Wednesday, September 19, 2007 Altidore's game growing by leaps and bounds Jozy Altidore could be the one. It's almost sacrilege to think it, let alone say it out loud. But American soccer fans can't help but wonder just how good the gifted, soft-spoken 17-year-old can be. As much progress as the United States has made over the past two decades -- ending a 40-year World Cup drought in 1990, hosting the most successful Cup ever four years later, and boasting a league that attracted David Beckham and a national team that has played in the past five Cups -- this 300 million-strong nation has yet to produce a genuine homegrown superstar. "We're still waiting for that great American striker to emerge," goalkeeper Kasey Keller told Reuters at last year's World Cup, where U.S. forwards couldn't manage a single goal. "That guy that Real Madrid has to have and will pay 30 million euros for, the guy who then goes on to lead the La Liga in scoring for three or four years in a row." The masses once were encouraged to believe a boy named Freddy Adu would be That Guy, and the out-of-whack expectations that followed his 3½ years in MLS led several pundits to hysterically declare him a bust before his 18th birthday. So it's refreshing that everyone with a smidgen of common sense in the intimate world of American soccer is bending over backward to quash the expectations that slowly but surely are being thrust upon the domestic game's latest, most precocious young talent. Haitiwebs.com