AC Milan’s summer signing Christian Pulisic seems to owe his present coach, Stefano Pioli, a debt of gratitude for his stellar season.

Since his first game with the Rossoneri, the former Chelsea player established himself as a starter. Additionally, he has been an integral part of the team’s success this year.

Once he arrived in Italy, the USMNT star quickly became a staple. Just recently, he began shattering records when he scored his team’s 5,000th goal in Serie A. Pulisic has made a great impression in 39 outings for the San Siro team, accounting for a total of 20 goals and assists overall.

He has already scored more goals in a season than he did in any prior campaign, with just two months to go before the end of the term. He and Weston McKennie are tied for the most goals scored by American players in Serie A history.

This season, the ex-Borussia Dortmund star has scored nine goals in Serie A, and all of them have come from open play instead of set pieces. Now he has 12 goals in all competitions.

This $20 million American winger has the makings of Serie A‘s best acquisition thus far. According to his father, Stefano Pioli’s belief in him is a major reason for the player’s success.

Mark Pulisic on how Stefano Pioli helped Christian

Mark Pulisic addressed many issues during his son’s first season with Milan and other parts of his career when speaking to La Gazzetta dello Sport.

“Christian has had everyone’s trust. Pioli trusts him, he always lets him play and doesn’t immediately replace him if things go wrong. Then he likes Milan, and he always speaks well of his teammates. Fikayo Tomori and Olivier Giroud helped him a lot when it came to choosing Milan,” Pulisic said.

Even though they are both American, he said, last summer there was no communication between them and Gerry Cardinale to finalize the transfer. Indeed, they communicated with Pioli as the representative of Milan.

“No, I never spoke to Cardinale during the negotiations. Instead, a Zoom call with Stefano Pioli was fundamental, it went very well, Christian understood what the project was for him and said yes.”

Mark Pulisic on why Christian flourishes at Milan

Pulisic is flourishing for Milan after failing to make an impression at Chelsea. The things that went wrong in England, according to his father, are subjective.

“I think there’s a misconception. For me, it’s not true that Christian disappointed at Chelsea. He simply didn’t play regularly. For me he is now reaching his peak, he is 25 years old, he works hard to develop his game and is respected by his teammates.

“Christian loves Milan and wants to stay. He lives in Busto Arsizio to be close to Milanello, he’s coming to speak Italian and he gets on very well with teammates like Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Yunus Musah.

“He loves representing his country and matches with the US present him with new challenges. Sometimes they mark him in twos or threes and Christian has to find new solutions. Everything is fine, the only problems are the traveling and the time difference.”

PHOTOS: IMAGO.