USMNT Generations: The Interblech

Hey look, we've got another ginned up controversy involving the back-and-forth between different generations of the USMNT. We went a whole...three weeks?...without our peace being wrecked by the chirping of, on one hand a younger generation of spoiled prima donna players who don't seem to understand the responsibility of representing the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, and, on the other, a generation (or two) of cranky ex-players who only seem interested in attention farming in the service of their media careers.

Here's the thing that sparked this recent conflagration, if you've managed to avoid it somehow (lucky you, also, sorry):

Christian Pulisic and Tim Weah open up about the criticism from some U.S. Soccer legends in the latest episodes of PULSIC 📺👀 @paramountplus pic.twitter.com/zqy2TujRQj

— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) August 13, 2025

Choose your fighter!

Or not, because if you're like me, you'd prefer this not be the prevailing narrative around the team heading into what is supposed to be the most important soccer event of our lifetimes. A home World Cup is a big deal in a lot of places. In America, it's way, way more than that.

The potential cultural impact of the tournament, especially if there's a successful USMNT run to rally around, cannot be overstated. I'm not here to tell you that the landscape for soccer in the United States will dramatically change for the better in every single way or do so overnight, but I do wholeheartedly believe the World Cup (if the whole thing isn't undermined by outside factors) can launch the game into a new level of relevance.

If we don't fuck it up on the soccer side.

There are many, many annoying things about this week's flare up, so let me address them one at a time:

CBS Sports/Paramount/Golazo's egregiously provocative editing of the social media video.

I mean, come on...I understand that they want people to watch the Pulisic docuseries (which debuted in...December!?!?!) but the framing, the choice of clips, even the music was all designed to make this story feel more salacious then it is.

Remember, everything included in the clip is by now months old, timed for release around the drop of the last episodes of a Pulisic doc that only follows our hero through the Nations League finals. The things Pulisic said about (unnamed) pundits? Old. Tim Weah going with "evil", an insane word to use in this context? Same. Mark Pulisic chiming in for, ahem, reasons? Not recent.

I'm not saying anyone's feelings have softened since these words were uttered, I'm just not thrilled that we're pulling forward things said in the past to continue a war of words with absolutely nothing new being added.

But I guess if you're CBS Sports/Paramount/Golazo you're elated people are picking this up (okay, The Guardian, whatever) and that your video post on X has over a million views.

Mark Pulisic's involvement, full stop.

Mentioned above. If you know about Christian Pulisic's family, and it's certainly something that comes through in the series, you know that the USMNT star and his dad are very close. Like "best friends" kind of close.

I think that probably explains, beyond the normal dad instincts, why Mark keeps involving himself in Christian's battles. Back when Landon Donovan went on Fox and referenced Pulisic's decision to skip the Gold Cup without saying Pulisic's name, Mark took to Instagram to ping shots at LD. It wasn't a good look.

I'd be willing to bet Mark's comments in the doc that were strategically clipped for socials come from the same period.

The better to avoid going long on this and sounding preachy about parenting stuff, here's what I said on Bluesky.

I'm gonna say it again: It does Christian Pulisic no favors to have his dad publicly chirping previous gens of USMNT players. A drain on your brand, my man.

— Jason Davis (@davisjason.bsky.social) August 13, 2025 at 1:53 PM

Christian will be 27 next month. Maybe it's time to mothball the helicopter.

All the takes being always so hot...why are they so hot?

There's a risk here that I get sucked into a wider rant about how sports media works and the difference between being a hot take merchant sans nuance and being a thoughtful broadcaster that can throw down a scorcher without sacrificing reason, but fuck it, let's go.

Despite my opinion that Mark Pulisic isn't doing his kid any favors by chirping the Landon Donovans and Tim Howards of the world, he does have point. Those guys seem intent on making a mark and getting attention by taking a flamethrower out on every topic related to the current USMNT.

As transcribed by The Guardian:

“These [pundits] want clicks, social media, ‘subscribe to my channels,’ ‘listen to my podcasts’ or whatever. I think they should look in the mirror and look at their last performances for the national team before they start talking shit,” he said. “It’s jealousy. People want to be in his shoes, and they’ll find any reason to bring him down. But Christian doesn’t give a shit what anyone says.”

