WE KNOW, WE KNOW. YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE. YOU’VE SEEN THE HEAD lines, endured the hype, heard that this is the year soccer becomes America’s game, that our great redeemer has arrived. There was Freddy Adu, the fourteen-year-old phenom who broke into Major League Soccer in 2004 and soon found himself hailed as the American Pelé. Now thirty-three, Adu is clubless, a journeyman who’s spent the better part of two decades drifting from team to team across Europe and the Americas—a cautionary tale of runaway expectations.
And yet every four years at World Cup time, we sing the tune: Is this the year the Americans, forever also-rans, break through at the biggest sporting event on the planet? Is this guy—Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, now Christian Pulisic—the new star who will ignite soccer’s stateside explosion? The U. S. women’s team has already won it all more than once, of course. But can the men’s team finally measure up?
Success for the U. S.—escaping the group, maybe reaching the last eight, becoming contenders—will not be delivered by any American soccer Jesus. Yes, Pulisic has consistently played at a higher level
