AC Milan’s roller coaster of a season could take a turn in the right direction on Monday in the Supercoppa Italiana final against Inter, a game in which the focus will be on goalscorer Christian Pulisic to help the club lift their first trophy since the 2020-21 season.
Pulisic has been the picture of consistency for Milan despite a season of patchy form for Milan, notching nine goals and five assists including a penalty in Friday’s semifinal win against Juventus, Sergio Conceicao’s first game in charge since replacing Paulo Fonseca last week. The sense of reliability Pulisic provides makes him Milan’s most important player, though there’s just as much at stake for the U.S. men’s national team star. He has the chance to lift his first piece of silverware since joining Milan in Aug. 2023, which has been a transformational period in his career.
The Supercoppa Italiana would not be Pulisic’s first club trophy – he played in the 2017 DFB Pokal final that Borussia Dortmund won, while he received winners’ medals at Chelsea for their 2021 UEFA Champions League and FIFA Club World Cup triumphs. Though those accolades are important, they also feel like footnotes in an evolving career, one in which the 26-year-old Pulisic went from a promising young talent to one of the sport’s most relevant goalscorers.
How to watch the Supercoppa Italiana final
- Date: Monday, Jan. 6 | Time: 2 p.m. ET
- Location: Al-Awwal Park — Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- TV: CBS Sports Network | Live stream: Paramount+
- Odds: Inter -130; Draw: +260; AC Milan +340
Pulisic has barely missed a beat since joining Milan, scoring 24 goals and registering 15 assists. It was a necessary move for him, too – between injuries and the rotating cast of managerial characters at Chelsea, Pulisic failed to establish himself there and live up to his potential. He wasted little time with a move to Italy, living up to the years-long hype and delivering a career-best club season in his first campaign with Milan. He also quickly answered the question of whether or not he could keep that up, continuing to register goals and assists this season even amidst Milan’s ups and downs.
It makes him the focal point for Milan, who enter Monday’s match in Riyadh as the underdogs against Inter. Though the reigning Serie A champions have experienced their own issues this season, they enter the Supercoppa final on the back of a five-game winning streak, keeping a clean sheet in each of those matches. Milan are not incapable of pulling off a big result, though – they beat Inter in September, a surprise win during a run of poor form thanks in large part to Pulisic’s first-half goal.
Such is Pulisic’s influence in Milan these days that he keeps them competitive on their worse days, but more importantly leads the way on the days they can muster wins, big or small. The combination of his form and his club’s stature means that the standards by which Pulisic is judged by have also changed – he has graduated to becoming a player whose trophy haul will become a notable part of his legacy in a way that has rarely been the case for USMNT players. He seemed to recognize that over the summer, admitting in preseason that winning trophies was a priority for him this campaign.
“It’s more so team goals of what we want to win, what we want to reach,” he said in July. “Our goal is to win trophies. We want to take the next step. We had some good moments in the last season and I had some good moments personally but continuing to improve on that, helping the team in all ways – goals, assists, but also just the way that I work defensively and learning a lot more of the season and hoping to improve off of a good start, personally, but there’s many more things that I want to achieve.”
As a result, a statement win on Monday is equally important for Milan, who hope to justify Conceicao’s hire, as it is for Pulisic on an individual level. Both parties will hope it is not a defining feature of his time at the club when all is said and done – Milan undoubtedly would like to return to the top of the Serie A table as soon as possible after winning the title four years ago. Every trophy counts for something, though, and the experience of winning one title frequently feels like a necessary stepping stone to winning other ones.
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