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Christian Pulisic has a problem: he does not want to be famous.

In an ideal world, Chelsea's £58million attacking midfielder would slink into anonymity when the full time whistle goes, play Fortnite with his friends and watch the NBA on TV.

As the 20-year-old sheepishly said at his Stamford Bridge unveiling back in May: "I think I'm just a normal kid — I watch Netflix, I like to play Playstation and I love to shoot baskets."

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Except the ideal world does not exist and the poster boy of US soccer, from Hershey, Pennsylvania, is reluctantly threatening to become the game's first transcendental male star in America.

He has not reached the level of true superstardom just yet and, undoubtedly, Megan Rapinoe, captain of the US women's team, is more famous at home — but the tipping point is approaching fast.

'Is he bigger than Rapinoe? Clearly not'

FIRST, HOWEVER, A clarification for those of you in doubt. It is Pulis-ick, not Pulis-itch, although he will not be offended if you get the pronunciation wrong.

"That's because he is one of the most likable people you'll find," says Doug Harris, the president of Pulisic's underage club PA Classics.

"He's so grounded, he smiles wherever he goes. Children are copying him and parents like him because he is a good role model for their kids."

Harris's words may read sickly but as someone who knows the Pulisic family for more than a decade — Christian joined the Classics in 2008 and his father, Mark, was a coach at the club — he is hardly going to be the most objective voice.

"He's our hometown hero," Harris adds and, unsurprisingly, their home town's other famous product has plugged into his marketability.

(Image: Doug Harris)

Hershey, the chocolate manufacturer, were quick to realise the opportunities in partnering with Pulisic once he became a regular at Borussia Dortmund in 2016, and they have invested in several full-page adverts in local newspapers now he has arrived in West London.

On the flip side, those from a more dispassionate standpoint believe that Pulisic must develop a voice and find a social cause to champion if he is to maximise his potential as a brand.

The Sports Illustrated soccer writer Grant Wahl has spent a lot of time in Pulisic's company, tracking his progress since he was in US youth teams and paying several visits to Dortmund during his four seasons in the Bundesliga.

His impression is of a young man who is still figuring out the game away from the game — how to handle the media.

"We're still learning about him," Wahl says. "He is still being formed and in my experience he speaks more thoughtfully in a one-on-one situation than in a group or press conference.

"It isn't a goal of his to be famous but we'll see how it develops over time and if he takes the next step at Chelsea, he's going to become famous, no matter how much he talks."

(Image: MB Media/Getty Images)

Unlike in British sport, where the biggest usually names do their best to avoid engaging in political or social discourse, many stars in America have embraced their platform as a chance to speak out.

That goes a long way to explaining why, as Wahl says, "if you ask the question whether he is as popular as Megan Rapinoe or Alex Morgan, the answer is quite clearly no."

Wahl continues: "There is a tradition inside the women's national team of having players who speak out publicly about issues beyond the game — women's empowerment, equal pay, Donald Trump — and you hear a lot more of that from the women than you do the men's national team.

"If you look at their social media followings, endorsement income — the top women's players are far bigger than their male counterparts."

Pulisic does seem to be bucking the trend in terms of commercial interest, though. Gatorade have bought in, too — his appearance alongside Lebron James and Serena Williams in a commercial at the beginning of this year perhaps the most telling sign that he is being elevated to a new level of popularity.

(Image: Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)

There is a boot deal with Nike and he often turns out in clothes from James's Uninterrupted company. Several other American brands have shown significant interest in jumping on the bandwagon.

'I took a lot of stick — it was tough to break down barriers'

THE GAME HAS come a long way since John Harkes signed for Sheffield Wednesday in 1990 and he was immediately written off because of his nationality.

A Yank playing our football? Come off it. To begin with he was awestruck — look, there's John Barnes! – and unjustly viewed as a mere novelty.

Abuse from the stands was inevitable and even some team-mates would mock his accent because … well, they had not seen his like before.

(Image: Shaun Botterill/Allsport)

Then he scored a last-minute goal against Derby County in 1991 — a 35-yard screamer past Peter Shilton, the type of strike that still does the rounds on nostalgic Twitter accounts — and the mocking diminished.

"I took a lot of stick and it was tough to break down those barriers," Harkes, 52, recalls now. "At that time, it was unheard of to play abroad. The reaction in America to me going overseas was really positive."

Sort of. When the New York Times sent a reporter to profile him in April 1992, the bizarre headline read: "An American with a jolly good toe."

Back then, pre-World Cup '94 and with MLS six years away, football in America was on the outer fringes with precious little media coverage.

Too many compatriots have passed through since for Pulisic to absorb such tiresome patter but, on the flip side, expectation levels at home are far, far greater than during Harkes's era.

Now every Premier League game is broadcast on NBC, the analysis as forensic as anything broadcast in the UK, and the domestic league is slowly developing into a reasonably good product.

