Jozy Altidore was honoured as US Soccer’s 2016 Male Player of the Year, and Christian Pulisic was named Young Male Player of the Year when the awards were unveiled during the MLS Cup Preview Show on Friday night.
Altidore received 32 per cent of votes, followed by Bobby Wood (30 per cent) and Geoff Cameron (15 per cent). The striker also won the award in 2013 and was Young Male Player of the Year in 2006.
Altidore scored a US national team-leading six goals and made four assists during 10 appearances in 2016, despite missing Copa America Centenario due to a hamstring injury. Four of those goals came in World Cup qualifiers. His goal in the US’s 4-0 win against Trinidad & Tobago on September 6 was a record-setting 16th in World Cup qualifying.
He also had 10 goals and five assists in 23 games for Toronto FC, and this post-season he became the first player in MLS history to score a goal in five straight play-off games.
Pulisic earned 86 per cent of the vote for the Young Male Player, followed by Jordan Morris (five per cent) and Andrew Carleton (four per cent).
Pulisic, who turned 18 in September, got his first cap in a World Cup qualifier against Guatemala on March 27. While he scored three goals for the USMNT this year, his exploits with Borussia Dortmund are even more impressive, as he became the youngest non-German to score in the Bundesliga (April 17 against Hamburg) and to tally two goals in the league (April 23 against Stuttgart).
US men’s national team players who made at least one international appearance in 2016, as well as men’s national team coaches, MLS, NASL and USL head coaches, and select former players, administrators and media members voted on the awards.
