At 25, Jozy Altidore's Next Step Is Down, And It's Probably For Good

Today, Jozy Altidore, a would-be star for the US Men's National Team and a benchwarmer at Sunderland Football Club, turns 25. Happy birthday, Jozy.

American fans have had high expectations for Altidore for quite a while, which gives this otherwise meaningless milestone a weird significance. The guy was on the cover of the FIFA game when he was 17. He's always been the next big thing. But we can't call him that anymore, because Altidore has aged out. Go ahead and forget about him becoming the American Didier Drogba. At 25, his upside is all but gone, and if his time at Sunderland tells us anything about him, it's that his upside might have been an illusion all along.

Consider his Premier League statistics. Altidore has now spent more than two seasons in the world's most popular league. In 2009-10 with Hull City, he made 28 league appearances and scored once. A rough campaign by any measure, but it was largely written off because he was 20 and you don't expect 20 years olds to win the Golden Boot in their debut season. Four years later, he played 30 league games for Sunderland—an equally terrible team, it should be noted—and again scored only once. In four years, Altidore did a lot of maturing, but not a lot of improving.

There are, of course, endless what-ifs and justifications: What if he didn't come of age under absurd amounts of pressure? What if he scored just one more goal, just enough for a little confidence, is that all he needs? I tend to spend my time wondering what could have been had Altidore spent another season in Holland, where he was a YouTube highlight editor's dream, before moving to a better Premier League team. Had he done so, he would have at least had better midfielders behind him than he did at Hull or does at Sunderland.

But that argument only goes so far. It's not as though Sunderland isn't scoring goals at all. The team's other strikers are putting the ball in the net. Steven Fletcher has four league goals this season. Connor Wickham, who is the same age Jozy was in his first Premier League stint, has one. Jozy hasn't played many minutes this season, but he hasn't cleared the low bar of scoring once in the league.

Jurgen Klinsmann has long mandated that his players get regular minutes at the club level in order to be in national team contention. He's broken that rule by bringing Altidore into recent national team camps, but the message is clear: Altidore needs to play and to do that he needs to leave. Fortunately, finding a club doesn't sound like it will be an issue. He's expected to move in January.

Here's ESPN's Jeff Carlisle:

[Altidore's agent Lyle] Yorks said that he has been contacted by clubs in Germany's Bundesliga as well as Italy's Serie A with regard to Altidore's future, and that following his meetings with Sunderland he'll be traveling to both countries to gauge interest in the player. He said that French side Lille had expressed interest as well.

Yorks added: "There's a lot of interest in Jozy. I've been approached by many clubs and we're going to evaluate everything in the next two months."

US national team fans will no doubt hope the move goes smoothly, and that Jozy starts scoring again. He's already shown that he doesn't have to play in the Premier League to be an asset to the US team. When he's in form, he's one of the US' most important and effective players.

Rather than worry about the fact that Altidore never became the elite player US fans hoped and expected he would, they should recognize his predicament highlights the relative strength of the various European leagues. It also demonstrates that the step between international play—especially in the CONCACAF region—and high-level club play is about as wide as the Atlantic.

That's the real lesson here. Take a minute to recalibrate your understanding of this: American players start a long way from the top.