FanHouse Jozy Altidore

Sort of a weird situation that developed Saturday with U.S. teenage striker Jozy Altidore at his Premier League club team Hull City. Altidore wasn't in the lineup, nor was he even on the bench for the Tigers 0-0 draw with last-place Portsmouth.

Apparently Altidore was late to the KC Stadium and posted an apology on his Twitter page. What's weird, is on his actual page, the apology is no longer posted and the most recent tweet is encouraging Hull fans to make a lot of noise at the game.

All things considered, it's hard to read all that much into the situation. Altidore wouldn't be the first player in the history of professional soccer to be late for a match. It was a little distressing that the 19-year-old, who is fighting for a place in the starting XI, would risk being late and nullify any chance of seeing the field.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Landon Donovan was named the best player on
the U.S. team for a record-breaking sixth time on Tuesday.

Donovan, 27, was instrumental in the Americans' successful qualifying campaign for the World Cup and its trek to the Confederations Cup final.

Join FanHouse UK's J.P. Shaw as he hosts a live chat for Monday's English Premier League match between Fulham and Hull City.

The match holds special interest for an American audience, as it features a potential meeting between U.S. national team stars Jozy Altidore (Hull City, left) and Clint Dempsey (Fulham).

The match begins at 3 PM ET and will also be broadcast live on ESPN2.

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American fans of the Premier League were in for a treat Saturday morning, with up to four matches all airing live at 10 a.m. Unfortunately, the mouth-watering Hull City v. Bolton was not one of those matches.

Well, despite the sarcasm, the match turned out to be worthwhile for U.S. fans and it's too bad the match wasn't live, despite the less than marquee teams involved.

The reason for this? American international Jozy Altidore made his long awaited debut for Hull as a second-half substitute in the Tigers 1-0 win. The fact Atlidore saw the field is a bit of a surprise since he only returned to England after last week's U.S./Mexico World Cup qualifier on Thursday due to some red tape approving his work permit for his season-long loan from Villareal.

U.S. forward Jozy Altidore took a big step toward clarifying his status for the 2009-10 club season Wednesday with a series of posts on his Twitter page that all but confirmed that he'd be making a move to Hull City of the Premier League.

Altidore didn't get into the details, hinting at a press conference on Thursday, but other outlets are reporting that it will be a season-long loan from Spanish club Villareal, which bought him for an MLS-record $10 million last year.

The prospect of more American soccer players making an impact in the top European leagues is never a bad thing, especially less than a year before a World Cup. The latest Yank that could be on the move is 19-year-old striker Jozy Altidore who is drawing the attention of a couple clubs in the Premier League including Hull City, which has reportedly lined up a multi-million dollar offer to Villareal for his services.

This report, taken for whatever its worth since it's coming from the less-than-trustworthy Daily Mail, seems to make the earlier rumor this summer than Altidore was on track for a move to Greece with Olympiakos look dead.

When the U.S. Soccer Federation announced the roster for the upcoming CONCACAF Gold Cup in the midst of the U.S.'s surprising run to the Confederations Cup final, the general consensus was that the lineup was thoroughly a "B" team. After all, the supposed "A" team had done enough work in upsetting then-FIFA No. 1 Spain, and giving newly minted top dog Brazil a run for its money, before losing 3-2 last week.

On Wednesday, CONCACAF said it would allow the U.S. to add seven players to the already 23-man roster for the Gold Cup due to playing in back-to-back competitions barely separated by a week and, more importantly, over 10,000 miles. Thursday the USSF announced those seven players -- all members of the Confederations Cup roster -- upgrading the roster to a solid "B+."

The U.S. national team's unexpected victory over top-ranked Spain in Wednesday's Confederations Cup semifinal set off a predictable, but still annoying, flurry of pontification about the growth and relevance of soccer in America.

Mainstream journalists who watch a game or two every four years, political types who wonder if soccer is consistent with American values and sports anchors who asked if a victory in Sunday's final against Brazil would install us as World Cup favorites, all turned up suddenly to offer their well-informed opinions and pile a bit more pressure on Bob Bradley's boys.

The coach and several players admitted they came out "tentative" in the 3-0 group-stage loss to Brazil. Imagine how much more frightened they'd be if they felt the sport's future depended on a single result? Thankfully, the U.S. showed against Egypt and Spain that it can play both aggressively and intelligently while ignoring external distractions and someone else's big picture. A similar approach Sunday could yield a trophy.

David Beckham can hawk his signature cologne in our department stores, including Macy's in New York, where an employee followed me down an aisle and sprayed some of Becks' metrosexual potion on me. But soccer? He'd much rather play in Europe than in our league, which explains all you need to know about the game's place in America.

In the stateside food chain of professional sports, men's soccer has been a can of Spam. If you have absolutely nothing better to eat, you nibble. It isn't so true on the women's side, where Mia Hamm and the golden girls captivated a nation for years and Brandi Chastain gave us a landmark moment for feminism by stripping down to her sports bra.

But the men? The quality of play has been so maligned that Giuseppe Rossi, who was born and raised in New Jersey and could have been a major star for our national squad, never even considered Team USA. In his teen years, he tapped into his dual citizenship and signed up with Italy, a global football power.

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Wednesday night in chilly Bloemfontein, South Africa, the U.S. national team lodged one of its greatest victories in its history, beating FIFA No. 1 Spain 2-0 in the Confederations Cup semifinals. The win snapped Spain's 35-match unbeaten run, denying them a chance to set a new record at 36.

This win almost made me pull out the thesaurus for the proper word to describe it. Stunning? Yes. Unbelievable? Pretty close. Deserved? You bet.