Tillman Gets What Award After UCL Match? 🏆; Pulisic Shines in Win Against Madrid 🔴

LONG THROW HELPS TILLMAN GET RUUD

Malik Tillman, take a bow. Not only did your one-goal, two-assist performance rightfully lead to you being named Player of the Match in PSV’s 4-0 Champions League win over Girona on Tuesday — here’s a great video of Tillman receiving the post-match award — but you also had the opportunity to showcase an element of your game that we were not aware existed. You are apparently capable of ridiculously long throw-ins, making you nothing less than the USMNT’s answer to Rory Delap. (Or, at the very least, Weston McKennie II.)

Tillman helped PSV open the scoring with this Patrick Mahomes-esque heave that Ryan Flamingo put in the back of the net in the 16th minute. The 22-year-old later made an impressive run down the left flank to score in the 33rd minute, before adding another assist in the 83rd minute.

Tillman’s 9.5-out-of-10 Fotmob performance wasn’t just the best of the bunch on a UCL Tuesday that saw no fewer than nine Americans combine for four wins, one draw, and zero losses, but it was also history for the Dutch club. With his three goal contributions in a Champions League game, Tillman became the first PSV player to do so since Ruud van Nistelrooy in 1998.

THIS WEEK IN PULISIC

After two games without a goal contribution — amazingly his longest such stretch of the season — Christian Pulisic notched an assist off a corner kick in Milan’s impressively dominant 3-1 win at Real Madrid in Champions League action on Tuesday.

With the assist, Pulisic now has either a goal or an assist in 10 of Milan’s 14 games in all competitions this season.

Next up: Milan head to 16th-place Cagliari on Saturday, the Italian side’s last match before the upcoming international break.

ON THE SCORESHEET

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Is Antonee Robinson the best left back in the Premier League? Perhaps one of the best in the world? After his assist on Fulham’s match-winner against Brentford on Monday, many feel that to be the case.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Haji Wright scored a goal and had an assist — his sixth and first of the season, respectively — in Coventry’s 3-0 win over Middlesbrough on Saturday.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Right place, right time for Brenden Aaronson in scoring his fourth goal of the season for Leeds in their 3-0 win over Plymouth Argyle on Saturday. 

🇳🇱 Aaronson Bros. Brace! Paxten Aaronson also scored in FC Utrecht’s 4-1 win at Sparta Rotterdam on Sunday.

🇮🇹 Serie B super sub alert. After subbing on at halftime, Andrija Novakovich had an assist and a goal in Bari’s 2-2 draw with Reggina on Saturday.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Cameron Carter-Vickers opened the scoring for Celtic in the Bhoys’ 6-0 League Cup semi-final win over Aberdeen on Saturday.

🇲🇽 Cade Cowell scored his fifth goal of the season in Chivas’ 2-0 win at Santos Laguna on Tuesday.

🇦🇹 Quincy Butler scored the match-winner for WSG Tirol in their 1-0 win against Altach on Sunday in the Austrian top flight.

NEWS AND NOTES

• Puli wasn’t the only USMNT standout in Milan’s UCL win at Real Madrid on Tuesday. Yunus Musah did “everything well” in the upset victory, according to the Italian press.

• Josh Sargent will be out until 2025 after undergoing surgery for a groin injury. Here’s to the speediest of returns for O’Fallon d’Or. 🫡

• After suffering an injury setback in training, Daryl Dike’s return has now been pushed back until after Christmas, according to West Brom manager Carlos Coberan.

• From the importance of intentionality, to not back-pedaling on the pitch, Toulouse center-back Mark McKenzie talked to The Athletic about how Poch has already improved the USMNT’s level of play.

• Latest reports are that Vincent Kompany may bring Luca Koleosho from Burnley to Bayern. Now we just need Poch to pull a reverse Giuseppe Rossi, and convince the 20-year-old winger from Connecticut to forgo Italy for the U.S.

ASU PARTING SHOT

We close this week with a quick shout-out to 34-year-old right back Timothy Chandler for getting his first minutes of the season — 17 of them, to be exact — in Eintracht Frankfurt’s 7-2 win over Bochum on Saturday. After previously being featured in ASU for his cameo appearance in a long-running German police show, Timmy’s quickly becoming a bit of a cult hero for this newsletter. One more mention and perhaps we’ll rename this closing section in the USMNT veteran’s honor.