Young Christian Pulisic Juggling, Dribbling, Shooting

How do you play soccer like Christian Pulisic? To start off, you spend a lot of time with the soccer ball when you’re 9 years old, juggling, dribbling, shooting, shielding the ball. And Pulisic took pride in being able to do everything with the ball with both feet.

This looks like a very young Christian Pulisic in these YouTube home videos? Is this really the now U.S. national team and Borussia Dortmund soccer player? Is there any way to confirm this 9 year old is Pulisic? It seems like these videos were uploaded by maybe his dad…sure looks like Pulisic juggling the ball. Turns out his dad was a star indoor soccer player and his mom played soccer, too. These appear to be some home videos of Pulisic juggling and playing indoor and outdoor soccer. It’s a younger Pulisic but he’s still really young, just 18 years old remember.

The video reminds you of the Messi video of when he was juggling as a youngster. One thing is also clear with the Pulisic and Messi videos, they both look like they’re having fun and just love playing with the soccer ball. That’s a big reason that become such great players, they just love playing. Video credit goes to Christian’s Dad and former coach, Mark Pulisic.

Something else that stands out, is Pulisic’s confidence on the soccer ball even when he was 9 years old. He’s not afraid to shield the ball and hold on to it when he’s under pressure. Shielding the ball with your body is a skill that doesn’t get enough attention in the game. The best players in the world know how to hold the ball and fight off defenders.

Here’s Christian Pulisic at age ten doing some amazing things with the soccer ball. Could you have predicted that Pulisic would go on to play for Dortmund and then sign with Chelsea and win the Champions League.

Parents though, don’t be alarmed if your son or daughter isn’t at Pulisic’s level at age 9. He’s a rare and unique talent similar to Landon Donovan.

There’s no reason to force them to play soccer in the garage for 8 hours or put them through some kind of for Soviet Union type of soccer training program. Again, what stands out with Pulisic is the joy he seems to have playing soccer, so your kids have to like and love playing the game.

This is why you keep the game of soccer fun when they’re starting out. If they’re struggling with a skill you can push them to practice, show them with work they will improve. And once they see that they’ll want to practice more as they keeping juggling more times or start to strike the ball further and with more accuracy. They’ll begin to love to train and try to get better as they see results.

Of course, Christian Pulisic isn’t just a future star in German professional soccer playing for Borussia Dortmand, he’s also the future of the U.S. national team. And he scored his first international goal when he was just 17 years old, the goal coming off an assist from Darlington Nagbe to make it 4-0 in a game versus Bolivia this past year.