The Christian Pulisic Blog

Apparently Christian Pulisic is injured. Which I find interesting, because how can you injure someone whose flesh and blood are not of this world? To injure Christian Pulisic you'd have to touch him, and I've seen what happens when defenders try to touch Christian Pulisic. Generally the ball goes through their legs or they fall down or, in the rare cases when they do lay a by comparison leprous arm on him, they concede some kind of free kick in a dangerous era. So I don't know about this supposed shin injury. And if he is injured, I doubt it happened on the pitch. I bet Isak was playing a prank on him or something like that. Maybe Aubameyang. But I'd bet dollars to proverbial donuts he's not actually injured. His presence was of course missed on the field against Wolfsburg yesterday, though his replacement, Jadon Sancho, killed it. I didn't know Jadon Sancho was that good. I'd seen him his first time on the field, but that was only a few minutes. I sinc...

I'd like to write about Der Klassiker tomorrow between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich, but I'm a little distracted by this video: The question, of course, is the following: Is this the best song of all time? And when I say all time I mean in all of recorded history, including Mozart and Beethoven and the song "One Night in Bangkok." And the answer: I think "yes." Anyway, Der Klassiker tomorrow. I will be doing player ratings for this game, so I'm sure all of the players will be trying their hardest to not have a low rating. The first question I have about this game is: Will Andrey Yarmolenko start on the right? And if the answer is "yes," then I have a second question: Why? Why start him on the right when you could start a guy who does this: Here’s Christian Pulisic’s game-winning goal for #BVB . Absolutely incredible touch on the flick. https://t.co/Y9W8K0YVaU — Jack Grimse (@JackGrimse) December 16, 2017 But anyway...

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.

For the last four or five Dortmund games (with the exception of Magdeburg) I've been tempted to say, "This is the most important game of the season so far." Saturday's game against FC Bayern Munich is no different, and quite possibly the most important potential start (or no start) for American soccer phenom Christian Pulisic, aka the Man Child from Hershey, aka Cha Boi, aka Slice 'n Dice, aka Man's Not Hot, aka the Worthy Winger, aka the Man with the Most Dribbles, aka Mr. Dab, aka I'm Just a Teenage Schwarzgelb, aka Shake 'n Bake, aka Harry Potter and the Aubameyang's Stone, aka Cross my Heart and Hope to Stepover, aka Old Enough for Trouble Too Young to Care, etc. etc. Why is this the most important potential start for Christian Pulisic? Because Peter Bosz has yet to iron out a regular starting 11. Because when you're 19 you need to feel like your coach believes in you and ever since the arrival of Andrey "Back Heel" Yarm...

Sunday morning and I'm sitting in my living room coping with Borussia Dortmund's 4-2 loss to Hannover 96 on Saturday by listening to this song:   As Stefan Buzcko poignantly noted in his article,  " Pulisic Dortmund's lone bright spot in defeat to newly promoted Hannover ," "Football is just a a game." Indeed, Mr. Buzcko. Though it must be noted that when certain players play the game, i.e. 19-year-olds from Hershey, Pennsylvania, it ceases to become a game an becomes something else entirely. We saw a few moments of that in the game against Hannover on Saturday. These moments were, dare I say, celestial? Exhibit A: Yarmolenko robs Christian Pulisic of an assist, he stole the ball & put it on a platter for him! Awful miss. #BVB #H96BVB #NiemalsAllein pic.twitter.com/ioASU36x4X — GolazoJuice (@GolazoJuice) October 28, 2017 Now, I'm not super fond of the caption: "Yarmolenko robs Christian Pulisic....." etc. becaus...

