Growing up in South Florida, Jozy Altidore heard a lot of Spanish playing soccer with local kids and at home from his Dominican grandmother. As a teenager, he went to play for Villarreal, in the Castell\u00f3n part of Spain, an area that isn\u2019t that touristy. His coach and teammates mostly spoke Spanish. Along the way, Altidore picked up the language.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people look at me like, \u2018What? You speak Spanish?\u2019\u201d Altidore told NBC News.<\/p>\n
It will come in handy this summer, when Altidore serves as a World Cup commentator for Telemundo, the games\u2019 official Spanish-language network. Altidore has no experience in broadcasting, and he admits that his Spanish is just OK. But he saw the World Cup was coming to North America, and he didn\u2019t want to be left on the sidelines.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the biggest, most historical World Cup we\u2019ve had,\u201d Altidore said. \u201cFor me, it was a good opportunity to stay involved, be a part of the World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n
But what about his Spanish? \u201cI can get by,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought, \u2018What a cool challenge.\u2019 I think you want to challenge yourself, in the things that you\u2019re doing, always.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plus, he\u2019ll get to see the Telemundo broadcast up close, the excitement of it, which is a stark contrast to the English-language telecasts, particularly the \u201cgoal\u201d calls from the announcer Andr\u00e9s Cantor. \u201cI always wondered, how does he do that in one breath?\u201d Altidore said. \u201cThis guy goes just the whole time. I can\u2019t wait to see the legend in action.\u201d (Telemundo and NBC News share a parent company, NBCUniversal.)<\/p>\n Altidore will be offering analysis and insight on Team USA\u2019s games not far removed from his own time playing for the team. He is considered one of the best American players of the last two decades, a striker who scored 42 goals in 115 appearances. He helped the U.S. make it to the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, though he got injured during the latter tournament. He played with a few members of the 2026 roster, including Christian Pulisic.<\/p>\n Altidore told NBC News he has a rose-colored view of the current team. \u201cI\u2019m optimistic,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m bullish. I think this team can win the World Cup. I really do. I think they have the talent. And I\u2019m so excited for them to get their flowers.\u201d<\/p>\n Altidore understands how that sounds: Team USA? Winning the World Cup? But he pointed to past examples of host countries making deep runs in the tournament: South Korea reaching the semifinals in 2002, and Germany doing the same in 2006. Colombia also reached the quarterfinals in 2014, when the World Cup was held in neighboring Brazil.<\/p>\n With this World Cup being held on home soil, maybe \u201cwe\u2019re able to push our team to a bit of a better performance than we have historically,\u201d Altidore said.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t just mean the players \u2014 he meant the fans, too. \u201cCan we show up in numbers in a way that, from the players\u2019 arrival, they feel the emotion, they feel the enthusiasm, they feel the camaraderie?\u201d Altidore said. \u201cAnd we can push them on to play a little bit above themselves, to play a little bit above what we\u2019ve seen already.\u201d<\/p>\n You can sense his excitement. As a media member, Altidore will have to now learn to balance his rooting interests with offering clear-eyed analysis. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s really getting behind these guys, applauding them for how far they\u2019ve now taken the flag and where they\u2019ve brought it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut at the same time, it\u2019s not all rainbows. You\u2019ve got to be critical of guys, and you have to obviously critique their performances.\u201d<\/p>\n Altidore was first introduced to soccer in 1994, the last time the U.S. hosted the World Cup, when he was just a young boy. His father recorded games on VHS tapes. He imagines lots of families will do the same this summer, three decades later, albeit with updated technology.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re going to get exposed to soccer in a wonderful way for the first time, and it\u2019s going to birth soccer players, it\u2019s going to birth soccer fans, soccer enthusiasts,\u201d Altidore said.<\/p>\n He\u2019ll be doing his part, by showing his enthusiasm on the Telemundo broadcasts. \u201cIt\u2019s more than just X\u2019s and O\u2019s in my opinion,\u201d Altidore said. \u201cThis is a very good opportunity to continue growing the game for another 30, 40 years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Growing up in South Florida, Jozy Altidore heard a lot of Spanish playing soccer with local kids and at home from his Dominican grandmother. As a teenager, he went to play for Villarreal, in the Castell\u00f3n part of Spain, an area that isn\u2019t that touristy. His coach and teammates mostly spoke Spanish. Along the way, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26099,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fastmoneyeduaction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fastmoneyeduaction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fastmoneyeduaction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fastmoneyeduaction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fastmoneyeduaction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fastmoneyeduaction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fastmoneyeduaction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fastmoneyeduaction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fastmoneyeduaction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fastmoneyeduaction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}