Three things we learned from Christian Pulisic’s 60 Minutes segment

If you’re reading this blog, there’s a more than great chance you know who Christian Pulisic is. Whether it’s the post-a-week we do about him or the countless other headlines the 19-year-old receives, he’s a very well-known commodity in the soccer community. Sunday night, a wider audience got their first sweet taste of the boy from Hershey. Pulisic had his own segment on CBS’s 60 Minutes, a weekly news program that’s aired for 50 years.

It’s rare for soccer — especially American soccer — to be put under a major mainstream microscope like this. The last time I can remember a soccer profile like this on 60 Minutes was them talking about Lionel Messi a couple of years ago. That’s how big this is on the general landscape of covering soccer in this country.

Most of us know Christian’s story like he’s one of our distant relatives. But, after viewing the 13-minute segment, there was some knowledge to be gained for even the most diehard of Pulisic worshipers. Here are three interesting things we saw or found out in the full segment, that you can watch here.

The kid is making bank

At just 19 years old, Christian Pulisic is already making north of $8 million a year according to the 60 Minutes report. He signed a contract extension this past January, but I can’t recall ever seeing the financial details of the deal. That’s a nice chunk of change for a young adult to be making. He’s apparently just recently escaped the allowance system with his parents too.

For reference, Kaka is the highest paid player in MLS at $7.1 million a year. At his young age, Pulisic would be receiving the biggest yearly salary in his home country’s domestic league by about $1 million. This is only his second-ever professional contract too. If he continues on his current career trajectory, he’ll be making a ridiculous amount of scratch by the time his current deal expires in 2020.

U.S. Soccer needs a Footbonaut

About 10 minutes into the segment they highlight a very cool machine called the Footbonaut. A training device developed by Borussia Dortmund that they use to help improve a player’s technical skills. It flings balls out at up to 60 MPH at an angle to help a player with his first touch.

If a club like Dortmund entrust this machine to help develop technical ability, it must be pretty good. Their track record for player development speaks for itself. Christian needs to pull some strings and get one sent to U.S. Soccer or something. Do it for your country, Christian!

He and Ethan Horvath have an amazing secret handshake

It seems there’s a bromance brewing between two of the USMNT’s youngsters. In a 60 Minutes Overtime segment, we get to see Pulisic and Ethan Horvath unveil their over-elaborate ‘secret handshake’. Everyone had their super cool handshakes with their friends in school. It’s cool to see what these young guys on the national team come up with. Horvath has appeared in the comments section of Pulisic’s Facebook Q&A’s cracking jokes about rooming together on the road with the national team. Maybe we’ll see both playing together for the U.S. one of these days...

What did you learn from the segment? Let us know what you thought about it and if you gained any Pulisic knowledge from it.