We all want clicks. We all want to stand out from the noise. Speaking from experience (as a media personality, not a former USMNT player...obviously) it's very easy to conjure an acid-tongued on-air persona as the only way to "succeed".

When everyone else is running as fast as they can in the one direction, it's unimaginably difficult to stop—much less run the other way. The media environment makes you feel like you have to scream (or do the rhetorical equivalent) in order to be heard. It's so much harder to hold back, think about things, and deliver a measured take.

Very few broadcasters ever reach a point where "relevance" feels like a settled state. Even broadcasters famous for their playing careers can be buffeted by the prevailing waves of outrage and clickbait.

I'm not going to pretend I haven't fallen into the hot take trap. None of us are immune. But at this point (a decade into the radio thing) I try to be conscious of slipping into incendiary opinions that aren't defensible beyond "vibes"*. No matter what you think of ex-USMNTers dropping their takes all over the yard, comments about commitment and heart don't meet the standard of "analysis". And when they come from a retired generation of players who might be jealous of the things the new kids have that they didn't? Well...

It doesn't even matter if players like Donovan are jealous. It only matters that people can argue about their motivation.

Short-form studio analysis and in-game color commentary are very different undertakings than the less-restrained world of a podcast (or radio). I haven't done much of the former two. I have done A LOT of that latter. So far, I haven't been impressed by how players of the last USMNT generation have translated their experience and expertise into insight about the current USMNT generation.

Because they absolutely can provide insight no one else can.

*Sometimes this gets me labeled a "fence-sitter", but I'd rather be accused of not taking a position than vomit out an opinion without thinking it through. Shrug.

This is boring because...

I'm guessing most of us belong to some group that is very much like the USMNT. A club or team from high school or college. A fraternity, sorority, or something similar. A clique that we belonged to that we aged out of.

Hell, we probably don't even need to evoke a smaller in-group to talk about this phenomenon. In every aspect of human life since the beginning of time, outside of the United States Senate, younger people have pushed out older people and left the older people to bitch about how the younger people aren't doing it right—whatever "it" is.

Maybe that's all this is. Which is yawn-inducing, frankly. If all we've got here is resentment over replacement, only in a specific context, than everyone involved needs to step outside the beef and see this for what it is. I'm not saying it needs to be kumbaya (personality clash is also as old as time), but perhaps this is a "rise above" situation. The older guys should be wary of sounding like a gaggle of retirees complaining about kids these days over orders of the big breakfast at Mickey Dee's.

The younger guys probably need to swallow hard and accept that unless they're out-achieving the previous generations by measurable margins, this kind of heat comes with the gig. The USMNT is particularly fertile ground for down-generation judgement because we've internalized our status as disrespected outsiders. Pulisic and many of his USMNT teammates line up for Champions League-caliber clubs and as long as their elite status isn't obviously benefiting the national team, they're natural targets for the guys that see themselves as trailblazers.

Pulisic is not made for the media game.

This has always been true. Maybe it's time we finally let the kid off the hook.

The best player from any country is asked to carry more than the burdens foisted upon him or her on the field. It's not enough, generally, to be really, really good at soccer. Unless you're Lionel Messi and everyone sees you as a stoic, mystical, soccer-playing wizard, you have to do things like talk to the media and try to be charismatic.

But for all of Christian Pulisic's positive attributes, his on-camera personality is a massive negative. I say "on-camera" because neither you nor I have any idea what Pulisic is like when he's not in the spotlight. While it's unlikely he's a completely different person than the guy that got 9 (9!) episodes of documentary airtime, we have the allow for the possibility.

But on-air? Rough stuff.

Pulisic shouldn't be doing documentaries. He shouldn't' be doing interviews. In the almost 10 years since he became a fixture on the American soccer scene he hasn't improved, not even a little bit. The few times I've talked to him on the radio were painful. When someone is so bad at something people actually recoil when they do it, we shouldn't be asking them to do it anymore.

I know that sucks. American soccer waited so long for a hero that could carry our banner into battle as both a world class* player and a magnetic face of the game in the United States that it feels unfair (to us) that Pulisic is only capable of being one of those things.

But he is just one of those things and the sooner we make peace with that, the happier we'll all be. Whatever criticism Pulisic might get for eschewing media obligations would be worth it if it meant less of...whatever this is.

*This is not me declaring Pulisic is currently world class, just that he's as close as America has ever come.

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