There was a time when Freddy Adu could do no wrong. He was one of football’s hottest properties and one of Europe’s most coveted players. Since then his career has not gone onwards and upwards in the way that many had hoped.
He is currently on loan at AS Monaco, who have an option to make the deal permanent at the end of the season but almost certainly won’t, and has made just nine appearances this season, scoring no goals. Before that he was at Benfica, his first attempt to crack Europe, where, after a promising start, he made eleven league appearances, scoring two goals. Strange, really, that just three years ago Adu had only recently had a trial at Manchester United, which would eventually come to nothing, and it seemed more a question of which club would win his signature rather then whether one would want it.
Unfortunately, times have changed – Adu was sold to Real Salt Lake, a move orchestrated by Adu who saw his best position as an attacking midfielder or striker, not on the right side of midfield where D.C coach Petr Nowak had been playing him. ‘It is never easy to part with players, especially one like Freddy,’ Nowak said at the time. ‘Freddy desired to play a different role than the one we offered here at D.C., so we hope this move can aid that wish’. Less than a year later Adu skipped a pre season match with the club to board a plane to Benfica and a day later the deal was done. So how has Freddy Adu gone from one of the most sought after teenagers in Europe to a player about to turn 20 and searching for his third club in as many years?
A large part of the problem is that the MLS seems ill equipped to deal with promising young players – Adu isn’t their first potential superstar. Bobby Convey broke in to the DC United side in 2000 as a 16 year old, preceding Adu as the youngest player to play in the league. Since then, after an initial move to Tottenham Hotspur collapsed due to problems obtaining a work permit for the player, a disappointing spell with Reading which was hampered by injuries has recently seen Convey return to the MLS with San Jose Earthquakes after being released by the Championship club in February. Despite producing a number of players who have been successful in the Premiership and other European Leagues, few have been flair players. Fit, dependable strikers like Marcus DaBeasley and Brian McBride as well as the evergreen Brad Friedel have forged successful if unspectacular careers, but none have the natural skill of Adu. There is a stark contrast between the attitude towards player development in the MLS and in the South American Leagues. For Brazillian clubs, their players are all they have. They are their prize assets, their primary source of income – even more so than that received from television rights. It is in their interest to develop their players as well as they can to maximise transfer fees and maintain their reputation – and of course it has the knock on effect of making them more competitive domestically, albeit in a permanent state of flux as they never know what next season’s team will be.
The MLS is quite different, it is trying to establish itself in a country already fixated by the glitz and galmour of the NFL and NBA. These players aren’t just players, they are working advertisements for an entire game. When Manchester United signed nine year old Rhain Davis in 2007 on the basis of a DVD, the contrast was clear; the club quickly released a statement cofirming that Davis was a member of their youth academy and that they would not comment on individuals. There have been no new stories since. Adu has been filmed, interviewed and followed since he became a teenager. Perhaps he has simply had too much expectation heaped upon his young shoulders. The MLS continually attempted to boost attendances and the profile of the league by promoting their newest phenomenon, initially attendences rose, especially when D.C travelled to away fixtures, but those new attendees rarely returned when the Freddy Adu phenomenon could not meet with expectation. Details of his development as a player since he broke in to the DC United first team as a 14 year old have been under constant media scrutiny. In his second season with D.C United he was suspended for one game for complaining to the local media about his lack of playing time. All of the questions that would usually have been discussed in private, notably whether at 5″6 he would be physically strong enough to compete as well as his infamous temprement, have been analysed continually by sports journalinsts for the length of his short career. His coaches seemed to struggle to prepare him adequately for the bigger leagues he seemed destined for. But if Adu seems petulant to a European audience, it is only a result of the way in which the MLS has moulded him in to the role of soccer superstar. He believes his own hype, and who can blame him? It is all he has ever known.
At 19, Adu is fast approaching a pivotal point in his career. The player who Internazionale offered a six figure sum for as a 10 year old is running out of opportunities to prove he is capable of fulfilling the enormous hype and promise heaped on his shoulders as a young teenager.
It is rumoured that AS Monaco will opt not to take up their option to buy Adu at the end of the season and his next destination may be Genoa. The European leagues are awash with foreign imports that have struggled to make their mark and whose failure will receive far less column inches than Adu. His ascent to the top has been a flurry of hyperbole, now he must prove there is substance to the rave reviews or his descent back to the MLS will be just as hasty.
Written by Alex Allen
