Jozy Altidore Is Risking Everything with Major League Soccer Return

The bell is tolling on Jozy Altidore's time as a Europe-based footballer.

On Wednesday, according to the Chronicle, Sunderland agreed to a player-plus-cash swap involving the United States international and Toronto FC striker Jermain Defoe, who joined the Major League Soccer outfit from Tottenham Hotspur in 2014.

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Although Altidore, who represented New York Red Bulls in MLS between 2006 and 2008, will have to pass through the North American top flight's re-allocation process, it's expected he'll soon be unveiled as a Toronto player.

In Canada, the 25-year-old will join up with international teammate Michael Bradley, who, as per TSN, is thought to be "very, very happy" with the transaction.

United States manager Jurgen Klinsmann will no doubt be less enthused with the move.

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The German has been outspoken in his preference that his players ply their trade in Europe, and on Wednesday, he admitted to Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl that he advised Altidore against a return to MLS.

"You give them your two cents," he said. "With Jozy, I just say it would be nice if I would see him one day in the European Champions League. Because I think he's a Champions League player. He has that potential, the talent to do so."

That's debatable.

Although he set Dutch football alight with 51 goals for AZ Alkmaar over two seasons in the Eredivisie, he tallied just three times in one-and-a-half campaigns with Sunderland, who paid €10 million for his signature in July 2013.

Needless to say, he never justified the fee even as he continued to find the back of the net for the United States. It could be that the Premier League just wasn't a good fit, but as Klinsmann told Wahl, the next best options would have included the Bundesliga, La Liga or Ligue 1—not MLS.

"From a competitive standpoint, it's normal that a coach wishes that his players go to the highest level possible," he remarked.

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Klinsmann could also be forgiven if he had concerns about the Toronto switch in particular. Since joining MLS in 2007, the club has tossed manager after manager off the merry-go-round; they've never qualified for the play-offs, and repeated incompetence at administrative levels has made them, at times, the laughing stock of the league.

That said, a Bradley-Altidore link-up is intriguing, and despite his lack of goals in English football, there's nothing to suggest the latter won't fill the nets on the other side of the Atlantic. And if he does, it's conceivable the resulting confidence could even be beneficial to his United States performances.

Conversely, he could also end up becoming just another player lost in the Toronto abyss.

Things have rarely been straightforward for Altidore at club level, and his latest transfer only continues a rather strange career trajectory.

But a return to regular goalscoring is what all parties are after, and if it comes, everyone from Toronto FC to Jurgen Klinsmann to Altidore himself will have got what they wanted.