He’s lightning quick, highly ambitious and admits he’s getting better with each passing week, and with Christian Pulisic in full flight, it may only be a matter of time before Borussia Dortmund are flourishing once more under recently appointed coach Peter Bosz.
Following an electric start to 2017/18 – when Die Schwarzgelben won six of their opening seven Bundesliga games – last season’s third-place finishers are currently enduring a run of five matches without a win. Yet in the 19-year-old Pulisic, BVB have a player setting a solid standard as they look to steady the ship.
Watch: Pulisic - Dortmund's star attraction in action!
“I am playing every week in the Bundesliga, in the Champions League, against top teams; when you do that every week, you are going to improve,” the Hershey-born star said in an interview with The Independent. “When you play against the best players, you’re going to grow. I’m learning a lot: tactically, technically, gaining strength.”
Incredibly, Pulisic is already in his third season at Dortmund, the club for whom he debuted at just 17 in January 2016. Yet as the player with 20 USMNT caps explains, things would not have progressed quite as quickly without the assistance of his paternal Croatian grandfather Mate.
On acquiring a Croatian passport with the assistance of that country’s football federation, Pulisic was deemed an E.U. citizen and could thus join the Dortmund academy at an earlier age, as opposed to having had to wait until he turned 18.
“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed.” -MJ
“I wouldn’t have been able to play U-17, U-19, I wouldn’t have been able to play for any of these teams,” he told The Independent. “And I made my pro debut when I was 17. Obviously you imagine: what if I had to wait to show my abilities until I was 18, how far behind I would have been. As opposed to how it actually happened for me.
“I knew I would need that passport, but I knew I had the chance to get it,” he added. “It was a little bit of a process, but luckily it went through when I was still 16. That gave me the ability to play, so it has helped me so much.”
@bvb09 take their shots for the @easportsfifa Free Kick Challenge! Support your guys with a