U.S.men’s national team star Christian Pulisic was back on the scoresheet again on Tuesday in AC Milan’s 3-2 win at Slovan Bratislava in the UEFA Champions League, helping to ensure they would escape a tightly contested match with all three points (you can catch all the Champions League action live on Paramount+).
Milan were off to a dominant start and got their reward by the 21st minute, when Pulisic broke the deadlock. Tammy Abraham received the ball around the halfway line and saw Pulisic making a run right in front of him, playing a ball that the American had no problem catching up to. Pulisic then outpaced the defender marking him and ran almost the entire length of Slovan’s half, making his way into the penalty area before scoring from an angle and slotting the ball into the bottom left corner of the goal.
Watch the strike below.
Slovan equalized just three minutes later courtesy of an impressive counterattack from Tigran Barseghyan. The quick back-and-forth of the first half laid the foundation for a dramatic second half, in which Milan took a 3-1 lead by the 71st minute courtesy of goals from Rafael Leao and Abraham. Slovan, though, pulled one back with a goal from Nino Marcelli in the 88th minute, though the hosts’ momentum was disrupted when Marko Tolic received a second yellow card just two minutes later.
The win is stacked with good news for Milan, who will likely hang onto a spot in the top 24 and remain in strong position to advance to the next round of the competition. Tuesday’s victory against Slovan is their third win in a row in the Champions League, which marks only the second time since the 2007-08 season that Milan have gone on such a winning streak in Europe. Leao will also take positives from the game, responding to a poor start to the season with two goals and two assists in his last four matches for the club.
Pulisic, naturally, was amongst the standout players, and now has three goals in Champions League play this season, already reaching a career-best statistic just five games into the campaign. He also equaled a decades-old record for Americans in the Champions League, matching DaMarcus Beasley’s three goal season for PSV during the 2004-05 season, a run that included a fourth goal in their qualifying campaign.
The American has easily been Milan’s most consistent contributor in front of goal this season, scoring eight goals and notching four assists in 18 games across all competitions this season. He’s on track to outdo last season’s 16 goal, 10 assist showing, which marked the best club campaign of his career. His impressive form has translated to the national team, scoring two goals and two assists in his last five games for the USMNT.
However, the game was nervier than it needed to be for the visitors, which has been a trend over the course of a season of inconsistency for Milan. They won by just a single goal despite outshooting Slovan 15 to six, another sign that there’s room for improvement in defense. They have already conceded eight goals in five Champions League games this season and 14 in 12 Serie A games, really requiring their attackers to bail them out of trouble more often than not.
The good news for manager Paulo Fonseca is that his team has the ability to do just that, scoring three goals in three consecutive Champions League or European Cup games for the first time since 1989. Milan have scored in all but two games this season, thanks in part to the work of individual players like Pulisic who will perform even on the team’s off days. Their porous defense, though, means there are still questions around whether or not Milan’s tendencies of inconsistency are behind them just yet, even as they extend their unbeaten run in all competitions to five games.
