Chelsea’s Christian Pulisic has earned 34 senior international caps for the United States
(Picture: Getty Images)Chelsea winger Christian Pulisic has expressed a desire to represent the United States at this summer’s rescheduled Olympic Games in Tokyo.
The former Borussia Dortmund star has earned 34 senior international caps to date for the USA, yet at 22 still qualifies for Olympic duty, where the men’s squads are restricted to Under-23s and three overage players.
Pulisic playing at the Olympics - postponed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic - would mean missing a significant chunk of pre-season at Chelsea and potentially even the start of the domestic campaign, with the football tournament in Japan scheduled to run between July 21 and August 7.
The 2021/22 Premier League season, meanwhile, is due to begin on August 7.
Pulisic has largely struggled to make an impact under new Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel, under whom he also worked at Dortmund, making just three starts in the German’s first 14 matches at Stamford Bridge amid more frustrating injury issues.
“The Olympics is of course a massive honour to play in and to represent your country in an Olympics would be amazing,” Pulisic said on Wednesday, per NBC Sports.
“I am fully supporting the guys in qualifying now. It is something I’ve thought about and that I’ve wanted to play in.
“Obviously I can’t control exactly what goes on and what is best for me at the time and the team at the time, I can’t say. But it is something that I would like to play in.”
This potential issue may not yet arise for Chelsea, with the USA yet to seal their Olympic spot.
The Under-23s will need to win their Concacaf qualifying tournament semi-final on Sunday in order to secure passage through to Tokyo.
The senior USMNT are also due to compete at the Gold Cup in July.
