Pulisic explains how his tiger tattoo was inspired by Tiger Woods

In an excerpt from his new book, Christian Pulisic has explained the meaning behind some of his tattoos, including a tiger tattoo he says was inspired by Tiger Woods.

Pulisic also speaks about his chess piece tattoo, which is a tribute to his grandfather who taught him how to play the game he now counts among his favorite hobbies.

The following is an excerpt from “Christian Pulisic: My Journey So Far” which will be available for purchase on October 18.

Questions from author Daniel Melamud are in italic.

Pulisic on his tiger tattoo

Your tiger tattoo — which is amazing, by the way — was integral to a goal celebration at the beginning of this season (2021-22). You covered your eyes with your forearm, giving you the eyes and nose of a tiger. Aubameyang has put masks on, but yours is always at the ready.

I remember when I got the tattoo we wanted it to line up so I could cover my eyes with it, but I wasn’t planning on it being a celebration. l’d actually done that celebration once before, but no one really saw it — I don’t remember when it was — so when the first game of the season came around, it felt right to do it again.

It’s the year of the tiger and you were born in 1998, the year of the tiger — did that factor into why you got the tattoo?

Yeah, it’s part of it. I have always loved tigers, but also probably my favorite athlete growing up was Tiger Woods. I loved watching him play. So yeah, I was thinking what kind of tattoo I could get and I knew I was born in the year of the tiger, and I had always loved tigers, and I was a fan of Tiger Woods, so it all kind of just felt right.

When did you get your first tattoo?

My very first tattoo was back when I was 17 in Dortmund, and it was just something that was really personal and not something that anyone would understand the meaning of … I just wanted to get something that was meaningful to me. It has to do with my family and it’s never something I would really share with anyone, just a special one to me.

Did you get the others soon after?

I think it was like a couple of months between each one. I would just think of an idea. I always kind of wanted to fill my left arm out, so whenever I came up with a cool idea I would just kind of go for it. It took me about …  I mean, I didn’t completely finish this arm sleeve until a couple months ago. So it took a while, a couple of years.

And the chess piece tattoo, you have “Mate” written on it. Your granddad taught you how to play.

He always had a chessboard around in the house right next to him. He had one of those chessboards that would tell you where to move. The computer would move, and you’d play against it.

Me and my cousin Will … we always found it fascinating and we wanted to learn the game. So my granddad taught us and we’d try to play against him, but obviously we were never at his level; we couldn’t compete with him.