Christian Pulisic is reaching new heights for club and country this season, and his near-brace against Jamaica in the second leg of the Concacaf Nations League quarterfinals helped the United States men's national team secure a 4-2 victory in St. Louis on Monday.
Pulisic scored the first goal of the match in 14th minute to help put the aggregate lead out of reach early on and book a ticket to the semifinal round at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. He was nearly credited with a second after his shot was deflected by Jamaica defender Di'Shon Bernard to double the lead in the 33rd minute.
But it was the opening goal that caught attention. Pulisic latched onto a well-timed lob from midfielder Weston McKennie to just get the ball past Jamaica keeper Andre Blake on his first touch. It was the kind of close control and poachers instinct that has propelled Pulisic to one of the strongest seasons of his career. Once the ball reached the back of the net, Pulisic jogged to the corner flag near the supporter's section and began shimmying his hips and pumping his fists to mimic a dance trend popularized in other sports and inspired by President-elect Donald Trump.
Following the USMNT's victory, Pulisic was asked about the celebration.
"I mean you guys know, I saw everyone doing it yesterday in the NFL," Pulisic told reporters after the match, including ESPN. "I saw Jon Jones do it and yeah, we were just having a bit of fun, so I thought it was a pretty fun dance."
Pulisic was happy to acknowledge the origin of the dance but claimed it wasn't meant to be a political message.
"Well obviously that's the Trump dance. It's not like it was just a dance that everyone's doing," Pulisic said. "Yeah, he's the one who created it, so I just thought it was fun."
The trend has been popularized by UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones, who celebrated his victory over Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 by doing the dance with the soon-to-be-President sitting ringside. Since then, the dance has caught on with college athletes, NFL players and more.
The USMNT attacker maintained that the dance wasn't political in nature and that he was just having fun when asked for more clarification due to reactions online about it.
"Not at all. It's not a political dance, it was just for fun," Pulisic said. "I saw a bunch of people do it and yeah, thought it was funny, so I enjoyed it. I hope some people did."
The goal continued Pulisic's strong run of form this season, and he came close to setting another milestone. He seemingly scored a second goal just after the half hour mark, before ultimately seeing it credited as an own goal. Had that goal stood it would have been his third goal contributions of this international break after assisting Ricardo Pepi's goal in the team's first match. But his second was enough to make him the fastest member of the USMNT ever to reach 50 goal contributions, taking only 76 caps for the senior national team.
Next up, Pulisic will return to AC Milan for a critical week that includes a match against Tim Weah, McKennie and Juventus as well as a Champions League clash facing Slovan Bratislava. Pulisic is in the midst of a stellar season for Milan where he has a combined seven goals and four assists across Serie A and the Champions League. He leads Milan in goals scored and is tied for the team lead in assists.
All games in both Serie A and the Champions League can be streamed on Paramount+ with select matches across CBS Sports Network and CBS Sports Golazo Network.