Christian Pulisic isn’t going anywhere
By John Harbeck
Christian Pulisic is too valuable a commodity for Borussia Dortmund to sell him off to Liverpool at this time
By now the news is a day or two old but just about every source covering soccer in both England and Germany have linked to the story in Bild that Borussia Dortmund youngster Christian Pulisic has Liverpool hot on his heals. That story would also include the fact that the face of the club Michael Zorc has emphatically issued a hands off warning to the English club.
There should be no surprise to hear that Borussia Dortmund won’t sell Christian Pulisic, because it simply doesn’t fit with the club’s MO. Almost since Zorc took over as sporting director in 2005, Borussia Dortmund have adopted a policy of only selling their top players at their peak or even past it. In the past few years, especially during the Jurgen Klopp era.
Take a look at the last few years of the top transfers. As frustrating as they have been for fans, the likes of Mats Hummels, Robert Lewandowski, and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, all either reached the height of their value or perhaps just passed it (yes Lewandoski left on a free but Zorc maximized his value on winning teams). I believe that Zorc even realized that Mario Gotze had reached his maximum value when he was sold off a few years ago.
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That brings me to my point on Pulisic and it is that with a contract signed through 2019, at this time Pulisic’s value can only increase. The 10-15 million that Liverpool are reportedly valuing Pulisic at is no where near what it will be if his current career trajectory continues. If he can continue to push for playing time out on the wing in high profile Champions League matches (round of 16 coming up soon) and is the main man in the lesser profile CONCACAF World Cup qualifying in 2017, Pulisic could easily see his value double.
In current manager Thomas Tuchel’s system the opportunity to play will always be there given how frequently he rotates the squad. Already this season six players that can play on the wing have been given ten or more appearences which with the continued involvement in Champions League and the German Cup the heavy rotation will likely continue.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, Puslisic will know that he is simply cover for injury at Liverpool. Once the big boys return, whatever playing time that he would see is likely to dry up.
That may also somewhat be the case at Borussia Dortmund with Marco Reus just returning, but the path to playing time is still much more clearly marked. Pulisic picked to come to Borussia Dortmund for the simple fact that he knew their attempts to incorporating youngsters into the first team.
Christian Puslisic won’t leave Borussia Dortmund for the simple fact that it doesn’t makes sense for either him or the club during this January window.