Christian Pulisic has heard about what Alexi Lalas thinks about him and his United States international teammates.
And the teenager does not really care what the retired U.S. defender has to say.
Lalas criticized the U.S. players for their results over the last international break — a 2-0 home loss to Costa Rica and a 1-1 road draw with Honduras — which has left the U.S. in danger of not qualifying for the 2018 World Cup.
Speaking at halftime of an MLS game, Lalas’ commentary called out several U.S. players by name. Toward the end, Lalas stated he did not mention certain players because their performance was so forgettable that they did not warrant one, at which point he added “that includes you too, Wonderboy,” referring to Pulisic.
However, when asked following Borussia Dortmund’s 3-1 defeat in their Champions League Group H opener at Wembley Stadium against Tottenham, the teenager dismissed Lalas’ opinion as having any importance.
“I heard about it,” Pulisic told NBC Sports ProSoccerTalk. “I am not going to lose sleep about what Alexi Lalas has to say about us. He can say what he wants.”
Pulisic went 90 minutes in the defeat and felt hard done by the officiating, which saw two potential Dortmund goals wiped out due to controversial offside calls, including one scored by the U.S. international.
“Thing didn’t go our way and that’s how the sport is sometimes,” Pulisic said. “We had to take some other chances but things didn’t go our way with decisions and other things.
“I have to see them again but my goal in the first half, I guess Auba was off but he didn’t touch it. I don’t know if he was offside.
“The second one I didn’t think was offside. Obviously refs make mistakes and the game just changed after that.”
He later added: ““I always tried to bring confidence to the game. I still need to do more and create goals and score goals. I couldn’t do it today.”
Pulisic and Dortmund are next in action in the Bundesliga against FC Cologne on Sunday.