Altidore right where he belongs
TFC forward thriving in league where he began his pro career
Five starts into his regular season, Jozy Altidore was already being asked the question: Where, people wondered, were the goals?
Altidore, with his $4.8-million (U.S.) salary and his English Premier League pedigree, was acquired by Toronto FC for a skill set seemingly built to dominate Major League Soccer. But after a fine-enough 2015 season ended in a single playoff loss in which Altidore failed to register a shot on goal, the striker began the current campaign on a cold streak. Five starts. No goals. Coupled with his various absences on account of injury and international duty — a combination that has kept him out of 20 games during his time with the Reds — the unproductive beginning was alarming to some.
TFC coach Greg Vanney was unperturbed, mind you, insisting Altidore was doing all the right things and simply not benefitting from commensurate breaks. And Altidore, for his part, pointed out that his focus wasn’t on his stats.
“I’m here to win,” he said back in May. “It’s one thing to come here and score goals and lose. Would you rather that?”
You didn’t need to be able to see into the future, to foresee TFC’s impending appearance in Saturday night’s MLS Cup at BMO Field selling out in minutes online, to understand that the pent-up demand for a Toronto-based winner precluded fans from quibbling much with Altidore’s well-made point.
And sure enough, all these months later, Vanney’s early-season insistence that Altidore would eventually find the net has proven prophetic. During TFC’s watershed run to the title match, the 27-year-old Altidore has been Toronto’s most reliable goal machine. Five starts in, he has five goals and four assists.
A decade removed from his first MLS marker as a precocious teen — a milestone Altidore called one of the greatest moments of his life — Altidore is in the midst of ripping off one of the most impressive post-season performances in this city’s recent sports memory.
“It’s been a long season. We’ve all been through a lot of adversity, a lot of things together,” Altidore told reporters the other day. “In the end, it’ll mean that much more if Saturday we can find a way to make it another special moment.”
Occupying the precipice of such a moment is never a given in the life of a well-travelled soccer prodigy. And certainly Altidore has weathered plenty of less-than-special miles en route to this time and this place. Born in New Jersey and raised in Florida by his Haitian-immigrant parents, Altidore was identified as a future great at an awfully young age and showed promise in droves.
In a lot of ways, he’s delivered on it. The uber-talented kid who dreamed of playing in the Olympics and the World Cup has done both (in the latter case twice).
The Major League Soccer product was sold to Spanish club Villarreal for a thenrecord $10-million price tag. He then spent most of eight years before arriving in Toronto playing for a collection of overseas clubs that seemed occasionally unenthused with his wares.
But now, he has come back to the league where his pro career began and made it look like his ideal environment.
There’ve been setbacks en route, to be sure. He received poor reviews during his time with England’s Hull City FC, where he has acknowledged that laid-back demeanour probably didn’t make a good first impression with a manager who expected more intensity. He wasn’t held in much higher esteem by some fans of Sunderland FC, who derided him as “Dozy Anti-Score,” this during a stretch in which he managed a single goal in 42 league games. Perhaps miscast in England’s unforgiving top league, he has been a dominant force in the MLS playoffs.
Vanney, who played against Altidore in earlier days, has observed an “evolution” of the star striker’s game. The teenager who relied on near-peerless speed has become, at a chiselled six-foot-one, a more commanding presence.
“He’s not just a guy who’s running between lines and looking to run behind and bouncing things off in one touch,” Vanney told the media. “Now he’s really developing a good sense of how to use the size to his advantage as a striker as well.”
On that last point, Altidore might offer a suggested tweak. He’d likely rejig that bit about using his size to “his advantage.” From the season’s outset to the edge of a sold-out climax, he’s been consistent in his insistence that all edges be directed to the team’s benefit.
So those who’d frame this magical explosion as Altidore’s redemption — well, you’ll do so without Altidore’s permission.
“This isn’t personal. This is a team game,” Altidore told reporters.
“We’re here trying to help Toronto be a winning team. This has nothing to do with individuals. It has nothing to do what I’ve been through. This is what the city’s been through, what the fans have been through, what this club has been through that’s far more important.”