Here's a trivia question for everybody. Jozy Altidore is 27 years old and has 41 goals. How many players under the age of 30 have more international goals than Jozy Altidore.....................? You'll be thinking about that for a while. When you make that list you'll soon find out that very soon indeed Jozy will probably sit 2nd or 3rd in active international goal-scorers under the age of 30. Guys like Lewandowski and Chicharito are 29. Neymar is waaaaay out in front in that particular category. I'm not saying anything about Jozy's quality in that statement......................simply his importance to the USMNT over a long period. There's this bizarre vibe on these boards in relation to Jozy Altidore. People seem to really point out his shortcomings as opposed to really celebrating his accomplishments. People say he doesn't show up in big games. Then you can make a long list of his accomplishments in "big games" and it doesn't seem to register. He scored against the #1 team in the World in the Confederations Cup. He just scored in both the semifinal and final of the Gold Cup. I mean, he currently sits 2nd in 2018 WCQing goals in CONCACAF (after Pescadito who trashed Caribbean minnows in early rounds), and somebody just criticized his goal-scoring in this WCQing cycle. All that should separate Jozy from LEGEND status is WCQing performance. That's the only hole on his USMNT resume.
That penalty was pretty legendary in itself. Guzan's "did he just do that!?!" reaction was hilarious.
what's really impressive for me about Lewandowski is he's Best for club and country especially in recent years. He's never scored double digits for Poland until 2015. Prior to 2015 the most goals he scored in 1 year was 6 back in 2010. He's done 11 in 2015, 8 in 2016 and so far he has 8 this year. All while maintaining his scoring rates at Munich as well. And those are in qualifying matches. Scored against Germany as well. Hat-tricks against Denmark, Romania, Armenia in this cycle. Just became their record goalscorer.
He committed the sin of Landon. He embarrassed Europhiles who need Americans to excel "in Europe" for their pride and they will not forgive him.
Sure. Except that time he scored 51 goals in 94 games in the Eredevisie. Is Holland not "in Europe?" He did things in that league that people just flat out ignore. How about 2 goals and an assist against Ajax. Mean anything?
Mike also scored quite a few goals in the Eredivisie. I'd like to see Jozy tried in midfield or at wing-forward. It's unlikely we'll be able to use the 41212 against a good team.
Are you speaking directly to me or in general? I'm not knocking him. I'm saying he had the tools to make it in a larger league. Heck he's only 27 now and still could go abroad. His agent just sent him to the wrong club in the wrong league.
It was really his Spain and England stints. Sunderland in particular left a larger-than-deserved stink on him. Coupled with being injured for WC 14 so he couldn't show his stuff (or lack there of). People seemed to miss/dismiss the last few MLS seasons or his time in the Netherlands.
Fun, loosely related fact: Clint Dempsey is #4 among active international goal scorers, after CR7, David Villa, and Messi. Did everyone know that besides me?
do people really knock him for Spain? he was quite young on a squad that was in the CL. So he would never get many opportunities.
We'll see. If Jozy's going to keep playing he's been playing recently, he's basically an automatic starter. Yes, Michael scored a lot in Holland. Bradley has also scored an amazing number of iconic goals for the USMNT from the midfield. I was watching this youtube video of the top 50 goals in the history of the USMNT, and he's all over it. Jozy had quite a number as well. Nobody should knock Jozy for Spain or for Hull. Folks forget how young he was at the time. Its OK as far as I'm concerned to knock him for Sunderland, but Sunderland isn't the only club on his resume.
Pulisic is young and doing alright. In a career assessment, each of player's stops should be considered. Jozy has been a solid striker though outside of the Big Four in the way of quality. That's still a high level for an American.
I think it's fair to assess a player with some critique when their potential for greater might have been curtailed. Gooch was a solid defender in a mid-tier league. Moved to Milan (where he was depth) and got injured which setback his career. Though he still got some impressive moves like Sporting Lisbon and Malaga. Can't fault him for injuries. But with Jozy. Dude is the best striker we ever produced. He's too good for MLS. Maybe not for the PL, but a Serie A/Ligue 1/Portuguese League. I'm sure he could start and put up respectable stats for a mid-table club in the first 2 leagues and for a big club in the latter.
^THIS. McBride was a starter on a relegation fodder club in the best league in the world. He did a good job there. Dempsey was a star on the same team, but helped them achieve regular mid-table consistency. Nice progress.
It's mostly his spell in Sunderland. I think some people tack on his time at Villarreal and Hull for rhetorical effect, but really the issue is that you'd expect a starting US striker to score more than a goal a season for a Premier League side, and then the fact that he hasn't scored in a World Cup yet is obviously also hurting his legacy. Here's a list of all the other strikers who have started for the US in the World Cup in the past 20 years: Eric Wynalda, Roy Wegerle, Joe-Max Moore, Brian McBride, Landon Donovan, Clint Mathis, Josh Wolff, Robbie Findley, Herculez Gomez, Clint Dempsey, and now almost certainly, if he stays healthy, Bobby Wood next year. There are effectively four strikers on that list who managed to start regularly for years, across multiple tournaments: Wynalda, McBride, Donovan, and Dempsey. All four of them scored crucial goals in the World Cup, and three of those four had productive goal scoring spells in the Premier League or Bundesliga. (Donovan obviously never played a full season in Europe, and he ended up settling into a midfield role for the US anyway.) Others like Wegerle (6 goals for Coventry in '93-'94), Moore (6 goals for Everton in '99-'00), Mathis (5 goals in about a half a season's worth of games for Hannover, plus an important goal in the World Cup), and Wood (5 goals for Hamburg last year) have also accomplished some of that to a lesser extent. Altidore's obviously a much better striker than Wolff, Findley, and Gomez (and I personally value him more than everyone on the large list above other than Donovan and Dempsey), but by the measures that most soccer fans tend to use to define a striker's legacy, they're unfortunately on almost equal footing right now.
People who want to bash him are quick to tell you that everybody scores in Eredivisie. I've realized that logic doesn't overcome their feelings of shame and disappointment.
It's not so much that everyone scores in the Eredivisie but that the Eredivisie was Altidore's level. Others succeeded in higher level leagues. Wynalda, McBride, Donovan, Wood, Dempsey, Mathis. I'd put Altidore in the group below that of those guys.
Loved the play in Friday's game where Jozy brings down a high ball with his chest, then juggles a few times without the ball hitting the ground, while a defender is trying to figure out what to do. I think he then made a successful pass. This may be in the phase of the match when Panama just stopped moving. Pretty cool at any rate. If anyone can post a clip, I'd love to see it.
If you happened to catch his TO NY game he was pretty on fire then as well (despite not putting the ball in the net) playing with a lot of confidence and a bit of guile at the moment
And we get out of the group... awesome. He had no goals vs. NY, TO dominated. I'll taking winning and complaining about Jozy's lack of "big goals" over losing and scoring any day.
If he goes scoreless during the WC because he's busy falling back into a false-9 type striker role and Pulisic and Bobby Wood are hitting those seams and spaces created..............I'll take scoreless. There are alot of strikers that never score in a WC. It's not some right of passage or easy thing to do, you get that right?
Torres didn't score in the WC. Spain still won. But he was benched. Of course I would take a win regardless if he scores or not. I'm only referrring to the whole debate over his legacy in a NT shirt. He will have to score.