SEATTLE — Two hours and 30 minutes before their latest history-making World Cup win, before they outdueled Australia and savored a magical afternoon here in Seattle, the U.S. men’s national team didn’t know the answer to the most pressing question in American soccer.Is Christian Pulisic playing?At 9:30 a.m., when players filed into a meeting room at their team hotel, they had not been told.But as they took their seats, and learned their starting lineup and tactics, there was no grand announcement about their wounded star, who missed Friday’s match due to injury. There was, instead, a lineup of 11 players whom everyone in the room trusted to perform.There were 11 players who, a few hours later, throttled Australia and made America forget about Pulisic’s left calf.“CP’s a fantastic player, but I think you saw, we’re still able to go out there and get a result and put in a performance,” forward Folarin Balogun said after a 2-0 win that sealed the Americans’ place in the knockout stage.The world saw that this U.S. team is far more than Pulisic. It is chock-full of talent, deeper than ever before. It will need Pulisic as the tournament progresses, but with over 60,000 raucous fans propelling them, Pulisic’s teammates showed that they, the collective, the team, as one, is the star.Christian Pulisic (10) may not have played, but he took part in the postmatch salute of the U.S. fans in Seattle (Steven Bisig / Imagn Images)In the buildup to Friday’s match, all sorts of American eyes bored in on Pulisic’s injury. Reporters broke out binoculars to scrutinize his movements at training. Ravenous fans craved news about the calf that Pulisic injured last week, first in training, then in a dominant 4-1 win over Paraguay.Fox’s Jenny Taft delivered daily updates. The Athletic and other media outlets wrote story after story. Speculation accelerated. Would Pulisic be ready? How could the U.S. replace him? Answers were thin, and worry set in.