Jozy Altidore’s Gold Cup appears to be over.
The Toronto FC striker indicated in a tweet on Tuesday morning that he is leaving the US men’s national team, which wrapped Group A action with a 1-1 draw against Panama on Monday night.
All Gold Cup participants are allowed to make roster changes between the end of group play and the beginning of the knockout rounds, with managers able to replace up to six players from their 23-man group stage roster with one from their initial 35-man preliminary roster.
US head coach Jurgen Klinsmann named seven forwards to the USMNT’s preliminary Gold Cup roster. Altidore, Seattle Sounders star Clint Dempsey, San Jose Earthquakes striker Chris Wondolowski and Aron Johansson made the group stage roster, while the New England Revolution’s Juan Agudelo, LA Galaxy’s Alan Gordon and Stanford University’s Jordan Morris – who recently underwent surgery to repair a stress fracture in his leg and will miss a total of 4-6 weeks – were on Klinsmann's preliminary squad.
Altidore started the US’s first two Gold Cup matches, playing 59 minutes in the Group A opener against Honduras and getting pulled at halftime of the win against Haiti last week. He did not feature in the draw against Panama on Monday, which saw the Galaxy’s Gyasi Zardes begin the game at forward.
Altidore will now return to Toronto FC and – barring injury – will presumably be available for the Reds’ home match against Philadelphia on Saturday (4 pm ET, TSN1 in Canada, MLS LIVE in the US).
The US will face the third-place team from Group B or Group C in Baltimore in the Gold Cup quarterfinals on Saturday (5 pm ET, FOX and Univision in the US, Sportsnet World in Canada). US Soccer plans on announcing all of their Gold Cup roster changes early Tuesday afternoon.
