Amid all the talk about Christian Pulisic’s calf, I asked Weston McKennie — Pulisic’s longtime teammate and friend — how he is doing mentally.
“I think mentally he’s great,” McKennie said. “He’s being able to play in a World Cup, and he’s here on home soil. Family’s out here. We’re not staying at a bad hotel — I mean, we get to wake up and see the beach. So I think it’s really hard for someone’s mental game to be messed up in these type of conditions.”
Obviously, Pulisic’s situation is different, in that his World Cup moment has been interrupted by this injury. He did not exactly seem to be in great spirits when I saw him walking off the field 30 minutes ago. But, as Pochettino said yesterday, he is “strong.”
And support from teammates and staff helps.
“U.S. Soccer and all the guys around, we’re like a big family, and we’re always there to pick someone up if they’re down, and to uplift them even further if they’re not,” McKennie said. “So yeah, I think he’s doing good mentally.”
