For many years his arrival in the Premier League did not seem at all likely. Nottingham Forest, Newcastle and Sunderland all attempted to secure Friedel’s services, but failed to obtain an elusive work permit and on all three occasions the moves collapsed. Sandwiched inbetween those disappointments he engineered moves to IF Brondby following his failure to engineer a move to Keegan’s Newcastle, then Galatasary after facing similar disappointment with Sunderland where he would work with Graeme Souness for the first time. In 1996 he moved back to the MLS with Columbus Crew and the following season was included in the MLS team of the year was named the MLS goalkeeper of the year. It painted a frustrating picture, one of a goalkeeper with abundant potential, his persistent suiters testament to it, but unable to secure the opportunity to fulfil it. Hope was to come from Liverpool, who, impressed by Friedel’s MLS performances, decided to purchase his contract for $1.7 million in 1997. Again a work permit was denied, but finally one was granted on appeal and Friedel secured the move to the Premier League that he had sought for so long.

The role of goalkeeper is a strange one, one where Edwin Van der Sar can receive as much credit for a run of 13 games without conceding a goal as Shay Given for limiting a rampant Hamburg side to just 3 goals in Germany as well as countless heroic if slightly joyless performances for Newcastle. At the highest level it is about consistency, attention and alertness. Van der Sar will often have to make one or two saves a game, for half of Manchester United’s home games he is almost a complete bystander to the action. His quality is that when he is required to make those crucial saves more often that not he does. Lower down the league those qualities are still important, but there is more action and endurance. Goals are condeded more frequently, defenders are less reliable. There is generally more to do, keepers can concede one, two, even three goals and still have had a good game. Finding out where they fit between those two extremes has made players’ careers, Jussi Jakelinen, David James and Shay Given are just three examples, and Brad Friedel is another. Having struggled at Liverpool for three seasons, making just 35 appearances and playing second fiddle to Sander Westerveld for the majority of his stay he was eventually reuinted with Graeme Souness at Blackburn, the man who had taken him to Galatasaray. It was there he made his name as a battling, all action player with real quality, first in helping the side win promotion in 2001 and then by earning inclusion in the Premier League XI in 2003 after keeping 15 clean sheets for the club. Throughout the latter part of his career he has been the benchmark for consistency, holding the record for consecutive league appearances of 182. Few, if any, goalkeepers in the league could claim to match his consistently outstanding performances which have coincided with both Blackburn and now Aston Villa enjoying their most successful seasons in over a decade.

Yet Friedel is not the toast of all American football supporters. There is a common sentiment that he has turned his back on the MLS, that he showed little interest in playing for the national side unless he was garanteed to start and that although his ability was undoubtedly more than of Kasey Keller, it was the latter that was more revered by American supporters as having given more back to American football. Keller, incidentally, is still playing – at the newly formed Seattle Sounders and will be 40 this November. His another illustrious career best saved for another day. This is not an argument I feel holds much weight. Friedel has opened a soccer school in Ohio which he visits annually and in interviews regularly makes reference to ex USA keeper Tim Rice as his inspiration for getting in to the game. He has never made it his aim to disregard his roots, but at the same time has maintained a desire to become a better player rather than a pin up for the MLS. In interviews Friedel has talked about how he is considered too English to be American at home, and too American to be English at his club. It was a comment made in jest, but it must be a difficult scenario and perhaps the price for progress, a feeling of not fully belonging anywhere. It has become common place in the modern game, players pusuing their personal goals at the exspense of patriotism, Deco, now of Portugal, Eduardo, now of Croatia and perhaps Almunia, a future England number one, are all good examples.

