Pulisic’s Europa League hope, Wright on the mark yet again, and McKennie’s VAR setbacks all play a part in this week’s USMNT Player Tracker.
Each Monday, we bring you updates on how American players in leagues around Europe fared over the weekend.
With a Copa America to host this year and the 2026 World Cup, also partially on home soil, looming ever larger on the horizon, we are keeping tabs on how they are performing.
How to follow the Copa America on The Athletic…
Issue of the weekend
Big games demand big performances. AC Milan certainly have the former this week and will hope their supercharged USMNT star can also provide the latter.
The Rossoneri face Serie A rivals Roma in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final at San Siro on Thursday.
For a club of Milan’s stature, 17 years is a long time to endure without a European trophy, but their last continental silverware remains the Champions League claimed against Liverpool in Athens back in 2007. So Stefano Pioli and the club’s ambitious U.S. owners will be determined to make it to the final of this season’s Europa League in Dublin.
This is actually a competition Milan have never won. They have usually been more accustomed to competing in the Champions League, but they were eliminated from that at the group stage in December and dropped into this season’s Europa action. Victory against French club Rennes in a play-off tie saw them through to the knockout proper and they went on to deal comfortably with Slavia Prague in the round of 16.
Christian Pulisic starred yet again in Milan’s victory over Lecce (Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)
And if Milan are to continue their progress, they will hope Christian Pulisic’s fine form also continues.
It has shown no sign of stopping so far: the 25-year-old boasts 13 goals and eight assists across all competitions to date and was on the scoresheet again in a convincing 3-0 win over Lecce on Saturday.
His performances have been so instrumental that Pulisic, who only joined Milan from Chelsea last summer, might already be in line for a contract extension until 2027, according to Italian publication Corriere Dello Sport.
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Player of the weekend
It’s advantage Haji Wright in the shootout to become the top-scoring American in England’s ever-entertaining second tier.
With his 49th-minute strike for Coventry in their 2-1 win over Leeds United on Saturday, the striker moved on to 15 Championship goals so far this term, one ahead of international team-mate Josh Sargent. It inflicted the visitors’ first league defeat of the calendar year.
March was a productive month for Wright, netting five times, including the winning goals in games against Wolverhampton Wanderers (in the FA Cup) and Watford.
The 26-year-old also scored against West Bromwich Albion and Huddersfield Town as Coventry won four from five last month and moved up to seventh in the table.
Wright scores Coventry’s second goal against Leeds (Barrington Coombs/PA Images via Getty Images)
Coventry are four points behind Sargent’s Norwich City in sixth, the final spot to qualify for the end-of-season promotion play-offs.
The pair’s competition extends even to the PFA Fans’ Player of the Month for March, with both nominated for that award, too.
Coventry manager Mark Robins called Wright’s goal “brilliant” and the former forward must be a happy man with two prolific goalscorers this term. Wright now has 17 goals in all competitions, while his strike partner, Ellis Simms, has 18.
Quote of the week
“Tyler woke up two days ago with back spasms and he wasn’t available. It is nothing related to the hamstring, but he was not available for the game.”
Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola reassured fans that Tyler Adam’s no-show for his team’s defeat at Luton Town on Saturday was not a result of a recurrence of the hamstring problems which have ruined his season so far.
The USMNT midfielder had completed his first 90 minutes for his new club the previous weekend in the win over Everton, with this latest setback — while hopefully only minor — distinctly untimely as he seeks to make a mark this term.
Adams’ attempts to regain some rhythm have been frustrated by back spasms (Robin Jones – AFC Bournemouth/AFC Bournemouth via Getty Images)
Graphic of the weekend
When Ethan Horvath signed for Cardiff City on February 1, it brought an end to an extended layoff between club involvements for the goalkeeper.
Horvath has become the proverbial “quadruple-A” player in England: a goalkeeper good enough to help a team get promoted from the Championship, as he has with Nottingham Forest and Luton Town in succession, but not good enough for those teams to retain him for their breach into the Premier League.
Half a year as an unregistered squad member at Forest did little to help his international chances. Regardless of how you viewed his fit with Cardiff at a glance, the music to his ears was likely their offer of a three-and-a-half-year contract. Stability at long last.
Swiftly, he became the starting goalkeeper as Cardiff looked to crash the promotion playoffs.
Those hopes took a serious hit over the weekend, suffering a 3-1 humbling at home against Hull City. The defeat saw a gap grow between the play-off hopefuls and 11th-placed Cardiff, now 11 points behind sixth-place Norwich with five games remaining. In all likelihood, they’ll be back in the same competition come August.
As for Horvath, the long layoff doesn’t seem to have hurt his shot-stopping instincts.
His goal prevention is in line with Cardiff’s upper-mid-table standing, with a +3.9 per cent prevention rate when comparing goals allowed to expected output (on a scale ranging from -100 per cent to 100 per cent). For comparison’s sake, his rate as Luton’s starter was -3.8 per cent, while he had an impressive +23.1 per cent rate as Forest’s second-choice keeper.
His peripheral metrics do leave room for improvement, as he’s the division’s most timid goalkeeper in terms of stopping crosses before they find a target. Nevertheless, his past international heroics between the sticks make him a safe bet to make the Copa America roster as Matt Turner’s understudy.
Jeff Rueter
How did other U.S. players get on?
Name: Joe Scally
Club: Borussia Monchengladbach
Position: Full-back
Appearances: 31
Goals: One
Scally had to contend with a spot on the bench as his Borussia Monchengladbach team-mates took on Kevin Paredes’ Wolfsburg.
With Paredes missing through injury, Scally and fellow USMNT player Jordan Pefok were both on the sidelines but made late cameos as Monchengladbach came from behind to win 3-1.
Scally had to make do with a cameo off the bench (David Inderlied/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Name: Malik Tillman
Club: PSV Eindhoven
Position: Midfield
Appearances: 35
Goals: Six
The American enjoyed two assists as PSV bounced back from losing their unbeaten streak to thrash AZ Alkmaar 5-1 on Saturday.
Name: Mark McKenzie
Club: Genk
Position: Centre-back
Appearances: 35
Goals: One
McKenzie put in a solid shift in defence as his Belgian side Genk beat Royal Antwerp on Saturday and remain in contention to become Jupiler Pro League champions.
Name: Weston McKennie
Club: Juventus
Position: Midfield
Appearances: 31
The Texan had suffered some personal frustration during Juventus’ 1-0 win over Fiorentina on Sunday after he saw a goal — which would have been his first of the campaign — and an assist separately ruled out by VAR.
McKennie in action against Fiorentina (Matteo Bottanelli/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
What’s coming up?
(All times Eastern)
You can see Pulisic and Yunus Musah in that Europa League tie with Roma on Thursday (Paramount+ , Fubo, DirecTV Stream, ViX 3pm ET).
Luca de la Torre and Johnny Cardoso go head to head when Celta Vigo face Real Betis on Friday (ESPN+, 2pm), while in Germany, Scally and Pefok will hope for more minutes as Borussia Monchengladbach face Dortmund on Saturday (ESPN+, 9:30am).
Also on Saturday, Bournemouth and USMNT fans will hope Adams is fit to be involved against Manchester United (Peacock Premium, 10am).
(Top photos: Getty Images)
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