It looked like a play from the NFL.

Christian Pulisic tussled with his blocker and former team-mate, Yacine Adli, then ran a route from inside to out. He got open for Theo Hernandez’s looping ball to the far post, leapt and executed a magnificent volley back across goal in the style of AC Milan great Marco van Basten.

It was from an acute angle. Both feet were off the ground and Pulisic somehow contrived to beat a goalkeeper in David de Gea who, otherwise, seemed unbeatable in Florence. 

يا عيني على الفخامة يا بوليسيتش 🔥#الدوري_الإيطالي pic.twitter.com/XEk5vjwnLb

— الدوري الايطالي (@SerieA_AR) October 7, 2024

The goal should have been the main story. But Milan lost 2-1 to Fiorentina. It was their second defeat in a row in all competitions. 

The usually unflappable Paulo Fonseca didn’t want to talk about the referee at the Artemio Franchi. At least not in specifics. “I love this game,” the Milan head coach said, “and don’t wish to contribute to this circus.” The referee had pointed to the spot in favour of Fiorentina and then awarded Milan two penalties. Pulisic, as Milan’s designated taker, could have ended the night with a hat-trick. 

But he didn’t take either of them. Theo Hernandez, who was skippering Milan, stepped up for the first one, hoping to make it 1-1 on the stroke of half-time. It was his birthday and if he had scored, he would have become the highest-scoring defender in Milan’s history. De Gea thwarted him. 

Then Fikayo Tomori caught the ball and handed it to his best friend Tammy Abraham to have a go at the next one. This did not come as a complete surprise. Back in September, Milan were given a couple of penalties against Venezia, too. Pulisic put the first one away then allowed Abraham to take the second. The Englishman had recently joined on loan from Roma and his team-mates wanted to see him get off the mark. Unlike in Florence, where Milan were still seeking an equaliser, they were, on that occasion, 3-0 up at San Siro against a winless promoted side.  

Abraham opened his account against Venezia. But De Gea stopped him from adding to it at the weekend. 

While Pulisic’s volley drew Milan level shortly afterwards, Fiorentina went on to win and Fonseca couldn’t hide his disappointment at his players disregarding team orders. “Obviously I’ve told the players this can’t happen again. The player who should be taking them is Christian. And I’m pissed off about it.” 

The result, the penalty farrago and Hernandez’s late red card dominated the headlines, which could, with a different outcome, been stolen by Pulisic. He won’t forget his goal in a hurry. It was technically his best since his move to Italy a year ago, although he might make a case for his debut strike in Bologna, the one against Frosinone when he brought down a Mike Maignan goal-kick with a velcro-like first touch or his far corner curlers against Monza and Lecce.

Pulisic’s most important goal, no doubt, came last month when he became the first ever American to score in the Derby della Madonnina and stopped a six-game losing streak against Inter, as Milan beat their rivals for the first time in two years.

It means that the Pulisic flying home for Mauricio Pochettino’s first games in charge of the USMNT is arguably the best ever Pulisic.

Speaking ahead of matches against Panama on Saturday and Mexico on Tuesday, the 26-year-old said: “Yeah, it’s tough to explain (his form). I think you have moments in your career where it feels like everything you touch goes in, and you have other times when it feels like you’re trying everything and the ball just won’t go in. As an attacking player, we’ve all gone through it. So, I’m just trying to live in that moment right now, when things seem to be going well and just continue like this. It’s a result of all the work I’ve put in my whole life. So it shouldn’t be a surprise. I know I have this ability and I’m just going to ride that high, I guess.”

His new USMNT coach is pleased too, describing Pulisic as “a great, great player, fantastic player, a player that is going to help now and in the future to put the team in a place that we want. He’s one of the best offensive players in the world.”

But there was also some concern about Pulisic overexerting himself. “He is playing every single game, every single minute. That is also, I think, that we are a little bit worried that sometimes we need to protect (him). We’ll see. Because he arrived a little bit tired. But that is a thing that I told (you) before, is to build a very good relationship with the club and try to help and when we really need him, he needs to be in form happy, strong.”

No one in Serie A has been involved in more goals (21 + 12 assists) in Pulisic’s time in the league; not Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, not Lautaro Martinez, nor team-mate Rafael Leao. 