But the blame should not like at Friedel’s door that he plays in a flawed system. It is not his fault that the only way to improve and reach the pinnacle of his profession was to leave the MLS and play in more prosperous leagues further a field. It is an unfortunate reality that it is not the USA that can decide when it has produced a world class player, it is Europe. There have already been several false dawns in that respect, notably Adu and Convey in recent seasons who eventually failed to meet expectation at Benfica and Fulham respectively. Without these players proving they can play to the European standard, American claims regarding the quality of their players have no credibility, they are little more than smoke and hyperbole. European football is utterly dominant at present, it has the world’s best player, the world’s best international team, and officially, albeit via a competition which isn’t universally respected, the world’s best club side, not to mention all the money. By moving to the Premier League, establishing himself there and consistently proving himself to be one of the best in his position, Friedel might have isolated himself from his homeland, but he has built himself a credibility in this country that gives him good reason to claim to be the greatest player the USA has ever produced, even if he is not appreciated to the same extent at home. There are other contenders, Eric Wynalda, Tab Ramos and Hugo Perez to name but three, but none of them could claim to have performed with such consistent quality in such a challenging environment over such a long period of time. Friedel has survived the fitness revolution that Arsene Wenger brought with him from Monaco in the late 1990′s, and the increased standard of play in the league which has increased its presence in the European game in recent seasons, culminating in his part in Aston Villa’s credible effort to gatecrash the top four this season. If anything these factors, in correlation to Friedel’s increasing age, should have been a recipe for weaker and weaker performances. Instead the opposite has happened, Friedel, if anything, has improved. He isn’t the posterboy for football that America would like, he isn’t their first David Beckham or Ronaldinho, he isn’t bleach blonde highlights, good looks and bags of tricks, but he is the best player to come out of America so far because he simply has a stronger combination of natural talent and an inclination to work and improve than anyone from the country who has gone before him.

I apologise, there seems to be an issue with commenting on articles, but I will address the ones that have been raised here.

The best American outfield player?

Reyna isn’t rated as highly at home because he doesn’t play quite as consistently for the national side which is when they see him play the most, but he’s certainly maintained a good level of play in the Premier League over the years which, as was also the case for Friedel, is a good indicator of a talented player who can produce over a long period of time. Donovan has talent, clearly, but is wasting it playing at LA Galaxy who haven’t even qualified for the MLS playoffs since 2005. From what I gather his spell at Bayern Munich hasn’t been hugely successful, unfortunately it has coincided with the team playing badly, sacking the manager and struggling to qualify for the Champions League. Alexei Lalas was a pioneer, he made a name for himself at Padova in Serie A when it was still the best league in Europe. Right now this is really the basis for success for these players, what they have done to progress American football abroad. He set the standard first and showed that Americans could play at that level. Friedel’s was a bigger achievement because he’s older, at the pinnacle of his position and has been there for longer than Lalas was. In terms of natural ability I’d probably go for Perez, but he didn’t play very many games and only showed in flashes for the national side what he could do. He’s what I would call in modern terms a Youtube player, a player that everyone lauds based on a highlights video and doesn’t look at the full picture. If he were around now in the revamped MLS perhaps he could have achieved more, who knows? In terms of significance, perhaps Lalas was the most important. He was one of the first widely known American players abroad, albeit because of his hair, and set the bar for the rest. I don’t think he had tremendous ability, but he was a great advert for the rebirth of American football. All the arrivals since, McBride, Dempsey, Spector owe, in part, a little to Alexei Lalas. None of these players are what the Americans want, of course, they want their own Ronaldo or Kaka, but the creation of an increasing conveyor built of Premier League quality players is something that shouldn’t be undervalued, especially for a league as young as theirs.

In addition, luck prevails on behalf of all teams throughout the season – although most would undoubtedly disagree that their side benefits from it, the FA could pay for 2018 with the money from Neil Warnock’s outbursts alone. Manchester United were fortunate to play Chelsea at home when the club were at their lowest ebb this season, Drogba was woeful that day, Scolari clueless as to what to do about his sinking ship. Compare that performance to what the same group of players produced at Anfield and ponder whether Guus Hiddink’s Chelsea would have collapsed with such little resistance earlier in the season. Chelsea were equally unfortunate to play Newcastle several days after the return of their second messiah, Alan Shearer. It was a game they won, but one certainly made more difficult with Shearer rather than Hughton in the dugout.

