Christian Pulisic needs to test negative before he gets on a plane to the USA. (Photo courtesy of Chelsea)

By Michael Lewis

FrontRowSoccer.com Editor

How Christian Pulisic recovers from his COVID-19 positive test will determine when he joins the U.S. men’s national team and if and when he will participate in next month’s World Cup qualifiers.

Pulisic, te USA’s best attacking option, has been sidelined with COVID-19 since last week. If everything goes according to plan, he will join the team in training Sunday. But the 22-year-old Chelsea midfielder needs to jump through several hoops because, well, this is the pandemic.

“There’s a lot of things that need to happen before t6hat for him to actually get on the plane and come,” USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter said during a Thursday media conference call.

Pulisic needs to test negative before he sets footo on a plane to the USA.

“So, let’s be clear, this is a COVID situation, and there’s a lot of tests that he needs to go through before he arrives. And even then, everyone handles it differently. Everyone responds to it differently. Everyone recovers from it differently. And that’s going to be the process that we’re looking at.”

Berhalter admitted he could not say when Pulisic would be available to play. The USA plays at El Salvador Sept. 2, hosts Canada in Nashville, Tenn. Sept. 5 and visits Honduras Sept. 8.

“It’s going be just day to day, see where he’s at,” he said. “He’s still under quarantine conditions anyway. We’re going to have to get him stateside once he clears the quarantine and assess him. It’s really too early to tell if it’ll be available for the second for the fifth or for the eighth. We just don’t know right now. So it’s going to be a wait and see type of thing.”

Front Row Soccer editor Michael Lewis has covered 13 World Cups (eight men, five women), seven Olympics and 25 MLS Cups. He has written about New York City FC, New York Cosmos, the New York Red Bulls and both U.S. national teams for Newsday and has penned a soccer history column for the Guardian.com. Lewis, who has been honored by the Press Club of Long Island and National Soccer Coaches Association of America, is the former editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He has written seven books about the beautiful game and has published ALIVE AND KICKING The incredible but true story of the Rochester Lancers. It is available at Amazon.com.