The U.S. Men’s National Team was firing on all cylinders during their CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying debut, and a familiar forward was one of a many in top form.
Despite St. Vincent and the Grenadines sitting so deep in their own half, Jozy Altidore combined well with teammates and bagged a brace in the teams 6-1 win at Busch Stadium in Saint Louis. Altidore flashed a bit of footwork and plenty of strength throughout the 90 minutes against the Caribbean nation, and his performance earned him honors as SBI USMNT Man of the Match.
Altidore scored his 30th international goal for the U.S. in the 31st minute. Midfielder Jermain Jones flicked on a corner kick at the near post, and Altidore waited patiently at the back post to head in the team’s third goal of the evening.
The 26-year-old scored his 31st USMNT goal in the 74th minute, and it was Jones again who claimed the assist. Altidore had to do a little more work on the ball in order to score this time, though.
After receiving the ball just inside the center of the penalty area, Altidore shielded a defender and deked his man a few times before blasting an effort on frame. A deflection helped the ball find the back of the net, but Altidore’s skill and strength put him in a great position to score.
Altidore proved to be the USMNT’s most consistent and lethal attacker, but Fabian Johnson, Michael Bradley and Bobby Wood all came close to being named SBI USMNT Man of the Match.
What did you think of Altidore’s performance? Which player stood out to you in the USMNT’s dominant victory over St. Vincent and the Grenadines?
Share your thoughts below.
Jozy MOTM? please put the meds down and step back from the table.
I concur with all the criticism stated above. Yeah, he scored, but look at the opposition, look how he scored, one his pretend hit hard anywhere and hope for a deflection, the other unmarked on a questionable call due to him being out of bounds during the play. Never mind the many errand passes, the bad first touch, all will be forgiven by scoring vs. amateur players. All of his goal padding stats may foul the bean counters, but we all know the real Jozy. Let’s see how he does vs. T&T.
1. I didn’t realize everyone else was playing Brazil and only Jozy was playing semi-pros. Everyone else had plenty of time and space to operate as well.
2. The deflected ball was on frame and the goalkeeper was standing still so it would have gone in anyway. Does FJs goal not count because it was deflected.
3. The corner is perfectly legal this isn’t the NFL were you can’t step out of bounds and come back in on your own.
Don’t like Jozy that’s fine, but acting like he’s no talent hack?
Let’s face it the goal that scores the most goals usually gets MOTM, plus SBI knows they’ll get a lot more clicks and comments from naming Jozy. Finally, a goal is a goal, deflections count just as much as a beautiful bicycle kick, and it was pretty tough last night for anyone to hit a shot on goal with 10 defenders in the box and not have it take a deflection.
Jozy is a good finisher and physically strong but that’s not enough for a top striker. Every time he gets the ball, he is a turnover machine. He either (1) losses it on a bad first touch, (2) dribbles into traffic and turns it over, (3) makes a bad forward pass to the other team, (4) holds the ball up successfully but misses a great pass or run, or (5) passes it back to Bradley and gets a higher pass completion rate for playing it safe. His stats might be good but alot of his goals are easy and he slows the play down because of his low soccer iq. A few years ago I thought he was the next Lukaku from Belgium but you see how he has developed vs Jozy and it’s no comparison. What a shame!
I have never been an Altidore fan, but he is much better suited as a CF with a striker above him.
Man of the match? Yes, Jozy scored two goals and that is, to say the least, nice. But how many bad touches and errant passes did he have? Does anybody chart that? Yes Jozy was more active than usual (against part time players) and yes he did score two nice goals, but his passing and trapping are terrible. Before we get too excited about his “great game”, keep in mind the opposition and the many, many opportunities he had. I thought Wood looked much more dangerous and, having nothing to do with this subject, I was very impressed with the trapping and passing of Nagbe. First time I’ve seen him and hope that this actually means something (again considering the lack of opposition). And, while we are at it, it still seems to me that over and over again when we had an option to one touch forward or backward, backward it would go. Fun game, some good performances, but does it really mean anything?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA…HAH
Loved the sequence on Wood’s goal (and how he snapped the header). Hopefully we’ll see more combination play like this from the NATS.
I agree.
I thought Fabian was our best player by quite a bit. Jozy was definitely more active than I’ve seen in awhile, had great composure on his 2nd. I still would like to see Jozy be more selfish. I’ve always thought that Jozy and FJ have some chemistry when combining in attack. Really can’t take too much from a match with such a talent gap between teams, but we did what we should and its a confidence boost. We’ll know more after the next match.
Yeah…. I thought FJ’s presence/attention paid to him was key to opportunities for others. Others need to take better advantage of that space and/or opportunities v TT.
Altidore winning MOTM is the same as Fernando Torres being the top goal scorer at the 2013 Confederations Cup.
Over the years, I’ve been one of the biggest Altidore’s supporters, but the MOTM yesterday?? He was completely invisible before he scored a goal that even I would’ve scored, then became a little more active, but still did very little of note other than another score on a lucky deflection, regardless of how good of a move that was. Did that move come against a fisherman or a postman?
