Most young phenoms are expected to turn around a professional franchise, city of a team, even the entire league. Tiger Woods, Peyton Manning, LeBron James, Alex Rodriguez, Sidney Crosby are a few examples of athletes entering a sport, expecting greatness as they enter adult life.
Imagine being compared to the greatest soccer player of all-time in Pele, expected to deliver a World Cup one day for a nation that has never won it before, and giving these lofty expectations at the yong age of 14… Welcome the world of Freddy Adu.
Started playing for MLS club DC United at 14 years old, as his career progressed his best moments were in the 2007 Under-20 World Cup and later joined Benfica soccer team in Portugal. Adu hit a wall while playing oversees and the media hype grew into a large burden.
Adu hit bottom in 2010, when he wasn’t selected for 2010 World Cup team that performed in South Africa and then could not land a spot on a club team. In February 2011 Adu landed with a second-division club from Turkey. After a strong performance playing in Turkey, USA head coach Bob Bradley added Freddy Adu to the CONCACAF Gold Cup roster.
Freddy Adu in the semifinals match vs. Panama; finally got his chance entering the game in the 66th minute, and in the 76th minute set up a great long pass to Landon Donovan that created the goal scored by Clint Dempsey for a 1-0 for the USA.
United States plays it’s number one rival Mexico on Saturday at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. A win would clinch the USA a berth in the 2013 Confederations Cup in Brazil and needed momentum entering World Cup qualifying in 2012, even better would be Freddy Adu scoring a game winning goal.