Landon Donovan: USMNT players, staff, sponsors ‘fed up’ with Christian Pulisic’s camp

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Credit: Blake Dahlin - Imagn Images; Unfiltered Soccer Podcast

Landon Donovan is not letting up in his harsh critiques of USMNT star Christian Pulisic.

Earlier this week, the Fox Sports analyst was one of the most high-profile voices to crush Pulisic for subbing out of the U.S.’s loss to Belgium with a sprained ankle. Donovan said if it were him nursing an injury with the USMNT down in an elimination game, “you would have had to f*cking drag me off the field.”

Donovan’s comments sparked significant discussion in the wake of the USMNT’s elimination from the World Cup and continued a long-running dispute between two of the country’s biggest-ever soccer stars.

In a follow-up on his podcast Unfiltered Soccer, Donovan elaborated on his doubts about Pulisic, claiming that players, staff and sponsors around the USMNT are “fed up” with Pulisic’s camp.

“I speak to people who are at U.S. Soccer, I speak to his sponsors, I speak to his teammates, I speak to the staff and the coaches. People are fed up with the way things are handled around him,” Donovan said.

“And it’s not necessarily him, but it’s his agents, his family, his hangers-on, the people that are influencing (him). People are fed up with it. They treat people poorly. They do things poorly. It’s always a no whenever you want to ask him to do an interview. It’s always a no; you can’t get near him.”


As in his initial comments, Donovan related his struggles after the 2006 World Cup to Pulisic’s now. Donovan said that after struggling in his first big-time international action at age 24, he began going to therapy and clearing his mind, which led to a better approach for the rest of his career.

Speaking directly to Pulisic, Donovan suggested taking more ownership of his career, doing fewer advertisements, and potentially even getting media training.

“(Pulisic) needs to man up and have a conversation with (his reps) and say, ‘Look guys, this is not helping me,'” Donovan said. “He needs to get some training on media. I did, too. I said a lot of dumb sh*t … but all of these things can be a positive. I have to say, though, he has a big challenge ahead of him.”

The rift between Donovan and Pulisic intensified last year, when Donovan led the charge against Pulisic after the star winger chose not to compete with the USMNT in the Concacaf Gold Cup, the team’s big tune-up for the World Cup. Pulisic controversially dodged a chance to gel with teammates and new coach Mauricio Pochettino, instead opting to rest his body during the club offseason.

As a result, Donovan said Wednesday that he and Pulisic “don’t have a great relationship,” and that he does not think Pulisic likes or respects him.

Donovan also infamously took a “sabbatical” leading up to the 2014 World Cup, which resulted in his being left off the USMNT roster altogether.

So while Donovan may not be the ideal messenger to report that patience is wearing thin toward Pulisic within the American soccer community, the connections Donovan has as a longtime star turned Fox broadcaster certainly means that he is among the very few who would be able to gauge these relationships after an abysmal exit from a home-soil World Cup.

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