Milan’s Christian Pulisic begins life after Chelsea on Italian club’s US tour (2023)

Before “the symbol of American soccer”, as one Italian sportswriter called him, ever donned AC Milan’s jersey for a match, Christian Pulisic made a tremendous impact for his new club.

Sales at AC Milan’s team store rose by 266% once the 24-year-old native of Hershey, Pennsylvania, signed his four-year contract worth up to $24.2 million. Pulisic’s jersey accounted for 45% of all jerseys sold, with Americans representing 43% of total sales, compared to just 9% last year.

“I’ve seen a lot of Milan jerseys across the US,” Pulisic said. “There’s a lot of support. I remember growing up from a young, young age having Italians on our team. They were the biggest AC Milan fans in the world. They would always talk about it.”

But Pulisic and AC Milan plan on far more than selling jerseys. The Rossoneri signed him to bolster their Champions League hopes and to recover from last season’s fourth-place finish in Serie A. The young midfielder, meanwhile, seeks to reinvigorate his club career following a lost season at Chelsea.

“Now I have a great opportunity to reach the highest level that I can, and hopefully be back to where I want to be and take it to another level. That’s why I’m here. That’s what I want to bring to this club.”

In Stefano Pioli, AC Milan’s manager, Pulisic found a kindred spirit who appreciates and encourages the midfielder’s style.

“I spoke with Pioli and I really felt like they wanted me,” Pulisic said. “I felt like I was wanted here to play in an attacking role, to be very aggressive, to be very direct and bring what I can to help his team create chances to score goals – and that’s what I’m here to do.”

Pioli, for his part, wants his new American midfielder to play a pivotal role.

“He’s a flexible and very intelligent player,” Pioli said. “He can play on the left, on the right or as a number 10. He can make an impact from both sides or even from behind the center-forward. That will give us more options this season.”

Such versatility can prove decisive in the manager’s offensive approach.

“We’re trying to build our play by looking to read the spaces left by our opposition, whether it be wide or inside or from another opponent,” Pioli said. “We’re trying to vary our play to be able to dominate the game a little more. With his quality, he certainly will be very useful in our attack.”

But that role will demand high standards.

“Christian is a great player,” Pioli said. “I expect a lot from him. I expect quality. I expect personality. I expect a presence on the field, which he is already showing us in training every day.”

In his first match for his new club, Pulisic exploited poor marking to get two shots on goal and two assists in the first 16 minutes of a 45-minute scrimmage against FC Lumenazze SSD, promoted this season to Serie C, Italy’s third tier. For his second assist, Pulisic, stationed at the left boundary of the goalkeeper’s box, volleyed a ball from the midfield to Tommaso Pobega for a goal.

“For me, it was great,” Pulisic said. “I had a lot of opportunities to run at the defenders with the ball, and that’s what I like to do.”

But Pulisic also suffered a hard foul from Manuel Locatelli, who received a yellow card as a result.

“Serie A is a league that is very difficult,” said Tomori, entering his third season with Milan after transferring from Chelsea in 2021. “So many teams are fighting every week to win. At the end of the season, it’s so difficult, it’s so tight.

“You know, when the coaches yell something in Italian, we can just look at each other and laugh a bit,” Pulisic said about Loftus-Cheek. “So it’s good to have somebody else in the same boat as you. Being quite close with some of those guys definitely helps the transition into the club.”

In the midst of his excitement, Pulisic maintains a sense of wonder about the course of his career after he joined Borussia Dortmund’s under-17 squad in 2015.

“To imagine I’d be signing for a massive club like Milan is truly an honor for me,” he said. “It was my dream, playing professional soccer in Europe. But I never imagined I would have come this far when I was a younger kid. I never could have believed it. I was watching games when I was just a kid with my dad.”

That perspective includes wistfulness about his hometown, America’s chocolate capital, and its amusement park.

“I think about Hershey a lot, to be honest,” Pulisic said. “I hope I can get back. It’s been a couple years since I’ve been to Hershey Park. I’d love to return sometime.”

But with Serie A beginning in less than a month, nostalgia will have to wait.

“I’ve seen firsthand how good he is,” Tomori said. “We need him to be his confident self.”