HANOVER, N.J. – At just 25 years of age, Jozy Altidore already feels like a veteran. On Saturday afternoon, the Toronto FC forward will return to where his professional journey began.
These days, instead of Giants Stadium New York's home is Red Bull Arena, where for the first time Altidore will take on the team that gave a then 16-year-old his start nearly a decade ago (7 pm ET; MLS LIVE in the US | TSN2 and RDS2 in Canada).
Altidore’s career has seen more than its fair share of ups and downs since then -- a handful of European moves delivering mixed results -- but his potential has never been in doubt, beginning as a second-round draft pick of the Red Bulls in 2006 and now as a US national team stalwart.
“Right away you could see how strong he was and how physically gifted he was,” former teammate and current RBNY II head coach John Wolyniec said. “He was a bit raw, but I remember not knowing how old he was at the time. I had certain judgments on him thinking he was 21, 22 years old, but when I found out he was 16, I knew this kid had a high ceiling. It became pretty obvious pretty quickly that he was going to be a high-level player.”
There was no slowing the hype train surrounding the teenage Altidore as he went on to score nine times in just 15 league starts during his second professional season. That same year, he earned his first cap with the USMNT, a tally that now stands at 83 including 27 goals.
But potential doesn’t always equal production, and there were hardly any guarantees surrounding the young Altidore in the early days. Seen as the steal of his draft class, it was with a fair amount of reservations that then GM Alexi Lalas selected the burgeoning star.
“He had this New Jersey affiliation, which meant something,” Lalas said. “His size was already making waves. But there were questions as to if he was MLS ready because of his youth. At the time, we looked at him as a project and something that was going to take some time to come to fruition. He wasn’t important enough at the time to justify a first-round pick.”
That affiliation was somewhat tenuous -- Altidore was born in Livingston, N.J., but grew up in Boca Raton, Fla. -- but soon after arriving at the club as the 2006 season wound down, he gave the coaching staff every reason to pencil his name onto the team sheet. With the Red Bulls enduring a transitional phase after rebranding from the Metrostars, the front office believed that Altidore, with his Jersey connections and seemingly limitless potential, was the key to reinvigorating the fanbase.
“The Metrostars were desperate. They needed somebody to step in,” Lalas remembers of Altidore’s hasty inclusion to the first team. “If he were to come in to an LA Galaxy squad in 2015, it would be a much different proposition. He was thrown in out of necessity. Looking back on it, maybe it was a wonderful confluence of events and timing and situational serendipity.”
Although only with the club for one full season, Altidore did enough to warrant the highest price tag of any MLS player in the league’s history, as La Liga side Villareal dished out $10 million to sign the striker in the summer of 2008. His absence, ironically, coincided with a Red Bulls run to MLS Cup, where they would eventually fall to the Columbus Crew.
“You don’t want to let go of a young talent like that,” Wolyniec admitted. “But at the same time, when the money’s right, the money’s right. Everybody’s for sale, it’s just a matter of what the price is. It’s still the most lucrative sale of an MLS player, so it shows that the money they got was significant.”
Now back in MLS, Altidore will be facing off against the Red Bulls for the first time in his career on Saturday in Harrison. Through the highs and lows, his career has come full circle.
“I had a lot of good times there,” Altidore said. “They were patient with me, they brought me up, and I have a lot to be thankful for with that club.”
