What Went Wrong with Freddy Adu?
Image courtesy of Bleacher Report
By JEHAN BOER ‘19
Freddy Adu: you may recognize the name, or you may know him by his nickname “America’s Pele.” At the age of 14, he starred in Pepsi and Got Milk Commercials, headlined the cover of Time magazine, signed one million dollar deals with Nike, and earned the title “Mozart of football” award from Pele himself. That was in 2004. Now, 15 years later at the age of 30, Freddy finds himself struggling to find another soccer club after being released by the American second division team Las Vegas Lights. So what went wrong with Freddy Adu?
To answer the question, we must understand exactly who Freddy Adu is. A Ghanian born immigrant, Freddy was raised in Rockville, Maryland. At the age of only 8, scouts found him in a park playing with kids double his age. By the age of 10, he had gained an enormous reputation. He flourished at all levels of youth soccer and earned himself a professional contract at the MLS team DC United. He achieved these accomplishments before even turning 15. Adu represented the face of a generation of American soccer players intending to win a World Cup within a decade. He was headlined as the next Pele, a 14 year old boy playing professional soccer. Even the scout who discovered him in a Maryland Park, Arnold Tarzy, maintained doubts about Freddy. He was naturally talented; Freddy had the raw skills to flourish without ever needing to work hard. The media’s hyping him up didn’t help either. He was known to be complacent, working only when he needed to. Tarzy says he “didn’t have the work rate” necessary for success.
According to a June 2019 ESPN article, when things started to get difficult, Freddy didn’t know what to do. His reputation and age could only carry him so far; they couldn’t help when his performances were consistently poor, and he became average. His ego got to his head. Freddy became a journeyman, playing for 13 clubs in 13 years, struggling to find a team. Now he finds himself a free agent, coaching kids who are the same age he was when he was facing fame. His lesson to them: don’t get cocky.
Freddy is living proof that nothing in life comes for free. He was a baller, scoring 15 goals in 16 games for a U17 team at the age of 14. But he eventually became complacent, maintaining the wrong attitude. Now, Freddy says he is “close” to finding a new club. At the age of 30, he is able to reflect on an adventurous career. He promises that his “last chance will be different, and that is a fact.”