Yankee Debut Dandies

Something interesting happened this weekend, besides Brett Favre moving into the house next to me in the suburbs of northern New Jersey (fact). Something so interesting, that it even warranted the use of such a hokey word as “dandy” to be used in the title of this post. It also provided for some pretty good mediocre alliteration too.

Regardless, as I watched the debuts of young Americans Maurice Edu and Jozy Altidore at their respective new European clubs over the weekend through a fuzzy pop-up window on my dell desktop, I couldn’t help but wonder what these appearances would determine about their immediate future at there clubs.

Both Rangers and Villarreal will be competing for Champions League places this year, as well as having a puncher’s go at a title. A first impression can mean a lot to not only the supporters of such large club, but maybe more importantly to the message board hounds that reside in the homeland of these players, practically waiting on every mistake to call it quits on their career from behind the almighty power of their keyboard.

In the case of Maurice Edu, these fears were quelled with the starters work man performance that has thus far earned him the praise of his manager, Walter Smith, and his new supporter’s clubs. Mo was all over the place. A true Scottish footballing menace. He was the most comfortable I have seen him in his possession game in a long time; spraying simple and dangerous passes around the field in a manner he was not able to in his last start for the USMNT in qualifying. In that match against Cuba, Edu looked like a player resting on his laurels of just being signed to a big club like Rangers instead of going out and proving it. He gave the ball away casually numerous times and looked way to blasé for my tastes. This weekend he proved just why Rangers signed him in the first place.

Jozy Altidore was a bit of a different situation. Much bigger hype, much bigger potential, and much more important to the United States program and American soccer in general moving forward. Ok, I think we have all had this drilled into our dome piece enough by now, but it never hurts to reinforce key concepts. Anyways, Altidore was given a full 45 of action in a substitute’s role on Sunday and came on to become one of the focal points of the Yellow Submarine’s attack. Jozy was able to dust some defenders on the outside, hold possession at key moments, and create a handful of chances at goal for both himself and his teammates. There was even an instance when Jozy was applauded by a teammate when he unsuccessfully tried to make a creative centering pass to engineer a second Villarreal goal. If this doesn’t tell you that the kid is in the perfect environment I don’t know what does. Can Freddy Adu get a transfer to Villarreal?

While many have been griping over the fact that Jozy was left off of Villarreal’s group stage Champions League roster, a performance like this will go a long way towards making him standout in the manager’s eyes as not only a talented youngster, but more importantly, a talented youngster who can come on and contribute by changing the pace of the game. Now if Bob Bradley “saw” Jozy’s performance is another issue altogether. But if he keeps this up, there is no way Bob won’t see the next one.