Nicholas

Art Director, Outdoorsman, Red Licorice Aficionado.

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

Cabral what on earth are you doing?

#rsl

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@TalkingWolves Didn’t see that one coming.

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@MadridPreeti Quit crying about VAR, it’s not why England lost. You can’t park the bus for 35 minutes and expect to win.

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@TaylorTwellman He was 100% playing with fire being on a yellow.

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@golz_tv Nailed it.

[GOLZ @golz_tv]

“I think this is personal. It's a real personal attack on this young man.”

Scottish legend and former Chelsea midfielder Craig Burley has come to USMNT star Christian Pulisic’s defense and hits out at pundits from FOX Sports. 😳

“I don't like it,” Burley said on ESPN FC about Pulisic’s critics.

“I get it, he's had a tough tournament because he started well, got injured, hasn't really found his flow again, ends the tournament the way he pretty much started and got injured.

“But the pile-on, the pile-on to an individual, is way over the top.

“It's like, if Christian Pulisic had a great tournament, the U.S. would have gone all the way. That's kind of how the talk is.

“And I get it, he has a responsibility, and he didn't come into this tournament to try and be under par or play badly.

“But to me, if I was Christian Pulisic, I would be big-time annoyed. In fact, if I was Christian Pulisic, I think I'd be digging some of these people out, personally.

“Because it seems to me it's almost a personal attack on an individual rather than an analysis of the football that's gone before.

“Because if it's an analysis of the football, you could go through pretty much the whole team and say, well, he had a bad game, he had a bad game, the goalkeeper made a mistake, you saw Sergiño Dest had a terrible game, letting balls bounce in the box, all that sort of stuff.

“But it seems that he has been painted up there as the poster boy, and now that some of them, who should know better by the way, some of them, because they've been in that position, want to kill him. They're absolutely killing him.

“It’s people from FOX. It's the same people that when Flo Balogun was told he could play, they were on that network, and they embarrassed the hell out of themselves for about half an hour.

“They all danced around the fact that it was wrong, and said, this is the greatest decision in the history of U.S. sports, Flo Balogun's going to play. That's how embarrassing these people are. They have no shame.

“You're criticizing a player for not carrying a team, no further than you yourself never carried a team.

“You know, it’s not like some of these past players got to the semifinal or whatever and they said, well, he had a disrupted tournament.

“Look, do I think he's perfect? No. But I'll tell you one thing about Christian Pulisic, and going back to [Landon] Donovan and one or two others, at least he's had the stomach to go to Europe over a long, long period of time and forge out a pretty good career for himself at Dortmund, at Chelsea, at Milan.

“He’s gone over there for a long period of time and he has produced some very good performances.

“Some of this lot sitting on their cozy sofas, they can't say that. Yeah, they can talk about what they did in MLS, they can talk about what they did now and again with the national team, but they didn't have the stomach, some of them, to go over there and train your butt off and play at elite level for years at a time.

“They dipped their toe in the water and they jumped back over the pond. But yeah, they want to sit here and kill him.

“And listen, they can analyze games all they want. I don't care. That's their job. But here, I think this is personal. It's a real personal attack on this young man.”

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@sometimes_salty @nmh_2008 @TomeiTyler And Pulisic’s club resume takes a major shit all over Donovan’s… who cares.

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@cachique15 @USMNTOtaku Putting a lot of faith in Gozo… a lot of promise, but still young and unproven outside of MLS. Would love to see it though.

[USMNT News @USMNTNews2]

The discourse around Pulisic the last couple days has been ridiculous:

- Nations League winning goal vs MEX in 2021
- World Cup winning goal vs Iran to send us through
- Brace vs MEX in 2023 Nations League semis
- hat trick vs PAN in WCQ to clinch our spot in the World Cup

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@howyoumean7 @Jermainejunior I mean he won champions league with Chelsea…

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

All the tough guys out there… you would have had to drag me off the field busted ankle or not… shut up already 🤦‍♂️🤣

#usmnt

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@JamieR28_ @TalkingWolves @leponline Does he know Rob is gone?

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@barstoolsports But you weren’t because you lost.

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@FanDuel @RobStoneONFOX The issue is consistency

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@TalkingWolves @talkSPORT Sounds like he's accepted the number 2 role.

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@TalkingWolves @_The72 As an RSL fan, this is kind of a weird one for me... solid player no doubt.. but still unproven in my book especially at this level. There has been signicantly more buzz around Zavier Gozo who is 19.

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@Wwfcwolf1 You're fired! Just kidding we didn't mean it... well we did, but can you come back to work upstairs?

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@Vaughany1973 @OldGoldView Don't know how much he cares about the captaincy. If he's worthy of it, the new manager will hand it over.

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@TalkingWolves @SportsPeteO Feels like poor journalism form SportsPeteO. If you are gonna stir the pot..."reportedly" by who?

[Nicholas @_itsnickdude]

@WWFC_ST21 I know about as much as the next guy, but these are professional ballers making more money than most of us will ever see in our lifetime... I'd be willing to bet they care more about winning and success than they do about the manager.