Olivier Giroud watched from a TV studio as the World Cup unfolded this summer, a surreal shift for the retired French footballer who had been at every major tournament since 2012 — four European Championships and three World Cups. Now a BBC Sport pundit, Giroud has traded the pitch for analysis, and his focus has turned to a player he knows intimately: Christian Pulisic, the American forward who carries the weight of a nation's expectations on his shoulders.
At 37, Giroud made peace with stepping away from international football in 2024. The decision felt right — the manager was playing him sparingly at the Euros, younger strikers were rising through the ranks, and Giroud understood the mathematics of knowing when to bow out. "You need to know when to stop," he reflects, with the clarity of someone who has already written his epilogue. What surprised him most after hanging up his boots was discovering a different kind of intensity: the expectations that pour from the stands, visible only when you're sitting in the crowd rather than focusing on the game itself.
Pulisic, by contrast, remains squarely in the spotlight. The American has carried enormous responsibility as the main face of his team, yet his recent club form at Milan has been uneven — a strong start followed by months without goals and a missed Champions League qualification. Giroud, who played alongside Pulisic at Chelsea and later at Milan, sees the criticism as almost inevitable, a burden that tests mental fortitude as much as technical ability.
"Mental strength is massive for every player," Giroud says, and he credits Pulisic for weathering the difficult moments — injuries, stretches of poor form — that have forged his character. The decision to skip last summer's Gold Cup, when Pulisic told manager Mauricio Pochettino he needed rest, raised eyebrows. Giroud defended it then and defends it now. Pulisic was thinking ahead, trusting his body over external pressure, betting on one moment when it would matter most.
At 27, Pulisic has matured considerably since his Chelsea days, when Giroud first noticed the peculiar tension in his game. Where Eden Hazard played with carefree abandon, Pulisic sometimes seemed to be playing within himself, burdened by self-doubt. "He needed to be loved and appreciated for him to be confident and play with freedom," Giroud observes. The environment matters immensely for this player. In Italy, something shifted. The pressure of Serie A's tactical rigour — defenders marking him obsessively, teams building defences around him — forced a reckoning. Giroud saw Pulisic elevate his game, the confidence finally catching up to the talent.
What strikes Giroud most is that Pulisic cannot carry a team alone. He needs the right collaborators, the way he and Giroud and Rafael Leao formed a complementary attacking unit at Milan. But with those pieces in place, Pulisic has the experience and quality to elevate everyone around him. His goal against Senegal at the end of May offered something precious: momentum heading into the summer.
The weight on Pulisic's shoulders is real, the criticism sharp, but Giroud sees a player ready for this moment — mentally stronger, tactically sharper, and finally at peace with himself.