The Christian Pulisic Blog

Hello friends and lovers, And welcome to another rambling post from yours truly, Mark Thomas, dictator for life here at Straight Outta Hershey, the only damn blog in the damn universe dedicated to the one and only Christian Pulisic. So I'm sitting in my Airbnb in Vienna, Austria right now, drinking a Turkish tea that the girl whose apartment this is made. Of course it's making me feel nauseous since I'm drinking it on an empty stomach. And now I've just switched the keyboard over to US English, which means the y and z keys are back where they're supposed to be, and this is contributing to my upset stomach. To top it all off I have dandruff. And my stomach is messed up from a weird doner I ate the other day. Or possibly some Tom Kha Gai soup. I'm not sure which one. But I'm in Vienna, and today I start level B1.2 of my intensive German course. Hell yeah. Intensive German. I hope there are some cuties in my class. I've sent about 20 messages on okcu...

I know what a lot of you are thinking. You're thinking: Damn, cha boi hasn't scored in a bit. I mean, yeah, he scored against Stuttgart a couple games ago, but that doesn't really count because he wasn't trying. When he gonna do one a dem goals where he dice dem fools den put dee ball in dee back o' dee net? And I'm like, totally. But let's also be honest: Christian Pulisic, as his mortal name goes, hasn't really ever done one of dem goals where he dices fools up and beats a bunch of people and then puts the ball in the back of the net. Usually, after he dices fools, he passes, or misses. But one day, ONE DAY, that slice and dice, amazing dribble run goal will happen. It's the law of averages. It's Murphy's Law. It's the law of attrition. It's the long arm of the law. And maybe -- maybe -- it will happen today against Bayer Leverkusen. I'm not going to lie to you folks because, even though I lie constantly, I rarely like...

Dortmund rolled into Salzburg today to compete for a spot in the Europa League Round of 8 conspicuously absent one key player. Looks like Pulisic has flu and Toprak is out with a muscle problem #BVB #FCSBVB https://t.co/9bJfnfO7si — BVB Buzz (@BVBBuzz) March 15, 2018 Christian Pulisic apparently has the flu, which I don't believe, since I don't believe Christian Pulisic gets sick. I mean, Michael Jordan played through the flu before, and I'm not comparing CP to Michael Jordan, but the kid can dunk.  Pulisic: People doubt me, but I can dunk! https://t.co/I8oSqWO7M3 !?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter pic.twitter.com/WSMKf5kZcs — Dave Masters (@davemasters) January 11, 2018 (I dunked once in warm-ups before a rec league basketball game in high school. It was the only time I ever dunked in my illustrious basketball career. Most of the other times I stuck to left-handed layups.) Dortmund played the opposite of good today, which, unless my English fai...

Hi, friends. I'm tired. I flew back from Germany the other day and am still adjusting. I saw Pulisic in person at the Dortmund Mainz game, in Mainz. It was incredible. He was about 40 feet away from me. And then Dortmund won. Here's Pulisic knifing through four defenders and slipping Kagawa into the box for a great chance pic.twitter.com/Q5bVimFnrd — Scuffed (@zlebmada) December 6, 2017 And tomorrow, of course, Dortmund play Hoffenheim at home. I wrote a preview for this game on Fear the Wall and I'm a little ashamed of it. Feel like I was trying too hard. But that's natural when you just start writing for a publication. You want to impress. And in my case, you want people to laugh. The key is to not try TOO hard. I will also be tweeting the game for Fear the Wall tomorrow if any of you would like to follow along. But wow, Christian Pulisic. US male soccer player of the year! Not that there was anyone else remotely in the runnings. I would be curious to kn...

