Mr. Josmer Volmy Altidore

I don't have a problem with this. They earned the treatment. It's cool that the Atlanta fans cared enough to do it, tbh.

 

Couldn't agree more. They let down a whole nation of fans. They deserve every bit of what is thrown at them and more. Jozy is missing the point too if he thinks these are the same boo birds he usually hears.

 

Of course it is a special place. It allows him to look good without having to compete at a high level with all that pesky training, dedication, and fighting for starting spot while making a giant paycheck.

 

I was as angry with Bradley and Altidore after T&T as everyone else, but watching them in the playoffs has softened my stance towards them. Since others have provided good defenses of Bradley in other threads, I thought I would say something in defense of Altidore here. I think he should still be part of the USMNT pool going forward, not necessarily the default starter, but an option, because:

1. He can still be a very useful player in the right situation. He's not a high work rate guy, so starting him on short rest on a heavy field or expecting him to be the frontline of pressure if you're pressing high up the field may not be a good idea, but he has become very good at occupying CBs, combining with quick, skillful players running off of him (Pulisic or Giovinco), and taking his chances when they set him up.

Also, he just turned 28 and has 41 goals for the US. You shouldn't casually throw away a player still in his prime with that track record of production.

2. Especially when...the other forward options ain't great. We're lucky in the sense that we have a lot of reasonable options, but all of them are mediocre. The guys people like from MLS (Sapong, Ramirez, Dwyer) are all in their late 20s as well. Morris had a tough 2nd season. The YA options are either struggling for minutes/form (Wood, Johannsson), playing in lower divisions (Boyd, Green, Novakovich), or not ready for primetime yet (Wright, Sargent). It's not like CM or CB where we have lots of promising young guys knocking on the door.

 

Altidore still has a lot to give us but he shouldn't just be our de facto striker going forward. I like him combining with Wood and Pulisic.

 

Come on. These guys choked. Without Pulisic, this team would have been eliminated before T&T. These “leaders” were totally dependent on a 19 year old dragging their tired asses with him.

 

I feel the exact opposite. Watching their fight and their desire has made my dislike turn to hate. I never want to see either of them in a US uniform ever again.

 

Neither Bradley nor Altidore 'choked'. The latter, as I've argued, is simply not an elite Concacaf striker. His record in the Hex, home blowouts aside, is pretty weak. His road record is even weaker.

Bradley played d-mid. And very few of the goals against can be placed at his foot.

 

wanna bet

 

He has great stats in CONCACAF, but yeah I def concur. He's not bringing in the goals against the Mexico/Costa Rica's of the world.

and his lack of tournament goals against big teams hurts him somewhat.

 

If he continues with the NT I would like to see him played as a wide midfielder. He has a wide's field vision. He is at his best when drifting wide or dropping deep.

 

CP had no goals or assists versus a team better than Panama in this Hex, unlike Jozy and Bradley who assisted and scored versus Mexico respectively. Of course, no one did jack against CR in either match, which contributed to doing us in.

 

The lack of World Cup goals is certainly a blight on his resume, but I've run the numbers on Jozy Altidore's USMNT career and it doesn't really support the pervasive narrative about him on BigSoccer: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/altidore-and-boos.2077584/page-2#post-36032466. Altidore has a better strike rate in official competitions than friendlies, and he's averaged .44 goals/game in WCQ matches. While it's true that more of his goals have come against "weaker" teams, that's basically true of every USMNT player ever except for Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan. Take a look at the teams against which Eric Wynalda scored his 34 goals, or against which Brian McBride scored his 30 USMNT goals:

• Wynalda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Wynalda#International_goals. Wynalda has the signature goal against Switzerland in the 1994 World Cup and his two goals against Chile and Argentina in the 1995 Copa America, but most of the rest of his goals are against weaker teams.
• McBride: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_McBride#International_goals. McBride has those two famous World Cup goals against Portugal and Mexico, but aside from that, it's mostly weaker teams.

Jozy is certainly missing that "signature moment" in a World Cup that McBride and Wynalda both had, but his strike rate is better than those two, and he's scored goals against competition of fairly equivalent caliber.

 

Our midfielders have defensive responsibilities which is not Jozy's strength. It's not Nagbe's strength either but I hope to see neither in that position ever again.

 

Nagbe is good but isn't a flashy pit bull type. Jozy works quite hard in defending, at least when he is with TFC. NT coaches typically have him stay up top. I wouldn't want Jozy going against an elite attacking fullback, but he might offer something against the non-elites.

 

And the exact reason why Bradley never stood up for Pulisic, Pulisic was taking away the team from Bradley.

 

Can Jozy and Mikey make a one time switch to play for Canada going forward? Please FIFA allow this to happen so that Canada can keep on doing what they are very good at doing which is to miss the World Cup. These two have gathered some experience recently and will fit right in.