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Can Jozy Altidore make a splash in Brazil?

By on May 29, 2014

At one point in the 2013/2014 season, Jozy Altidore’s performance level was so disappointing he was dropped to the Under-21 team of Sunderland, his Premier League employer. The twenty-four-year-old forward had scored just one league goal for Sunderland since joining them in the summer of 2012, a tally that would remain the same despite Altidore making thirty appearances in the EPL by the end of the season.  Even Wigan Athletic goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi matched Altidore’s season total.  And with a World Cup just around the corner, the season didn’t bode well for Brazil.

It didn’t pan out the way anybody thought it would,” – Altidore speaking of his first season at Sunderland to ESPN

However, Altidore made the US National Team’s thirty man preliminary roster for this summer’s tournament.  Even more, when national team coach Jurgen Klinsmann made the final seven cuts to the squad, Altidore was not among those sent to be watch the World Cup from home. Apparently, Klinsmann had done his homework. He had seen the other side of Altidore. He had seen Altidore at AZ Alkmaar.

Altidore joined Alkmaar in 2011, and in his first season alone, got on the scoresheet twenty times. And in the 2011/2012 season, Altidore scored thirty-one times from forty-one appearances for the Dutch club. Although AZ didn’t win the league while Altidore was there, he played a significant factor in the club’s KNVB Cup title victory, leading the tournament in goals. The physical six-foot-one-inch forward had bitterly failed in a year long loan at Hull City back in 2009, but his performance in the Netherlands was enough for Sunderland to sign him in the summer of 2012. We know how that move has turned out so far.

However, there could be a hat-load of good reasons why Altidore has struggled in the Premier League. The physicality of the league, its star quality, and even tactics could be the issue. But, as a former forward, Klinsmann knows best. And Klinsmann reasoned that it wasn’t completely Altidore’s fault – he blamed it partly on the forward’s lack of supply. Enough so that the German-born manager still trusts Altidore to put away the chances he is given; he won a start in the friendly win over Azerbaijan on Tuesday. Altidore failed to get on the scoresheet, and should he fail to do so at the World Cup, he could find himself in an even worse position than after the EPL season. Yet if he comes out as a star for the US, then Sunderland will undoubtedly keep him. Possibly even a move to a bigger club could be in the cards.

When Altidore found himself the only member of the national team jumping off the (very) high dive at Stanford University during the team’s training camp this week, he was pleased by the fact that the handful of supporters, including this author, recognized the feat. He literally made a splash with those fans. And in Brazil, if he makes a splash this summer, the entire world will recognize him.

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.