(Image: Chelsea Football Club/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)

"It has come on leaps and bounds, it's massive now and loved by many," Harkes, currently manager of Greenville Triumph in the US lower leagues, says.

To quantify how much interest has grown, take Chelsea's opening Premier League game of the season. When it was announced that Pulisic would start the 4-0 defeat away to Manchester United as a substitute, his name was the No1 trend on Twitter across the whole of America.

It was also the second most watched Premier League game in US cable history, after Leicester City's title clincher in 2016.

His assist — or #Pulassist — against Liverpool in the Super Cup three days later brought another rush and his name was trending again during the games against Leicester and Norwich.

'Not qualifying for the World Cup was off the charts embarrassing'

YET FOR MOST compatriots it will be how Pulisic performs for the national team that decides whether he leaves a long-term legacy or not.

The US's failure to reach the 2018 World Cup, losing their final qualifier away to Trinidad & Tobago, remains mortifying for all concerned.

He was the only bright spot of that campaign, carrying the team on his teenage shoulders, but they won just three of 10 qualifiers.

(Image: DOMINICK REUTER/AFP/Getty Images)

"Not qualifying was so off the charts embarrassing and it hurt him for a long time," Wahl says. "Even now they may not be able to put 2018 behind them until they do something in Qatar.

"Pulisic having success individually is part of the path back for US men's soccer to be taken seriously again, not just outside the US but especially inside."

A couple of years back Wahl dove deep into online analytics to gauge whether interest in their star player was higher during international games or when playing for Dortmund.

The results were revealing. "Even when he was scoring goals in unimportant World Cup qualifiers in the Caribbean he was getting much more interest online than when he was scoring in the Champions League knockout rounds for Dortmund."

Swapping Germany's industrial heartland for west London will accelerate his popularity.

(Image: TF-Images/Getty Images)

While Bundesliga games are broadcast in America, a mid-table Premier League match will be watched by a significantly bigger audience than Dortmund vs Bayern.

And what of Chelsea's marketability in America? Harris says that he has already seen an increase in blue shirts around Pennsylvania and it won't be long before fans start planning visits to Stamford Bridge.

"I honestly believe people will travel to the UK just to see him play," he says. "Tourism will increase because fans here will want a piece of it, they will plan their trip around a Chelsea match."

Athletes from other sports have already been in town, among them Josh Hart, the New Orleans Pelicans basketball player.

(Image: Clive Howes - Chelsea FC/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)

He watched Pulisic's home debut, the 1-1 draw at home to Leicester, in which he the American struggled to make an impact. Wahl believes the possibility of Chelsea becoming the average American's team "is now pretty big".

Just how big is anyone's guess.

'He was always the smallest kid but he was fearless'

THE FEE IS also impossible to ignore. In a world where Harry Maguire, a defender, costs Manchester United £80million, the £58million Chelsea paid for Pulisic, an attacker, does not seem too obscene.

Yet the previous record for an American was the £15.8million Wolfsburg paid Hertha Berlin for defender John Brooks in 2017 and before that it was the £10million Sunderland wasted on bringing Jozy Altidore to the Stadium of Light six years ago.

(Image: Clive Howes/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)

Such a jump in price may seem like a lot of pressure for someone who would rather eschew the limelight but, as Wahl says, he "is very good at compartmentalising things and not get overwhelmed by what's being talked about."

Back in May, Pulisic said that, "I try not to put too much pressure from the outside on myself. I put enough pressure on myself to be good, to be great."

There is also a ruthless competitiveness beneath the friendly exterior, which Harris believes is born from his childhood experience of playing with "kids who were a foot taller than him".

At PA Classics, he played two age groups higher because the coaches felt that his abundant natural ability more than made up for the deficit in size.

"You could pick him out in a heartbeat because he was always the smallest," Harris adds. "He never got into physical confrontations but he was fearless, even playing against older, bigger, faster and stronger kids.

"He would step up as a leader despite his youth and he was also very technical and that came from his own hard work, his perseverance and determination."

(Image: Doug Harris)

Harkes, who spent six months on loan at West Ham when Frank Lampard was still cleaning boots in east London, is also certain that the new Chelsea manager is an ideal fit in terms of developing Pulisic.

"Frank will drive him and squeeze everything he can out of him. To have Christian playing under Frank will be outstanding for his progressions."

There have been flickers of promise during the early weeks of this season, with assists against Liverpool and Norwich but he was peripheral against Leicester and questions remain about his ability to deal with the Premier League's physicality.

In the future he would also prefer to play as a No10 rather than out wide but with Mason Mount, who is four months younger, and Ross Barkley top of that pecking order, he will need to work his way in from the fringes.

Much like football's relationship with America, you could say. Only time will tell whether Pulisic reaches his ceiling but at home they are ready to anoint their superstar.