This is my third article and I decided that through this article I wish to examine the Reasons behind Freddy Adu's fall from the world spotlight. I decided to write on him as I have seen several mentions of him on these forums especially on the Thread Wasted Talent.
Introduction
At the tender age of 14, Freddy Adu was already America's biggest soccer star. He had signed a Nike Deal worth 1 million in 2003 and had already become the highest-paid player in the MLS before even kicking a ball. He was already being tipped to become the youngest ever international. He had the world at his feet. What happened?
Six years later, Freddy Adu finds himself a journeyman pro, unwanted by former employers Benefica, Monaco, Belenenses and he currently finds himself on the bench of a little-known Greek Club known as Aris.
What could have possibly charted the drastic fall of a youngster who was being tipped to one day become Soccer's next Superstar. After quite a bit of Research, I have formulated a few Reasons which I hope to examine thoroughly through this article.
Expectations,Expectations and ... Expectations
When one examines Freddy Adu playing soccer in his early teens, he will observe someone who looks like a little Pele in a USA youth National Team jersey delightfully tricking his way past opponents and socring goals.
Certainly those early images of his brilliance was certainly embraced by the MLS who made him the youngest American Athlete in over a 100 years to sign a major league pro contract when they assigned him to DC. United.
At the time, MLS was in a dire state with only 10 teams and most of the national players now opting to play abroad in search of better quality football. One can infer that they hyped up Freddy Adu when they needed attention and the boy became a media hit appearing in commercials with Pele and finding himself sitting on David Letterman's couch.
Adu was criticized from a number of different angles in his first season as a professional. Some soccer commentators have suggested that Adu was too young to be playing professionally and that he needed more time to develop mentally and physically amongst players his own age.
His MLS teammates bitterly resented him for he already had immense fame and fortune before ven proving himself on the Professional Field. Although Freddymania did draw the crowds, his performances fell well below expectations.
In his first full season with DC. United, Freddy Adu finished with five goals and three assists while playing all 30 regular season games, an extremely impressive feat considering Adu was still only 14.
In his first season, not only did he get selected to the MLS All Star Team twice, once as commisioner's choice and once as coach's he was also nominated for FIFPro Young Player of the Year in 2005 and he was still only 15.
Still, this was the highest-paid player in the MLS and he was only having a goals to game ratio of 1:6. Due to the large hype surrounding Freddy Adu, he was critized from many angles for his Ordinary performances and it seemed that the American Public expected much more from their White Knight than a 15 year-old boy was capable of achieving whilst playing with grown men.
It is not not that Freddy Adu had a bad attitude or did was too big for his boots, the expectations off him the moment he touched the field was too much and despite this he still thrived remarkably under this huge pressure and had an extraordinary season any other teenage was uncapable of having.
I personally think that despite turning in an impressive season according to his standards, the criticism Adu faced from several angles surely had a detrimental affect on his mental state and lowered his morale.
Despite realising this and moving to Benefica, the good fortune that had smiled on Adu has long since faded and he was constantly loaned out to various clubs who were wary to give him more than 10 games per season, Monaco had even refused to buy him outright. When his playing time in Europe diminished, the National Team also stopped calling.
Despite his sparkles of good form such as his hat-trick against Poland and his performance against Brazil in the 2007 U-20 World Cup, Adu was never really on the verge of breaking into the Benefica first-team.
My article has posed these several questions to you guys.
Was early fame and fortune detrimental to Adu’s development? Is MLS to blame for using a boy to market its league and tarnish his talent?
Did all the coaches, journalists and fans who hailed him misjudge Adu’s talent?
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) for ? He is still a 14 year old competiting amongst grown up men, better critisice (Goshh, sp? 
