The 17-year-old American isn't tempering expectations for himself. He isn't arrogant, either. He simply belongs.
A player with just a little less certainty that he belonged out there—that he was exactly where he deserved to be—would’ve found a dozen reasons not go through with it.
Time was ticking down on the UEFA Champions League round-of-16 decider between Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain. It was March 11. The planet was in the early stages of a pandemic, and there was angst and anger at an empty Parc des Princes in Paris. Dortmund was trailing, 3–2, on aggregate when Emre Can tripped and then shoved PSG’s Neymar, leading to a mass shoving match that spilled over the touchline.