Why do I make these apparently unconnected points? Because I would hate to think that the observation I am about to make might either appear to suggest that Liverpool have simply been lucky in their pursuit of the Premier League, or that luck does not even itself out over the course of a season. This is simply an observation of the situation as it stands now – Liverpool are getting a great deal of help from the fixture list. Compare the teams both Liverpool and Manchester United have yet to play or have recently played, Arsenal, Tottenham, Fulham, Middlesbrough. Similar run ins with one crucial difference – Liverpool consistently get to play first. Manchester United are suffering for their relentless pursuit of the clean sweep, this weekend they will play Everton at Wembley while Liverpool have a welcome weekend of relief. When the Premier League picks up again the following week Liverpool will play Arsenal on Tuesday evening, United will have to wait until Wednesday to play Portsmouth.

Manchester United, of course, still have a game in hand which they will have to wait until the very end of the season to play. The effect is that Liverpool are consistantly receiving the psychological boost of going top and seeing it in print in the Sunday newspapers. United, despite holding a points advantage and a game in hand, must constantly feel like they are playing catch up. In fact since their trip to the World Club Cup, they have only caught up with the number of games played by Chelsea and Liverpool once, after their 4-0 victory against Fulham at Old Trafford.

It is a situation comparable to a World Cup penalty shootout – given the choice, a side will always go first. In theory both are faced with the same proposition, five penalties, most scored wins – and over the course of a season the same logic applies to each team’s fixture list. But the edge of having scored and the opposition knowing they must too is of great advantage, and it is a huge benefit for Liverpool to have it right now.

Perhaps it is a turn of fortune they have earnt – Fernando Torres’ presence for the entire season might have seen some of those irritating draws at home reap all three points, but this could make all the difference to where the trophy ends up. It is reminiscent of the 2005-6 season when Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea endeavoured to chase down a rampant Manchester United. That season it was United who consistently played first, forcing Chelsea to make the running and win to keep themselves in contention – something they attempted with great valour, a late Kalou header at Watford sticks in the memory. Eventually they faltered against Arsenal at the Emirates, a brave fight finally lost. That was a different season, though, a similar lead to chase down for Chelsea, but against a United side in exceptional form.

Momentum at this stage of the season is a curious thing, as of now Liverpool have it. Manchester United have their backs to the wall and luck seems to be deserting them, nobody said winning five trophies was going to be easy. Last season Rangers seemed destined to taste glory on every front and were eventually trounced in Manchester by Zenit St. Petersburg and overhauled in the SPL by Celtic. In the ever changing Premier League, nobody knows what will happen next. Managers will be sacked, players will be injured, clubs will find psychological boosts from unexpected sources. For good or for bad Liverpool and Manchester United will just have to endeavour to get on with it and make the most of the luck they receive when it comes. Other factors will come in to play, too. Is Rafael Benitez having an effect in the media? He has chosen to take Sir Alex Ferguson on in the press room, if Liverpool end the season trophyless it is those moments that will be seized on to prove his failings. Liverpool have already surrendered a lead at the top once, could they cope with the pressure of leading the league again? It is impeccably balanced and now now appears to be a question of who will blink first, with such a fine line between the two perhaps playing first could make all the difference.

As a journalist often writing for an audience who aren’t especially wise to the MLS but are keen to learn it is infuriating – when the league is portayed as unprofessional, unsuccessful and unstable it doesn’t just damage the reputation of the league, it impacts on mine, too. People ask ‘why write about that rubbish when you have the best of Europe on your doorstep?’. But this is a league that has bags of potential, and not just in the generic sense that people wrote about thirty years ago – the enormous country with a population of 240 million, a history of sporting excellence and money to burn – actual, tangiable potential that is there for all to see. Just ten years ago considerable doubts loomed over the MLS and whether it had a future at all, yet since then rising attendences have resulted in ESPN showing matches live globally, and the revenue and exposure that has produced for the clubs has allowed them to follow suit with Europe and sell their shirts for advertising since 2007. The league now receives four places oin the CONCACAF incarnation of the Champions League – winning that would give an American side an opportunity to play one of Europe’s best sides in the World Club Cup, credibility and recognition an inevitable and welcome byproduct of winning the trophy itself. In 2005 the LA Galaxy became the first American side to turn over a profit, the league hopes that by 2010 all its sides will be doing the same. Not only that, but the MLS is expanding – from fifteen to eighteen teams by 2010 when Portland, Seattle and Philadelphia will all have sides. These are exciting times for Major League Soccer, it is growing, thriving and making a future for itself with stability it could never have dreamt of ten years ago, and all before the ticker tape parades of glamorous foreign imports.

