The (New) Great American Hope is headed to play his club football with Hull City AFC of the English Premier League. He'll be faced with top-level defensive talent each and every week (i.e, when he plays), and have a chance to prove himself in one of the highest-profile leagues on the planet.
All is not sweetness and light, however. Hull, after their dramatic ascension to the top-flight for the first time in the their for the 2008-2009 season, barely avoiding dropping right back down. A popular pick for relegation (by "popular" I mean "everyone thinks they're going down), Hull is bound to be in for another tough season, likely to be spent inhabiting or standing right outside the door of the drop zone. The environment Altidore enters isn't exactly one brimming with optimism.
No doubt Hull think they can stay up again, and no doubt they believe that Altidore can help them do that. Jozy should play, and should play enough that he'll either get better doing it or find himself stagnating on a bottom-of-the-table team; I'm not going to presume to know which is more likely, though the optimist in me believes that playing time is what Altidore needs above all else and can only help him refine the considerable natural gifts he possesses.
There are no sure things in life, and that is especially true in soccer. Jozy is not a sure thing, no matter how much hope American fans have placed on his broad shoulders. Sure, he's shown flashes of brilliance in his young career and has come on as a first team choice for Bob Bradley in 2009; but there's still that chance he could crash back down to earth, landing on the scrap heap of young American players who simply could not live up to the hype.
I'm not betting on it though. Jozy's natural talent isn't the only thing propping him up, unlike others before him. He's also graced with size and strength, two assets that are not only unteachable, but that set him apart from the usual run-of-the-mill phenom. Will they prevent him from bombing out? Probably not, but they certainly give him a head start on developing his full potential that few other possess.
I don't know what the future holds for Jozy Altidore in the upcoming Premier League season. I don't know if a struggling Hull will actually hold him back, even if he does receive ample playing time, or if the playing time alone will be enough to mold him into a much improved player. I don't know if the Premier League, and Hull specifically, are bad ideas. I don't believe that the development of any player in England, and some do manage to get better there, is dependent on that player's nationality; just because Jozy's American and Americans haven't traditionally improved while in England, does that mean he's destined for a fall.
My sense is that this a good move for Altidore. Playing, if in fact he does at Hull, and why make the move if that isn't going to happen, is always preferable to not. If Villareal did not have room in their first team rotation for him, going out on another loan was the right thing to do. Perhaps there are places better suited to his youth and abilities, and perhaps today (or tomorrow rather, since that's when it will be official) is the beginning of the fading away of Jozy Altidore. But with Jozy sure to factor heavily into the rest of the USMNT's qualification campaign and the World Cup team (knock on wood) in 2010, I'm just happy to see him moving out of a place where getting on the field was just a dream to a place where getting on the field should be a given.
Remember: Jozy is not the first, and he certainly won't be the last, young American soccer player to capture our collective attention. We seem to have learned a lesson since the hyperbole-filled days of Freddy-mania, but that doesn't mean we still don't put all of our eggs in on basket on occasion. While I'm hopeful of Altidore becoming a great player, I know that even for him to become a competent, serviceable striker would be excellent; there just are not enough Americans playing in the world's biggest leagues who have reached even that somewhat-reduced standard. Soon to hit the frying pan of over-exuberant expectations might be names like McInerney, Bernardo, Rankin, and hell, maybe even Adu (again, though I think we've learned our lesson).
Even those of us who know better get ahead of ourselves when it comes to potential. We're aware that not even kid can live up to lofty expectations, and we know that just as with any maturation process, the one from "talented kid" to "quality professional" is full of pitfalls and wrong turns. It's just so damn hard not to get excited.
Jozy Altidore has taken a turn. Whether it's one that leads to him becoming "world football star" or "that guy that scored against Spain", only time will tell.
More than likely, he'll end up somewhere in between.
It's the first step, Altidore is young, he'll be getting his first taste of true top-flight football on a regular basis, and he'll be playing for a club whose losses will most certainly outnumber its wind and draws combined. If nothing else, the kid will build some character. But none of that means, even if he rarely scores, that it will be a bad year for Jozy; playing at Hull is not ideal, but what he'll gain certainly makes it worth it.
