The funny thing about l’affair Altidore is that a 23-year-old athlete handled the whole thing, his temporary and highly public estrangement from the national team, so much better than most of us.
When left off the last U.S. roster, Jozy Altidore, promised to work hard to reclaim national team grace, wished the team well and got on with things. He left the teeth gnashing, head scratching, recriminations and cries of injustice up to media and supporters, many of whom did not let him down.
We obsessed, he shrugged.
But here we are, just one measly little month later, and Altidore is right back in the mix, probably a little better for it all. Not only does the young U.S. goal-getter have clear indication that he needs to do more, U.S. manager Jurgen Klinsmann has clear indication that Altidore can take a punch. Klinsmann can trust that Altidore is not going to go scorched earth when things don’t go as he would like.
(By the way, Klinsmann deserves some credit here. As I keep saying, the goal has always been greater achievement at World Cup 2014, not just standard qualification. Klinsmann always figured he could get the points out of those last two semifinal round qualifiers without Altidore, but the desire to push him, to get more from him, gained higher priority in the manager’s mind.)
The AZ Alkmaar striker’s mature response to last month’s omission surely was part of the reason Klinsmann turned back to Altidore for the latest roster, which was released this morning.
We’ll have more on today’s roster news later.
Here is the 20-man selection set to face Russia on Wednesday:
- Goalkeepers: Tim Howard (Everton), Sean Johnson (Chicago Fire), Nick Rimando (Real Salt Lake)
- Defenders: Carlos Bocanegra (Racing Santander), Geoff Cameron (Stoke City), Timmy Chandler (Nuremberg), Maurice Edu (Stoke City), Clarence Goodson (Brondby), Fabian Johnson (Hoffenheim)
- Midfielders: Michael Bradley (Roma), Mix Diskerud (Rosenborg), Joshua Gatt (Molde), Joe Gyau (Hoffenheim), Jermaine Jones (Schalke 04), Sacha Kljestan (Anderlecht), Danny Williams (Hoffenheim)
- Forwards: Juan Agudelo (Chivas USA), Jozy Altidore (AZ Alkmaar), Terrence Boyd (Rapid Vienna), Herculez Gomez (Santos Laguna)