But American football is on the nether echelons of European media, a corner column of a broadsheet newspaper, if that. Even then, these newspapers are written for their domestic audience, there has to be a relvenace there for that audience for a piece to be written at all. The further news has to travel, the weaker it becomes. If a story isn’t exciting enough, if there isn’t enough scandal it may never reach us. So while the Italian match fixing scandal was a big enough story to take up column inches in our own national newspapers, three new MLS teams making their league debut is not. Lazy journalists will write about the correlation between the arrival of David Beckham at the LA Galaxy and MLS attendences without exploring the reality that they were increasing long before his arrival. Throughout his entire career, he has been the story. Even now, I find myself wrestling with the keyboard to prevent myself writing an entire paragraph about him. But he, on this occassion, is not the problem, he is simply a product of it. As with so many initiatives, the good intentions behind the designated player rule are clear. The world’s best players playing in the league increase media exposure, hopefully they increase attendences and television revenue, too. David Beckham playing in the MLS at or close to his peak could even improve the credibility of the league and the standard of play for the LA Galaxy at least. But at what cost? The rule makes a mockery of what, when you consider the runaway financial steam train of the Premier League, is a very good idea that the MLS, like many other new leagues, has introduced – a salary cap. In reality, all the Beckham move has succeeded in doing is enforcing tired, inaccurate European views of American football – a refuge for has beens from the European leagues to enjoy their final playing days in the sun, or a league of poor quality, insufficient to be selected for a national side. Again, journalists are quick to write half the story. They focus on the quality of the league but not the impact of thousands of miles of accumulated travelling might have on international fixtures. They take the few games Beckham has played for the club as the standard for the league as a whole, ignoring the fact that LA Galaxy have struggled in recent years and haven’t even made the playoffs since 2005. Is this fair? Probably not, but fair doesn’t always make the most interesting piece.

People could, of course, argue that as long as the league is growing, improving and succeeding at home then who cares if Europe is noticing? Well, that’s the issue, the MLS cares. The designated player rule is as much for Europe as it is for the domestic audiences. Europe has the money, it has the fans, it has the interest in football. Beckham sells shirts, 750,000 so far during his stint at the LA Galaxy alone, throughout Europe. The brand awareness that creates, regardless of the revenue of the shirt sales themselves, is massive. At this time American football needs Europe’s money, expertise and passion for the game, it simply cannot go it alone. America has turned up late to the party and is playing catch up, perhaps if circumstances were different it could have taken a more isolationist approach and waited for everyone else to follow – Not so now. The media circus that surrounds David Beckham shouldn’t detract from the fact that the MLS is making real progress. In an ideal world they would like European viewers to tune in for Beckham and stay for the quality. As of now, this hasn’t happened and Europe refuses to give American football the credit and recognition it has earnt in recent years. I doubt they will worry too much, that recognition will come. A World Club Cup championship success, a USA World Cup semi final, perhaps even a home grown player that can live up to their billing abroad. in the meantime they can enjoy an influx of European money, albeit at the expense of their, and perhaps my, immediate credibility and reputation abroad. Is there a thirst for the spectacular? Possibly a little, but only in as much as we all want high scoring games with skill and excitement. The key is to look past those things and realise that in reality, a project lies beneath with far more depth and substance than that.

Brazil were the only country to make an official bid for the 2014 tournament after Columbia withdrew and an Argentinian bid never materialised. South Africa’s preparations for the 2010 tournament have been hampered by doubts as to whether the stadia and transport links will be completed in time. It is no coincidence that the end of FIFA’s ill fated rotation policy has coincided with a massive increase in potential bidders this time around. It is a policy that was conceived with good intentions but has resulted in limiting competition for tournaments which has lowered the general standards of bids and coerced nations in to showing interest when there was none.

