The U.S. Men’s National Team’s World Cup run ended in a thud against Belgium in the Round of 16, and the fallout is just beginning for the team’s biggest star. Landon Donovan, a USMNT legend and current Fox Sports analyst, didn’t hold back when asked about Christian Pulisic’s performance in the tournament — and he offered a stark warning about what might come next.
Donovan knows what it’s like to carry a nation’s hopes and come up short. In 2006, he went scoreless across three group stage games as the U.S. crashed out with a 0-1-2 record. The criticism that followed, he said, broke him.
“I was depressed for a few weeks and I really struggled and suffered,” Donovan said during a recent appearance. He compared that experience to what Pulisic might be facing now.
“I don’t know Christian super well, I don’t know his makeup in that way. I would imagine this would be crushing for him, but the facts are the facts, and the reality is the reality.”
The numbers are not pretty
Pulisic has now played seven World Cup matches across two tournaments. He’s scored exactly one goal. In three of those seven games, he’s left the field early with an injury. This time around, he played roughly half the available minutes due to various nicks and a general lack of sharpness.
“You can call that coincidence, you can call it bad luck, whatever, it’s the reality,” Donovan said.
The AC Milan attacker hasn’t scored a goal for club or country since December, outside of one impressive first-half shift against Paraguay in the group stage. That drought, combined with the injury pattern, has fans and analysts questioning whether he can still be the centerpiece of the program.
The weight of being the guy
Donovan put it bluntly: “In the end, he’s your best player. He’s your star player. And he just didn’t have it for them.”
That’s the hard truth for a program that has leaned on Pulisic since he was a teenager. He’s the face of U.S. Soccer, the guy who scored the goal that sent the USMNT to the 2022 World Cup knockout round. But the 2026 tournament was his chance to cement a legacy at home, on home soil, and it didn’t happen.
Donovan said he spent the morning scrolling through Twitter to gauge the sentiment. What he found was a lot of facts about Pulisic’s recent form — and not much to argue with.
“Three of his last seven World Cup games, he’s gotten injured,” Donovan repeated. “I think he only played about half the minutes in the tournament.”
Belgium moves on to face Spain in the quarterfinals. The U.S. heads home to figure out what went wrong. For Pulisic, the questions are personal now. How does he bounce back from a tournament that didn’t just disappoint fans but also — if Donovan is right — might break him for a while.
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