Im wondering if the author watched the game? Jozy scored a lucky goals that was the result of deflections and a header that was the result of nobody marking him. I could have scored that.. Wood was far better overall
Scoring against a semi-pro team means nothing. The rest of the story was…poor first touch, numerous bad passes, poor positioning. I guess if you have a group of fan boys that are looking for anything to hang your hat on then he is MOTM
I thought Bradley was my MOTM. He was involved with everything
I draw no conclusion from the match regarding Altidore other than he did his job, what he needed to/should have. Credit where its due though… deflected goal was very nice going in either way though, great first touch, turn, quick shot in traffic. That aggressiveness needs to be encouraged. Rather than assert himself, too often he’ll one touch that pass back out.
Great that Jozy got 2 goals and had some good hold up play…but look at the competition.
Now, outplay Jones on Tuesday night and then we can give him plaudits. Gonna be a lot harder then.
Good game to cap two new players.
The USA possessed 83% of the ball and Altidore was a beast.
Coincidence?…
It must be hard on those of you with so little to complain about, Bradley played deeper, FJ played LM, and Altidore scored twice.
The only complaints I have in regards to this match were certain call-ups that were made and the poor defense shown in the first 5 minutes of each half.
In regards to the call-ups I’m still disappointed that both Jones & Beckerman received call ups. I would have much preferred to see a younger option called in for one of them. Either Williams, Morales, Kitchen, or Trapp should have gotten called up over one of these 2 older players (IMO Becerman is the more replaceable at this time). Similarly a younger player should have been called in instead of Gordon. Someone like Agudelo, Wooten, or Kieswetter.
With the limited threat presented tonight it was sad to see that the defense was so easily beaten on the goal in the first half, and the gaff at the start of the 2nd half which almost lead to a 2nd goal. The defense will need to clean up it’s act before we play T&T.
Haha spot on. Before we could harp on Klinsmann because he chose to do things his way. Now that he used intelligence instead of his normal stupid reasoning a lot of us Klinsmann disagree-ers (wouldnt say i hate him, he just isnt a good coach) have less fuel. My two gripes if we continue with this system (i preferred the 4-3-3 in the second half) is integrating Williams/Morales/Kitchen/Bedoya for Jones and replacing Ream at LB. I love Ream and think he should be in contention for the LCB spot, but he just isnt built for LB on the USMNT at the international level. But here is to him proving me wrong!
As I said earlier in the week Beckerman and Gordon I think are brought in this time as practice players knowing that they won’t probably play. Gordon is almost the exact size and playing style as Kenwyne Jones for TnT and Beckerman is a great locker room guy, although I wouldn’t be surprised to see him sub on to hold the ball if we have a lead on Tuesday.
A lot of people complained about Klinsmann playing FJ at RB and Yedlin playing midfield, but I agreed with him and here’s why. Yedlin is still very raw, and relatively unpolished and inexperienced. FJ was outstanding at RB in the World Cup. Putting Yedlin at RB during important games is taking a risk because he has very little top level experience there and a mistake can easily lead to a goal. With this game we were playing a much lesser team and Yedlin has become the starter for Sunderland at RB. Thus, Klinsmann felt that there would be very little risk playing Yedlin at RB for this game. So, what happens but Yedlin is pretty much responsible for the goal we gave up. Should we play Yedlin at RB against T&T? Since we need a draw and that means giving up no more than 1 goal, I say no, put FJ back there. If Klinsmann does that I am sure that you will see howls of protest from the fair weather fans here, but I think experience has shown it is the right move.
Keep seeing that goal played solely on Yedlin. He was definitely complacent, HAS to do/react better, but that was first on Cameron for a horrible giveaway, then Yedlin for standing watching… then Cameron and the central defense for letting him penetrate and shoot with such ease/space. There is no LW option near as good as FJ. It’s quite apparent immediately when he’s played there. He, and Bradley complement each other.. add Nagbe and we have potential to be a very solid, smart, creative midfield. As well…FJ is also prone to defensive mistakes and has LOTS more games there than Yedlin. Mistakes are inevitable… with anyone… ultimately you have to go with the best option and stick with it!!!! Put Yedlin there, let him ride the momentum of his club time and build confidence/cohesiveness, consistency.
I rewatched that play……………. take it back, was mostly on Yedlin. Stand by my point we need to stick w/ him at RB.
of course. No surprise. In the LAND OF THE BLIND the ONE-EYED man is king……Hahahahahaha
Good Job Altidore
Careful with those ha’s
Jozy is baaaack!!! He’s one of our few automatic starters.
dont buy into the false hope that altidore is back in form with the USA
Then what should we buy into?
Bomb shelters. The sky is still falling and the world is ending for the Nats, apparently.
Nothing…..this result means nothing. Their best player plays in the USL and they are a semi-pro team with part-time players
Wow! Where are Jozy Altidore’s critics now? He did his job tonight, end of story.
Absolutely anybody, any other forward, would’ve scored those goals. When I WANT HIM TO SCORE SEE IS WHEN WE PLAY Jamaica in the Gold Cup semis and Mexico in the CONCACAF Cup. But no, that’s a lil more difficult, ain’t it?
hahahahahahahahaha……we had like 90% possession, they were miss 4 of their regular starters, they had a painter on the team and the Captain was a member of the Coast Guard…hahahahahahaha please, please, please don’t try to brag on Altidore’s behalf. lets just hope this does well for his confidence.
4 metros playing(Ream,Bradley,Altidore,Miazga)1 on the bench( Howard)