Christian Pulisic to AC Milan: How will the USMNT star’s time at

For a time Christian Pulisic was everything the US soccer community believed he ought to be: a key player at an elite club with a defined role and a head coach who had a vision for getting the very best out of his talent. The problem was that during those glorious few months he was still a footballer for Borussia Dortmund, his move to Chelsea due to go through in the summer of 2019.

It is easy to convince oneself that there is an alternate reality where Chelsea do not cave into supporter pressure, conclude that Sarriball is not to be messeded with, and realize that a promising season with Derby County might not be enough to qualify Frank Lampard to follow some of Europe’s most elite coaches. In that world perhaps Pulisic is to Maurizio Sarri’s Chelsea what Lorenzo Insigne was to Sarri’s Napoli, the final third killer on a rip-roaring, left-leaning attacking machine.

Then again, over four years at Chelsea that player emerged only for a matter of weeks, the dizzying dart through the post-lockdown Premier League that was brought to a juddering halt, as so many of Pulisic’s best moments have been, by injury at an inopportune moment. In the 49 minutes before he limped out of the 2020 FA Cup…