Brazil are a prime example – a nation with a greater population than that of all the other South American nations combined who were viewed as the country most capable of sustaining a bid for the tournament, and it has been one beset with problems. Its stadiums are dilapidated (the legendary Maraccana in particular), its transport links inadequate and its league awash with corruption. FIFA have attempted to avoid Europe dominating the bidding process by making countries from the continent that have hosted the last tournament ineligible for the next two. Perhaps this is the best solution. The tournament will still rotate, but there will be more competition and the tournament will be better for it.

It would be a huge surprise if one of the European bids didn’t succeed. By 2022 it will have been 16 years since Germany hosted the event, and for the continent that is used to getting its own way and has all the money and all the players, that is long enough – especially as a European nation has never won a World Cup outside of the continent. I suspect that given the uncertainty regarding the two upcoming tournaments, FIFA will vote for safety and give the 2018 event to a safe pair of hands and the 2022 event to one of football’s emerging markets such as Australia, Indonesia or the USA. If the last century was about Europe and South America, this may well be about Asia, Africa and North America. Sepp Blatter has already stated that given that both the 2010 and 2014 events will be held in the southern hemisphere Australia would be well advised to concentrate on the 2022 event, and as victory for a European bid in 2018 would mean ineligability for 2022, the USA might be wise to look towards Australia, Japan, Indonesia and South Korea as their main rivals.

Speaking about the USA’s bid, Sunil Gilati, president of the US Soccer Federation, said that

We are determined to finish what we started in 1994. We are the most diversified nation in the world.

If Nigeria and Ghana played each other, it would sell out. If Australia played Costa Rica, it would sell out. When we staged a third-placed play-off between Sweden and Bulgaria in 1994 there were 85,000 people there. My point is that this is not a question of fearing any country. We think we’d have a great bid, great structure and a great landscape.’ In response to the obvious claims from critics that the tournament has no place in a country with no natural market for football, their argument appears to be this – we have a population comprising of people from hundreds of different countries worldwide, they may not support MLS, but they support football. Whether Australia would be happy to be part of the USA’s display of global representation rather than holding the tournament themselves is debatable.

However in recent years we have seen how much FIFA enjoy playing God. If it was simply a case of choosing the country that would put on the biggest and glitziest show, there wouldn’t be many candidates. But it isn’t. FIFA want a country to host it that really needs it, where it will leave a legacy and increase the popularity of the game. As England found when their campaign for the 2006 bid failed so spectacularly, delusions of grandeur can send a bid to its knees – just look at how quickly they have tried to dismiss their early favourites tag this time after their ‘football is coming home’ pitch crashed and burned so catastrophically in Zurich in 2006. Australia may only have only five stadiums which meet FIFA’s requirement at present whilst the USA can boast over twenty, but their decision will be made on the basis of which bid they like, not whether either nation could host an event with a week’s notice. It is for this reason that the bidding process takes place so far before the opening ceremony commences. It seems like common sense, but FIFA has shown itself to have evolved with the times since the turn of the century, taking a few risks along the way – firstly by taking the tournament to Asia for the first time, then to Africa, also for the first time, despite concerns regarding crime, infrastructure and stadia.

If the USA want to win either tournament they need to focus on how far football has come there since 1994 rather than how much they have built. They need to remove any sense of self coronation as ‘the only choice’ and come up with a bid that portrays a nation hungry for football and, in many ways, convince the world that they are wrong about the American game. Justified or not, there is a sense that if football was going to take off then it would have happened by now. That is another article entirely, but it is something the USA must deal with when they compete with countries such as Japan and South Korea where popularity is growing at a phenomenal rate. Is the basis of this bid going to be that the USA can provide best canvas for the world’s footballing talent, or that they want to spark base interest in the game at home? Will the precedent of 1994 work in their favour or against them? It will be a fascinating process, and once which I will write about again when the bids begin to take shape.

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.