Freddy Adu: 3 Things that his winding career has taught us
Welcome to the semi-annual announcement of the end of Freddy Adu’s career (take 17?).
I’m joking of course. Though it does often seem like it is required that the end of career for former DC United midfielder, Freddy Adu, be touted at least that often on MLS and US soccer focused websites. No snobs here at MLSMultiplex and so (you knew this was coming, admit it) without further ado…
Out of contract once more
In less than four months, the well-traveled Adu’s wikipedia page has gone from announcing this:
To now citing his current status as “out of contract” for 2017. Supposing for a moment that this is indeed the end of his playing career – although he usually rises to find another club somewhere. We might ask ourselves what did we learn from his time?
Lesson 1: The MLS ain’t the EPL (yet)
If you followed MLS since it’s start you know that 10 years in, the league was looking for homegrown stars. Adu arrived about that time, having made a name for himself on the US’ U17 team.
Michael Owen, Lio Messi, CR7, and a host of other players have famously made pro and international debuts in their teenage years. Brazilian icon Pelé is the most well-known of those.
Here’s the thing though. Adu stepped onto the field without the benefit of the grooming offered by top-flight clubs around the rest of the soccer world. For example, by the time he played his first EPL match, David Beckham had already been in the ManU system for 4 years.
Being an untrained teenage star is very different from being a teenage star with several years club training under your belt. MLS’ current development team system is a start towards addressing that issue, but with regard to very young homegrown players, it’s just barely that. At the time DC United didn’t have the structure in place to help Adu succeed.
Lesson 2: Goal-Scoring and Playing Soccer Are Two Different Things
That’s a hard sell, even to me. And I just typed the words. I love goals. I zip through recorded matches just to see the goals and hate scoreless draws.
MLS based Freddy Adu’s introduction as a potential superstar so many years ago on just the opposite thinking. He scored several goals for the U17’s, so the story became that he must be good. Anyone who has watched the game for a while knows the math is not that simple.
MLS fans have thankfully become a lot more sophisticated over the last decade. That means no player should ever again be burdened by a rep for simply producing goals. Rather what we’re looking for is that they be an able and exciting player in all phases of the game. That is the right stuff of soccer stardom. Young stars still enter the league with hype (Morris and Larin), and while goals is the main stat people look for first, both contribute lot more to each of their respective clubs.
Lesson 3: Kids Are Kinda Dull
If you were, like me, also trying to report on MLS back when he entered the league you got to hear the weekly press conferences with Freddy Adu. Eventually a person became leery of those as well. They were very painful after a while.
“What do you do off the field?” Someone would invariably ask. The guy did his best to answer, but after a couple of months straight of that same question he would just spit out his standard answer: “hang out, listen to music, play video games”.
Typical for a 15 year old. Here’s the problem with that: he was 15 years old. No offense, but when you’re 15 you don’t have much to say about anything. And your days aren’t filled with news-making events either.
The demands of stardom were, and still are, that there be quotes and sound-bites to engage the fans. That rule applies regardless of the immaturity of the source. Note to SUM and MLS marketing: make the player first, make the star second. Otherwise you run the risk of over-selling.
Personally I hope Freddy Adu is back under contract again by the time I finish writing this sentence. In fact I would like to see him coaching in the USMNT system at some point. He brings a lot of experience, and a unique path, that could be very beneficial to younger players following in his footsteps. Maybe then the current U-16 players will have a better idea of what to do and not to do, and what to look for in future clubs.
So, until the next time his career claimed to be over, I bid you…wait for it…adieu!