Henry: Pulisic plays with more freedom on USMNT than clubs

The France legend discussed the USMNT star on CBS Sports’ “Kickin’ It”

Thierry Henry wants to see Christian Pulisic bring the kind of freedom he shows with the U.S. men’s national team to his club side.

The France legend, who at one point discussed taking the USMNT head coach job as a hypothetical, says that Pulisic has been better for his country because he’s willing to take more risks.

Speaking on the debut episode of CBS Sports’ new show “Kickin’ It,” Henry said that being too risk-averse is a disaster for an attacking player like Pulisic.

“As a creative player if you don’t try to make mistakes, you cannot succeed,” explained Henry. “I can see on the national team, [Pulisic] feels like, ‘I can make mistakes.’ When you play on the big club [team], you play the ball one time and it’s a mistake and the next time you touch it is 15 minutes after. People remember every time you touch the ball that you lost it.

“The international team, he plays with that confidence. We were all creative players, so you have to score. So if you feel like in your head you can’t lose that ball, then you might as well step out of the field and don’t play.”

Henry may have a point, at least when you contrast Pulisic’s reliably strong USMNT performances with his last season at Chelsea. In the 2022-23 campaign, Pulisic made 30 (often short) appearances for the Blues, producing just one goal and two assists in 1,012 minutes.

During the same span with the USMNT, Pulisic scored four times and added four assists in just nine total matches. That includes the 2022 World Cup, a tournament in which Pulisic either scored or set up every U.S. goal.

Fortunately for Pulisic and the USMNT, the 25-year-old may have found a path to just that sort of freedom after changing clubs. He has two goals in his first five official appearances at AC Milan (who are very safely in the “big club” category), winning the club’s Player of the Month award for August and causing an announcer to bellow “USA! USA!”

“Kickin’ It” debuts Wednesday night at 8 p.m. ET on  CBS Sports Golazo Network, CBSSports.com, and Paramount+.

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