Those who doubted his durability must reckon with the fact he started 44 games for Milan last season and played more than 4,000 minutes for club and country. Initially signed as a No 10 who could cover the wing positions when needed, he kept Samuel Chukwueze out of the side when Stefano Pioli instead opted to play him on the right. 

Pulisic is in excellent form (Katie Stratman-Imagn Images)

This season, he is threatening to become Milan’s best overall player. Theo and Leao remain the most talented. But they both blow hot and cold. Pulisic, meanwhile, continues to deliver. He has scored in four consecutive league games for the first time in Europe’s top five leagues, a level of consistency that has, in part, been hidden by Milan’s up-and-down start to the season. 

Yunus Musah, his team-mate for club and country, says this is exactly what Pulisic is capable of. “It’s no surprise,” he said on Friday, “but it’s always nice to see him score, helping the team. He’s our (Milan’s) best attacking player right now, and I hope he carries on like that.”

🥁🥁 The September MVP is…. 🥁🥁

Take a bow, @pulisic! 👏@emirates #SempreMilan pic.twitter.com/VJ0YV8wdc6

— AC Milan (@acmilan) October 4, 2024

Granted, not every goalscoring performance has been a complete performance. Pulisic scored in the defeat at Parma and then faded, as did the rest of the team. But he played as if possessed against Inter. Pulisic repeatedly drove at their defence, stole the ball off Henrikh Mkhitaryan for his goal, shushed the team’s critics and later nutmegged Alessandro Bastoni, which led the Italy international to then push him to the ground. 

“Christian’s participation in our play is more effective,” Fonseca explained to DAZN. It has come about for a number of reasons. 

On the one hand, he is maturing and knows the league and his team-mates better. On the other, Milan’s new coaching staff have slightly tweaked his position. In the defeat by Liverpool, Fonseca tried out a different system. Out of possession, Milan played 4-2-4 with a very narrow forward line. It meant that if and when they won the ball back high up the pitch, as happened a few days later against Inter, Pulisic was more central, closer to goal and more dangerous.

“It’s not like he’s only playing inside,” Fonseca elaborated. “There are times when he goes wide too. This way he is closer to goal, to shooting and assisting. He knows how to play between the lines and that’s important for me. He has also scored goals like a No 9.” 

If only he’d take more penalties. If only he had better support from full-back than Emerson Royal, Milan could get even more bang for their buck. But the €20million (£16.7m; $21.9m) they paid for Pulisic a year ago looks better and better value with each passing game.

The move has worked out for them, for him and, as the World Cup approaches, USMNT. 

(Additional contributor: Paul Tenorio)

(Top image: Photo Agency/Getty Images)

For more than 20 years, Rafael Nadal leaned into his reputation for authenticity.

Roger Federer was the tennis politician, an artless beacon of neutrality. Novak Djokovic was fated to manage the difficult task of fitting into a sport that the Nadal-Federer rivalry had come to define, by trying on a series of identities. He has only recently settled into his best fit: a tennis statesman prone to releasing the antagonistic tennis demon that he so relishes and which always lurks within.

Rafa just did Rafa. He was never afraid to be painfully honest with what was unfolding in front of his eyes or around him. Sometimes he used his words, punctuating a sentence with his trademark, “that is my true.” Sometimes it was one of those eyebrows, arched with the curve of his forehand, or the sarcastic grin that barely held back his disbelief.

“Really, amigo?” he might have said as Federer played on until 41, essentially on one knee in his final go-rounds, or as Andy Murray gamely tested rackets and tried to defy spinal surgery this spring and summer. Nadal shared with them the desire to have nothing left to give, but his decision to call it quits at 38 after the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga this November feels downright speedy by comparison even with the halting physical uncertainty of his last two years.

Nadal collected all the data he needed to conclude his time had passed in 16 matches over four months, all of them on red clay, the surface where besting him had once been arguably the toughest task in any sport. He won 10 and lost six, including two painful and somewhat lopsided defeats to Alexander Zverev and to Djokovic on Court Philippe-Chatrier at Roland Garros, his supposed living room. That was that, regardless of that raging-bull, never-quit mentality that has awed friends and foes alike for ages.

“He’s the strongest player I’ve seen, mentally, and I’m not talking just about tennis, I’m talking about all sports,” his friend and compatriot Feliciano Lopez said in an interview Thursday.

