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 Castellón part of Spain, an area that isn’t that touristy. His coach and teammates mostly spoke Spanish. Along the way, Altidore picked up the language.

“A lot of people look at me like, ‘What? You speak Spanish?’” Altidore told NBC News.

It will come in handy this summer, when Altidore serves as a World Cup commentator for Telemundo, the games’ 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’t want to be left on the sidelines.

“It’s the biggest, most historical World Cup we’ve had,” Altidore said. “For me, it was a good opportunity to stay involved, be a part of the World Cup.”

But what about his Spanish? “I can get by,” he said. “I thought, ‘What a cool challenge.’ I think you want to challenge yourself, in the things that you’re doing, always.”

Plus, he’ll get to see the Telemundo broadcast up close, the excitement of it, which is a stark contrast to the English-language telecasts, particularly the “goal” calls from the announcer Andrés Cantor. “I always wondered, how does he do that in one breath?” Altidore said. “This guy goes just the whole time. I can’t wait to see the legend in action.” (Telemundo and NBC News share a parent company, NBCUniversal.)

Altidore during the Gold Cup semifinal match between the U.S. and Jamaica in Nashville, Tenn., on July 3, 2019.Robin Alam / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images file

Altidore will be offering analysis and insight on Team USA’s 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.

Altidore told NBC News he has a rose-colored view of the current team. “I’m optimistic,” he said. “I’m bullish. I think this team can win the World Cup. I really do. I think they have the talent. And I’m so excited for them to get their flowers.”

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.

With this World Cup being held on home soil, maybe “we’re able to push our team to a bit of a better performance than we have historically,” Altidore said.

He didn’t just mean the players — he meant the fans, too. “Can we show up in numbers in a way that, from the players’ arrival, they feel the emotion, they feel the enthusiasm, they feel the camaraderie?” Altidore said. “And we can push them on to play a little bit above themselves, to play a little bit above what we’ve seen already.”

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. “For me, it’s really getting behind these guys, applauding them for how far they’ve now taken the flag and where they’ve brought it,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s not all rainbows. You’ve got to be critical of guys, and you have to obviously critique their performances.”

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.

“They’re going to get exposed to soccer in a wonderful way for the first time, and it’s going to birth soccer players, it’s going to birth soccer fans, soccer enthusiasts,” Altidore said.

He’ll be doing his part, by showing his enthusiasm on the Telemundo broadcasts. “It’s more than just X’s and O’s in my opinion,” Altidore said. “This is a very good opportunity to continue growing the game for another 30, 40 years to come.”