kinkylola wrote:
Freddy Adu is .... 21 now? 22? I think he's the first american player who has ever crumpled under the weight of expectation ... because no one has ever expected anything of an american. I mean, this kid was 14 and he was being dragged around the states and put into commercials with Pele talking about how he is going to be the one to lead the US out of the dark ages and win the world cup 2010. maybe even 2006! He was supposed to be that fucking good.
debuting in the MLS at 14 was absolutely the worst thing he could have done ... If I were in a position to advise young american players, I would tell each and everyone of them to graduate highschool and immediately go abroad. You don't want to get caught up in the american college/pro soccer scene. It will destroy any chances you ever had of fulfilling your potential. my main example: Freddy Adu.
I never understood why everyone is so outraged at Adu's failure to make it big. You have about as much chance of picking a 14 year-old future superstar as you do picking a blockbuster stock 10 years prior to a boom. Its meaningless to blame the hype of the media or suggest that Adu "crumpled under expectations" as if he indeed possessed the talent but threw it away. He probably never had enough to begin with. No one can predict the future and no one has worked out scouting to a science. Predicting whether any player from an early age will be a great is a difficult task, predicting one of the greatest is even harder. The world is littered with thousands of "the next" Pele, Maradona, etc.
