Thierry Henry has come under fire for his peculiarly dismissive response to Christian Pulisic during the Milan player's post-match interview with CBS Sports.
Milan clashed with Liverpool in their Champions League opener at San Siro on Tuesday. Pulisic got the ball rolling early, slotting an angled shot past Alisson into the bottom corner to put Milan ahead within three minutes.
However, Liverpool turned the tables before halftime with headers from Ibrahima Konate and Virgil van Dijk from set pieces. Dominik Szoboszlai later added a third for Arne Slot's team in the second half, sealing the 3-1 victory.
Post-match, Pulisic featured on CBS Sports' "Champions League Today" where he was grilled by the popular panel of Kate Abdo, Jamie Carragher, Micah Richards, and Henry. He discussed the loss to Arne Slot 's team, with Abdo leading the interview before opening the floor to questions from the pundits.
Carragher and Richards were their usual friendly selves, with the ex-Manchester City defender dubbing Pulisic "Captain America" as he took the mic. However, the interview took a strange twist when Henry was given the chance to question Pulisic, only to nonchalantly pass up the opportunity.
Henry, typically as lively as his co-panelists, displayed negative body language as he lowered his head and bluntly refused the Pulisic interview. His 'no' was met with an awkward silence before Richards let out a nervous chuckle. Pulisic appeared somewhat bemused by Henry's actions, although the Arsenal icon offered his support when signing off, saying: "Well done big man, well done."
The interaction sparked a wave of reactions from fans online, with many finding the moment between Henry and Pulisic to be "awkward", "cringe" and "trash". One fan speculated that Henry's discomfort was due to the subpar questions directed at Pulisic, commenting: "You could literally see the pain in Henry's face when they kept asking puli such dumb questions."
Reflecting on a recent defeat, Pulisic shared his thoughts earlier in the conversation: "It was a good start to the game to get a goal, but yeah it's extremely disappointing for us to concede goals like we did in the first half on set pieces. They made it difficult for us all game, so obviously I'm disappointed."
Despite AC Milan's unexpected position at 10th in Serie A, Pulisic has hit the ground running under new manager Paulo Fonseca, netting three times in the first five matches of the 2024-25 season. The American forward is also optimistic about the USMNT's future with newly appointed coach Mauricio Pochettino.
"I haven't seen him yet since he got the job," he said. "I'm hoping he'll be able to turn things around, and I hope things go well. It's great for us to have someone as experienced as him coming in, and I think we have the talent. It's time to finally have a coach that's going to take us to the next level."