game, so obviously I’m disappointed.”
After that, Kate Abdo turned towards Henry to ask him if he had any questions for Pulisic on his performance form. But the ex-Arsenal forward just didn’t seem interested in talking to the Milan winger and then awkwardly replied ‘no’, making for a few uncomfortable moments of silence between the show-hosts – all while Pulisic was kept waiting and could notice the awkwardness.
Carragher then chimed in by telling the winger ‘Christian well done to the start of the season’, only after which Henry managed to speak by saying ‘Well done big man, well done’. This entire interaction has annoyed a lot of fans, who believe that Henry was intentionally trying to ignore Pulisic and acting arrogant.
Some feel that Henry is coming off as a really bitter person here and has some kind of personal dislike for Pulisic. A few fans believe that the Frenchman is being especially bitter because he didn’t get the USMNT manager role ahead of Mauricio Pochettino and others are just criticizing him for being weird in this interaction.
But this isn’t actually the first time that Henry has gotten into a controversial moment involving Pulisic. In 2022, he reacted to some Chelsea fans getting the ‘Free Pulisic’ trend going as he wasn’t given enough game-time. Henry was totally against this and argued that the USMNT winger should look to ‘free himself’ and urged him to start delivering in a possession-based system than the counter-attacking style he excelled at in Borussia Dortmund.
In the 2022/23 season, Henry also delivered some strange criticism towards Pulisic when he made his UCL debut for Chelsea against RB Salzburg. The USMNT star produced an impressive performance and even delivered an assist for Kai Havertz’s goal, but Henry refused to acknowledge that. He simply stated of Pulisic’s contribution as ‘that’s not an assist’, getting fans to believe he has some personal issue against the winger.
In that same campaign, after seeing the winger be an unused substitute in a 3-0 loss to AC Milan, Henry told CBS Sports: “At one point you’re gonna have to bring something on the table. How many managers are not going to trust you? It’s gonna have to be you at one point. So find a way.”
But it’s not like Henry has always been critical on Pulisic. Speaking about how the winger can attain ‘world class’ status earlier in 2024, he told CBS’ Kickin it’ show: “As a creative player if you don’t try to make mistakes, you cannot succeed. I can see on the national team, [Pulisic] feels like, ‘I can make mistakes.’ When you play on the big club [team], you play the ball one time and it’s a mistake and the next time you touch it is 15 minutes after.
“People remember every time you touch the ball that you lost it. The international team, he plays with that confidence. We were all creative players, so you have to score. So if you feel like in your head you can’t lose that ball, then you might as well step out of the field and don’t play.”
It looks like Pulisic needs to do more in terms of getting goals and assists consistently to win over Henry’s love and respect.
