Christian Pulisic's fascinating career approaches another milestone in Milan derby

On Monday, Christian Pulisic celebrates his 25th birthday, a quarter of a century with plenty of mementos unique for an American playing the world’s most popular sport. He has struck the opening goal in an FA Cup final at Wembley and a goal in a German Klassiker, for Borussia Dortmund against Bayern Munich, in front of 80,000-odd at the Westfalen Stadium.

It was a Pulisic strike at Real Madrid’s Bernabeu that ushered Chelsea towards a Champions League final and guided the USA’s most celebrated 21st century footballer to claiming a winners’ medal in that competition.

This weekend, a career milestone every bit as resonant awaits Pulisic: A Milan derby at a full, expectant San Siro and the prospect, with a victory for Pulisic’s new employer AC Milan, that he wakes up on his birthday top of Serie A and even more feted by supporters thrilled to count ‘Captain America’, as he has been dubbed, as one of their own.

“It was love at first sight for me here,” Pulisic told Gazzetta dello Sport ahead of Saturday’s meeting with Inter, “especially when I saw the Milan fans. I’ve never experienced such passion.”

When Pulisic left Chelsea, part of the heavy turnover of hectic transfer activity at the London club during the summer, it was in search of a relaunch of a career that started precociously early, when he was scouted in Pennsylvania and signed by Dortmund at 16. Chelsea paid €64 million for him before he had turned 21, by which time he had already worn the skipper’s armband for his country.

But some badly timed injuries, seven changes of manager in between his signing for Chelsea and his leaving after four seasons there, meant the several apparent lift-offs of his career in London never quite gained the anticipated momentum.

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