Altidore and Real Madrid a Bad Marriage

Rumors have been hot and heavy the past few days that Jozy Altio­dre, the first Amer­i­can teen strike rto ever elicit seri­ous inter­est from top Euro­pean clubs is being heav­ily scouted by Real Madrid. Alti­dore, whose devel­op­ment has been remark­able to this point in his career could throw it all away by going to a club where his devel­op­ment will be sti­fled and where his national team ser­vice could become less fre­quent (as it did with Tim Howard once he went to Man­ches­ter United). Alti­dore has bet­ter tech­ni­cal skill than any Amer­i­can has ever had at his age. His con­fi­dence on the ball and abil­ity to play with his back to goal are some­thing the National Team has been lack­ing since the retire­ments of Eric Wynalda, Earnie Stew­art and Joe Max Moore some years ago. Alti­dore has the poten­tial to take his place along­side the afore­men­tioned names as titan in Amer­i­can Soc­cer attack­ing lore, but these next few years are crit­i­cal. As we have seen with sev­eral other national team pool mem­bers, going to the wrong club could sti­fle a play­ers devel­op­ment and in turn hurt US Soc­cer. Real Madrid is a super club that deals in fin­ished arti­cles. Alti­dore would be much bet­ter off play­ing out his MLS con­tract or going to a league like the Dutch Ere­di­vise where pre­mium is placed on player devel­op­ment. In a place like Hol­land or Por­tu­gal Alti­dore could develop under the radar with some of the top tech­ni­cal coaches and train­ers on the Euro­pean con­ti­nent. For me, long term that would be a bet­ter deal for US Soc­cer than the glitz and glamor of Real Madrid.