I've been freaking out the last two days because I'm probably going to start writing for one of the big BVB fan sites, and I'm terrified I'm going to screw it up and write dogshit articles. See, that's the beauty of Straight Outta Hershey . I'm dictator for life here. I can write whatever I want an no one can veto it or edit it because I am the editor . I am the writer and also the editor, creative director, number one fan, etc. But anyway, let's start talking about the Mainz v. Dortmund game that will be happening tomorrow evening at the Opel Arena in Mainz and which cha boi (me) will be attending in the flesh and/or blood. I'm a little bummed the game is at 8:30pm because that means I'll be getting home late, train connections might be dicey, and I won't get much sleep before flying to Dallas the next day and back to Seattle. Because, as of Wednesday, cha boi (still me) will be Stateside. As usual, I'm pretty stoked. Gonna get a job, gon...

The first ever episode of Straight Outta Hershey, the first/only blog and now PODCAST dedicated to cha boi, Christian Pulisic.

This morning I got up to rain and wind here in Seattle. I should've known it was a presage of things to come. I went to the grocery store and had tea and wrote some letters. Basically, I was trying to kill time until 11:45am Pacific time, when Champions League started. And then it started. I'd downloaded Sling TV to be able to watch ESPN 3 and Borussia Dortmund vs. Apoel Nicosia, one of the top Cypriot clubs. The good thing about watching this game was I got to learn the word "Cypriot." The bad thing is it was an absolute abortion. A few times during the first half I actually said, in a loud voice in my living room, "This is an abortion." Other things I said: "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" -- when Götze, Bartra, Yarmolenko, Toprak, Auba, Pulisic and Kagawa gave away the ball time after time after time. "YOU ARE FUCKING OLD AND SLOW." -- when Yarmolenko could've easily gotten to a ball but was too, well, old and slow ...

Yesterday Borussia Dortmund hosted Borussia Mönchengladbach in Signal Iduna Park. Almost from the beginning die Schwarzgelben were obviously the stronger side, controlling possession but not making any real threats to score until 28' when Aubameyang made a perfect sliding cross to Philipp who made an even more perfect waist-high valley to take the ball across his body, past the keeper, and into the net. The thing that struck me about Philipp's volley was how casual  it looked. That was not an easy shot, but when you're young and play for one of the best teams in Europe you make those shots look easy. Philipp is dangerous. It will be interesting to see how much time he gets against Real Madrid on Tuesday, and how confident he looks against a powerhouse. Some other things from the match: Aubameyang looked incredible.  I hope he plays that well against Real Madrid, though I suspect he will; Aubameyang does not strike me as a streaky player; just all dangerous all the time...

A note on my player ratings: I watch the game once, and I mostly concentrate on Pulisic and having an enjoyable experience watching the game (see: tearing my hair out like an over-protective mother). So these analyses are merely impressions. That said, impressions often hold the most truth. Also, if I don't talk about someone, it's because their performance wasn't worth talking about or because I got sick of typing). Kagawa: Scored a goal, obviously. Looked OK at midfield. OK to "not that good." I say get him out of there for Weigl or basically anyone else. Use him sparingly as a sub. Rating: 5 Yarmolenko: Awkward and dangerous. His stepovers are almost comically awkward, but his crosses are as pure as freshly-driven snow (like the one to Aubameyang).  Plus, as the analysts on FS1 were saying, he's seemed to gel quickly with the team. I saw him laughing on the bench with I don't remember who. Seems like a great guy. Rating: 7 Pulisic: Shining mo...

OMG OMG OMG. Kidding. But seriously, today is a special day. On this day in history, September 18th, the following things happened: The Roman emperor Nerva was assasinated There was a peasant uprising in Transilvania (1437) Chris Columbus landed in Costa Rica on his fourth and final voyage (1502) Chilean independence from Spain (1810) Baseball rules 1st baseman can tag base for out instead of runner (1848) And in 1978, all four Kiss members released solo albums. (all previous info courtesy http://www.onthisday.com/events/september/18) But the most important thing happened in 1998, when in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a woman named Kelley Pulisic gave birth to a baby boy named Christian. Kelley didn't know it at the time (or maybe she did), but her baby boy would go on to capture the hearts and minds of soccer fans all over the world. He'd go on to play in the Bundesliga, to play in World Cup qualifiers, to play in the Champions League, and who knows where else....