If nothing else comes of 2018, Christian Pulisic finally seems to have become the leader the USMNT needs

So how about a silver lining?

Do you need something to feel at least slightly better about over the last week for the United States men’s national team? To take your mind off the 3-0 drubbing at the hands of England on Thursday and the utter domination by Italy on Tuesday, which somehow only ended in a 1-0 injury-time loss?

There isn’t really anything to be said or written that will soothe the sting of a pair of humbling games entirely. But at least there’s this: Christian Pulisic seems to have truly become a leader with the U.S. in these lopsided games.

And that’s, well, something?

Going into this pair of games, Pulisic had appeared for the U.S. just once in the year since it failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Trinidad and Tobago. He had, by that point, already become the team’s best player and its obvious future. So it was unsettling that he’d largely disappeared thereafter, focusing on his club career with German juggernauts Borussia Dortmund, resting after a long season and nursing injuries. There were, understandably, growing concerns over Pulisic’s commitment to the national team program.

At present, Pulisic is reportedly the subject of some kind of fevered pursuit by Chelsea and Liverpool. Ho-hum. That’s been true for several years now. Although it’s notable that Pulisic has grown into a major contributor on a team that currently leads the Bundesliga and is sitting pretty in the Champions League group stage.

But while he has all that going on, he finally seems to have put the national team on his shoulders. And that was needed. Pulisic may only be two months past his 20th birthday, but he is now the face of the program and the attacking playmaker around whom the new head coach – when he’s finally, finally announced – will surely build a new national team. You need that guy to not only be fully on board, but demonstrating his elevated status on the field.

This past week, Pulisic showed encouraging signs.

In the ugly loss against England, he was blamed – partly, at least – on the first goal. But, deployed on the wing, he nevertheless had a very active game as one of the only Americans on the field who performed passably. He dribbled at defenders. He made hopeful runs. He tried things. He attempted to set an example for a wide-eyed team, seemingly awed by the occasion of facing England at Wembley Stadium.

And, more importantly still, Pulisic was despondent afterward.

“England’s a good team. We know that. We’re not taking anything away from them because they played well,” Pulisic said then. “But if you want to compete with a side like that, we need to come out with a lot more energy.

“We need to get a lot better as a team,” Pulisic added. “We talk about continuing to gain experience, but that’s not why we’re here. We want to win now. We want to win these games. I’m a competitive guy and everyone else is in that locker room. It wasn’t good enough.”

Against a young and experimental Italy team, a young and experimental USA was completely outclassed. It was the youngest team the U.S. had fielded in the modern era, in fact, with an average age of 22 years and 71 days. And Pulisic wore the captain’s armband for the first time, as the youngest U.S. captain in the modern era.

This time, there was less of an energy problem than a talent problem. But again, Pulisic tried to set the tone as he played up front with Josh Sargent while pressing the satin-footed Italians, and dropping behind the 18-year-old striker to pull the strings when in possession – which wasn’t often. He pointed his teammates to where he wanted them. He made incessant runs. He won lots of balls. He tracked back huge distances.

Certainly, the Americans spent the entire game chasing the play. They managed no shots at all in the first half. Not a corner, even. And in the second, the only bit of danger came from a Walker Zimmerman header on a bouncing free kick.

Italy, meanwhile, could have won by a handful. The U.S. was spared a penalty after halftime when Aaron Long clumsily tripped Domenico Berardi in the box. And the Italian pressure only built from there – kept at bay by some strong saves from Ethan Horvath – until, finally, Matteo Politano finished off a nice move in the 94th minute.

There isn’t any sugarcoating all of that. It was bad. The U.S. was very bad in these two games.

But it also needed Pulisic to seize a bigger role on the team. To become, as the tired and intangible cliché goes, a leader. By showing up, for starters. And then by stepping up.

He did that. Appearances suggest that Pulisic took over the team this week.

And, if there’s nothing else, well, there’s at least that.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a Yahoo Sports soccer columnist and a sports communication lecturer at Marist College. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.

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