Pulisic's Frustration and Cisse's Rise at AC Milan

Christian Pulisic is angry. And Ruben Amorim is delighted.

The AC Milan head coach didn’t try to hide it before his team’s trip to Rome. Three league games into the new Serie A season, one of his biggest stars has not played a single minute. For a player of Pulisic’s stature, that stings.

Amorim sees something else.

“I think you guys are going to see Pulisic,” he told reporters on Friday. “I don’t know if he is going to start or he’s going to get on the pitch from the bench. I think he’s going to play at least a few minutes now and I like Pulisic. I really like him as a player. He’s upset because he’s had zero minutes so far, and I like that in my players.”

That edge, that frustration, is the product of a difficult few months. Pulisic only returned to full training last month after a micro-fracture and bone bruise in his right leg, an injury suffered at the World Cup. While he has been rebuilding fitness, Milan have been moving on without him.

And someone else has stepped into the light.

Cisse seizes his chance

On the left flank, 19-year-old Alphadjo Cisse has turned opportunity into a statement. The Italian youth international has ripped through the early weeks of the campaign, scoring twice and attacking defenders with a fearless, straight-line aggression that has electrified San Siro.

He has become the early symbol of Amorim’s Milan: young, direct, unapologetically bold.

So the question arrived, inevitably. What happens when “Captain America” is ready to reclaim his spot?

Amorim didn’t dress it up.

“I won’t remove anyone who’s doing well just to name a player,” he said, his stance unmistakable. “This is my way of managing the group, and I’ll die with these principles.”

No guarantees. No reputational safety net. Not even for a player who has been one of Milan’s most productive attackers since arriving from Chelsea in the summer of 2023.

A proven Rossoneri asset

Pulisic joined Milan on a four-year deal and has delivered the numbers to justify the investment. Across all competitions, he has already racked up 134 appearances, with 42 goals and 27 assists. He helped the Rossoneri lift the Supercoppa Italiana in the 2024-25 season and quickly became one of the club’s attacking reference points.

He also arrived back in Italy this summer with more miles in his legs. For the United States at the World Cup, he featured in four matches, only missing the group-stage game against Australia through injury. He added one assist before the USMNT fell in the round of 16 to Belgium.

That workload, followed by the leg injury, explains the slow start to his domestic season. It does not soften his mood. Nor does Amorim want it to.

A winger of Pulisic’s pedigree, bristling at “zero minutes,” stepping into a side where a 19-year-old is playing without fear: that is exactly the internal conflict Amorim is trying to create.

A different kind of selection headache

This is not a coach protecting a star. This is a coach laying down a law.

Cisse has the shirt. Pulisic has the résumé. The left flank has become one of the most compelling battles in Milan’s squad, and Amorim is making it clear that hierarchy will be decided on the pitch, not on the balance sheet.

For Pulisic, the message is brutally simple: your name still carries weight, but it no longer carries you.

For Cisse, the equation is just as stark: keep producing, or that weight will eventually roll back over you.

Amorim, for his part, welcomes the tension. He wants Pulisic irritated. He wants Cisse pushed. He wants a dressing room where status is earned week by week.

Pulisic’s return, whether from the start or off the bench in Rome, will be more than a welcome sight for Milan fans. It will be the opening act in a duel for a position that could define the shape—and the edge—of Amorim’s Milan this season.