Hello Pulisic Fans, And welcome to the Straight Outta Hershey official preview for the Bundesliga Matchday 10 game between Hannover 96 and Borussia Dortmund. Today's preview will focus heavily on three things: 1) What will happen in the game, 2) What will happen with Christian Pulisic, and 3) Am I moving to Germany? But first, let's start with a GIF: It's been a quiet half for Christian Pulisic so far, but here is a gif of him faking out 2 #SGE players. #BVB #SGEBVB pic.twitter.com/uMuvGpL5I5 — GolazoJuice (@GolazoJuice) October 21, 2017 I'll give you a moment to collect your jaws off the floor or get the urine out of your boxers or whatever it is you need to do, and then we'll move forward. .... Good. What's so special about this GIF? The fact that it's really not that special . Pulisic does this kind of stuff all the time. And I love to use italics  because they make things so much more dramatic. But let's get away from Pulisic for...

Getting ready for the Frankfurt match tomorrow by looking at the various Twitter accounts of various BVB players. Who are my favorite players, you might ask? Well #1 would probably be this kid from Pennsylvania who's, like, kinda good and, like, kinda dribbles past people.  Number two would probably be Julian Weigle because he's handsome and smooth and usually makes passes with the precision of a hand surgeon (though maybe not the hand surgeon who operated on my wrist since he actually broke the bone more). I like Bürki mostly because he's passionate and seems like a cool guy and reminds me of my friend Ross Mckinstry from high school. I kind of like Sahin because, again, he seems cool. Not because he's that great, but because he seems cool. And I would like Toprak if he was a better defender, i.e. faster, because he's also a cool guy. In fact the only one I'm not sure of is Götze, because he seems a liiiiiiiiiitle full of himself. But anyway. The game tomorr...

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 ...

Today's game against Augsburg FC was a frustrating game for Pulisic fans. He started (whoopee!) on the left side, where he was heavily marked and received rare service from Jeremy Toljan, who seems hell-bent on not passing to our boy. He did have one great run where he cut up about four different Augsburg defenders, slicing through them like a meat-cleaver through a block of melting lard, then dished it to a teammate who promptly biffed it into an Augsburg defender. United-Fans get gassed when Martial does this once a month. Pulisic does this every single game. pic.twitter.com/dVzuOt2MUW — М.¹¹ (@SimpIyMarco) September 30, 2017 Then, once Yarmolenko came out (who had a decent game but spent a little too much time on the ground crying for my liking, and also tripped over the ball once, which is something I do all the time but I'm 34 and play for FC Aloneintherain), Pulisic moved over to the right where, as the announcers commented, he looked much more comfortable and dead...

We're all familiar with the saying, "Everyone's a general after the battle." This is what sprang to mind when I thought of all the people criticizing Dortmund after their 3-1 loss to Real Madrid yesterday in Champions League Matchday 2. The only problem is, people were saying all the criticisms about Dortmund before the match , i.e. that Dortmund's high back line left massive holes that Real Madrid would exploit. Which is exactly what Real Madrid did. Forget about the the supposed Sergio Ramos handball in the first half. Was it a handball? Maybe. But it doesn't matter. Real Madrid simply had way, way, way more opportunities than Dortmund. The score after the first half could've just as easily been 3-0 as it was 1-0. (Roman Bürki, can you cover your near post ? Is this some kind of Swiss goalkeeping technique? Though to be fair, you did have some brilliant saves.) But that's the thing: Brilliant saves should not keep the ball out of the net;...

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...

I was bummed when I turned on the TV this morning to watch Dortmund vs. K ö ln and saw that Pulisic wasn't on the field. At first I thought maybe I'd missed him, but his tiny steps when trotting are hard to miss. It was good to see him warming up with Julian Weigl before the game, engaged in conversation and laughing. I wondered what language they were speaking. For some reason I think English, since in an Instagram or Twitter post Christian said something @ Weigl in English. And I'm sure it's English with Isak, who was also in the warmup mix, since Isak is fresh from Sweden and probably doesn't speak German. Philipp's goal from Yarmolenko just a few minutes into the game was a cracker. Yarmelenko isn't the most graceful of players, but he seems to get the job done. And Philipp's header was nothing short of brilliant. I couldn't help but think, though: Shit, does Philipp playing well mean more bench time for Pulisic? And then of course Philip sc...