Colin Cowherd wants American soccer to toughen up. The FS1 host weighed in this week on the wave of criticism aimed at Christian Pulisic following the U.S. men's national team's rough World Cup exit, arguing that holding the country's most prominent player to a higher standard is not only fair — it's necessary.
Cowherd's remarks came after a striking number of former American soccer stars turned on Pulisic in the media, questioning his performances and his leadership at the tournament. Rather than push back on the pile-on, Cowherd embraced it, calling U.S. soccer media 'soft' for historically protecting Pulisic from the kind of scrutiny that elite players in other sports absorb routinely.
The timing complicated things almost immediately. News broke that Pulisic had been playing through a bone injury, a fact that reframed some of the harshest takes and forced a few critics to recalibrate. But Cowherd's broader point — that American soccer journalism has long operated with a protective instinct toward its homegrown stars — did not dissolve with the injury report.
There is something real underneath the noise. Pulisic has carried the weight of an entire nation's soccer ambitions for the better part of a decade, and that has generated a media culture that sometimes blurs the line between support and deference. When a player becomes symbolic — of a program, of a sport's growth in a country, of an entire generation's hopes — honest criticism gets complicated. It shouldn't.
The players who elevate sports in this country, from LeBron James to Patrick Mahomes, operate under relentless scrutiny precisely because the stakes are high enough to warrant it. If American soccer wants a seat at that table — and after hosting the 2026 World Cup, it will demand one — the media infrastructure around it has to function the same way.
Cowherd is not a soccer insider, and some of his framing carried the casual authority of someone who parachutes into the sport every four years. But the question he raised is legitimate: Has American soccer media been too gentle with its marquee talent, and does that gentleness ultimately do the player — and the sport — a disservice?
Pulisic, for his part, has never asked for protection. He has, by most accounts, been one of the more candid and accountable voices on the USMNT. The injury revelation does not erase accountability; it adds context. Those are different things, and good journalism holds both at once.
With the 2026 World Cup on home soil approaching fast, how American media covers — and scrutinizes — its national team stars will matter more than ever.