Christian Pulisic has saluted Brenden Aaronson’s rapid development after the attacker became the second-most expensive U.S. men’s national team player of all-time last week when he joined Leeds.
Aaronson completed a reported $30 million move from Red Bull Salzburg, and now trails only Pulisic ($73m to Chelsea in 2019) on the list of highest transfer fees ever paid for a USMNT player.
Though Pulisic is only two years older, Aaronson has cited him as an inspiration for moving to Europe as a teenager with Borussia Dortmund. Aaronson followed in Pulisic’s footsteps when he left the Philadelphia Union at age 20 to join Salzburg.
Pulisic told reporters that he was happy to hear Aaronson – who grew up in Medford, N.J., just over two hours from his hometown of Hershey, Pa. – cited him as a big reason he made the jump to Europe.
“That’s a big reason why I do what I do. I hope to inspire kids and anyone really,” Pulisic said.
“I was also inspired by people close to my age that made it right before me, a lot of the guys playing in Europe, a lot of the American national team guys at the time, whether it was Clint [Dempsey] or Geoff Cameron, [Alejandro] Bedoya, those guys inspired me and I wanted to do exactly that.
“I’m happy any way I can help Brenden. You can see his come-up has been incredible. Now he’s going to be playing in the Premier League … it’s exciting. And hopefully that will just continue to go on and on. Now he’s going to inspire the next kid.”
Pulisic endorses Aaronson in the middle
Aaronson has been deployed mostly as a winger during his 18 career appearances with the USMNT but on Tuesday, head coach Gregg Berhalter said he would be starting the 21-year-old centrally in Wednesday’s friendly against Morocco.
Pulisic, who himself shifts between central and wide attacking positions, has endorsed the idea of his teammate playing in the middle.
“I think he’s a player that can absolutely play multiple positions,” Pulisic said. “He’s a guy who can bring you so much energy even against the ball, and then we all know about his quality on the ball as well and how he can hurt you as well. So I think it can work out very well.”
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