The mentality was never his doubt. Nadal wanted to play without physical limitations. He couldn’t.

“It’s obviously a difficult decision, one that has taken me some time to make,” he said in his retirement video.

“Everything in this life has a beginning and an end. I think it is the appropriate time to end a career.”

How Rafael Nadal will leave tennis

It’s true that this has been in the works for something on the order of two years, ever since Nadal pulled up while chasing a forehand in Rod Laver Arena at the Australian Open in January 2023. He glared up at his box in mid-stride, his eyes so wide it looked like someone had stabbed him in the hip.

In June of that year, he had surgery to repair two muscle tears, then embarked on one last comeback, enduring another series of setbacks each time he began to feel like his game might still be within reach. Ultimately, Nadal proved incapable of deluding himself that he could ever compete with the best players in the world again.

In retrospect, it probably didn’t even take that long. At the top level of tennis today, players need to be able to collect a certain number of easy points on their serve. This was especially true for Nadal, no longer with the speed or the ability to chase down balls for four hours through five sets as he had for 20 years.

He could no longer inflict the same damage on his serve, a shot that was always something of a limitation, even as he had managed to turn it from a real weakness into something of a weapon. He could no longer lift or torque his body as he once had, and he was essentially hitting two second serves every time he stepped up to the line. That would not change, even while skipping hardcourt tournaments and the Wimbledon grass, prompting thoughts of one last trip to the French capital where he, the boy from Mallorca, has his statue.

Rafael Nadal’s final French Open saw him dealt a cruel hand by the draw in the shape of Alexander Zverev. (Alain Jocard / AFP via Getty Images)

If he couldn’t go there with the dream of doing something important, he wasn’t going to bother. He didn’t need another afternoon of adulation and parting gifts if the match that preceded it would be little more than valediction.

“I prefer to stay with all the amazing memories that I have,” he said during a news conference ahead of the 2024 French Open.

Hubert Hurkacz, who also served Federer the humiliation of a Wimbledon bagel, pummeled Nadal at the Italian Open 10 days later. Nadal blew off a post-match celebration and didn’t mince words about the performance.

“I did a disaster,” he said after the match.

A spell of good health and a solid week of training ahead of that final French Open gave him some hope, but the draw delivered Zverev in the best form of his life. Nadal said he had felt good enough to perhaps improve with each match, but the pairing didn’t allow for that. Given where his ranking stood, and the state of his health, the draws probably wouldn’t have helped him again.

And then the final data point came at the Olympics in a second-round match against Djokovic, his longtime foe. In their 60th meeting, Djokovic won 6-1, 6-4 in a match that wasn’t as close as even that scoreline implies.

GO DEEPER

Game, Set, Match: Novak Djokovic sees off Rafael Nadal at Paris Olympics

Just as with Hurkacz, Nadal was cold and clear-eyed in his assessment of what had unfolded on that afternoon. He knew where his tennis stood. Djokovic had controlled the court all day, playing from all the comfortable positions, punishing Nadal on his serve and taking away his legs, as Nadal had done to so many on that red dust for so long.

“He was much better than me,” Nadal said then.

He could have played on. In an individual sport, no one cuts you from the team. Especially not tennis, and especially not tennis with Nadal, whose tournaments would dole out wild card entries to him as long as he could ask for them. He could have spent the next year enduring beatings like the ones from Hurkacz and Zverev and Djokovic, then letting crowds across the globe fete him in his anguish.

He didn’t need that. As he put it back in the spring, he preferred to stay with all his amazing memories.

(Top photo: Julian Finney / Getty Images)

By now, you’ve seen it. A player makes a big catch or run for a first down or a touchdown. He jumps up, extends an arm, sticks out his index finger and raises his thumb to create an imaginary gun. Generally, the “shots” are fired downfield in the direction of no one in particular. But the flags still have followed for the unsportsmanlike conduct, which is a 15-yard penalty.

The NFL is sending the message that it is done with finger guns following eight penalties and fines on players for such celebrations in the first four weeks of the season. Two more players were flagged for finger gun motions, which the NFL considers a violent gesture, on Sunday. Week 5 fines will be announced Saturday afternoon.

Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Drake London drew a flag and a fine in Week 2 for the gesture. In Week 3, New York Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers drew penalties twice for violent gestures. A pair of $14,069 fines followed. Five players — Dallas Cowboys receiver CeeDee Lamb, New Orleans Saints defensive backs Marshon Lattimore and Alontae Taylor, New York Jets wideout Allen Lazard and Washington Commanders running back Jeremy McNichols — in Week 4 were punished for the celebration.

The players were fined an average of $12,697.50 for those eight infractions. Cincinnati Bengals wideout Andrei Iosivas also was flagged and fined for unsportsmanlike conduct in Week 2, when he pantomimed shooting a bow and arrow following a touchdown against the Kansas City Chiefs, but he appealed the $5,305 fine and won.

Indianapolis Colts receiver Josh Downs earned a penalty for pointing downfield in Week 5, as did Giants wide receiver Darius Slayton. Yet Lamb and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster were not penalized for celebrating first-down plays with similar gestures in last week’s games, though that does not preclude eventual fines.

Slayton noted the officiating discrepancy on X.

It’s cool when they do it https://t.co/dOX1kb0Qap

— Darius Slayton (@Young_Slay2) October 8, 2024

The NFL’s rules on unsportsmanlike conduct are as follows:

There shall be no unsportsmanlike conduct. This applies to any act which is contrary to the generally understood principles of sportsmanship. Such acts specifically include, among others: (a) Throwing a punch, or a forearm, or kicking at an opponent, even though no contact is made. (b) Using abusive, threatening, or insulting language or gestures to opponents, teammates, officials, or representatives of the League. (c) Using baiting or taunting acts or words that may engender ill will between teams. (d) Any violent gesture, or an act that is sexually suggestive or offensive.

London said he regretted his celebration, which mimed shooting a machine gun in the air. Three days prior, the Falcons had hosted the football team from Georgia’s Apalachee High School, where two students and two teachers were killed in a shooting on Sept. 4.

It may feel like a sudden crackdown, but NFL and team officials as well as players in NFLPA leadership roles say the league’s distaste for such acts is nothing new. The NFL has a long-running rule that discourages players from making any kind of violent gestures on the field. In addition to finger guns, this includes throat slashing and gang signs. In 2022, the league fined 13 Pittsburgh Steelers players $4,715 to $13,261 for a choreographed machine-gun-like interception celebration. In 2023, Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson and tight end David Njoku were both fined $13,569 for a gun-themed celebration. Those are just two examples from prior seasons.

The NFL and the NFL Players Association collectively bargain an on-field code of conduct for all players. Fines, per the NFL rulebook, “are donated to the Professional Athletes Foundation to support Legends in need and the NFL Foundation to further support the health, safety and wellness of athletes across all levels, including youth football and the communities that support the game.”

Two NFL directors of player development said the penalties and fines weren’t a new initiative or point of emphasis by the league, which has cracked down on taunting in recent seasons. Instead, they said, players have just begun using the finger guns celebration with greater frequency.

One high-ranking league employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he didn’t want to comment on any specific incident, said players are warned every year that such gestures will result in penalties and fines. The league shows a video to players each year instructing them on acceptable and unacceptable forms of celebration. The NFL rulebook, which is given every year to each player, also prohibits any gun-related salutes.

One league official said as such celebrations became popular in high school and college games, the NFL observed a trickle-up effect into its own games.

Among the violent gestures flagged in college football this season: Last week, South Carolina defensive end Dylan Stewart mimicked shooting a machine gun into Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart while the quarterback was still on the ground recovering from Stewart’s sack. In Week 1, on LSU’s first touchdown of the season, wide receiver Kyren Lacy pretended to shoot a gun at USC’s defense.

“We’re starting to see, I hate to say it, but more and more of it,” Steve Shaw, the NCAA’s national coordinator of officials, told The Associated Press earlier this week. “We’re just trying to say that’s not acceptable. Gun violence is not acceptable in our game.”

Multiple NFL staff members keep a pulse on all aspects of the youth game, and the league remains conscientious about its messaging to a younger audience. Because of its players’ celebrity statuses, the NFL is mindful about curbing in-game violent gestures, and hopes the recent penalties and fines quickly force players to make a change.

As a second high-ranking NFL employee said when asked about the matter: “Non-negotiable. Find a different expression to celebrate.”

(Top illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photos: Getty Images, Michael Owens / Associated Press, Leslie Plaza Johnson / Icon Sportswire)