Freddy Adu, immense promise, the fame machine and the dashing of dreams

For Freddy Adu’s birthday, we thought we’d remind you of this excellent piece by Sean Cole for issue 48

Freddy Adu doesn’t seem real. Almost two decades on from being heralded as the future of football in the USA, he feels more like an urban legend than an actual person. A remote, almost mythical, figure, flimsily pieced together out of Football Manager stats, YouTube footage, hearsay and outrageous levels of hype. Somewhere, buried deep beneath all those layers of intrigue and folklore, is the former prodigy himself, the boy wonder who was meant to be king.

At 33, his track record is distinctly underwhelming. Far removed from the gilded future he was promised. Adu hasn’t played professionally since a brief stint at Las Vegas Lights of the second- tier USL Championship in 2018. Once dubbed ‘the next Pelé’, his club career has yielded just under 250 appearances and 33 goals in total, spread across 14 teams in nine different countries. He became a journeyman instead of an all- time great. An agonising tale of ‘what if?’ rather than a glorious success story.

But nothing is quite that simple. Viewed from a different perspective, mourning what might have been risks missing the point entirely. Moving from Ghana to America at the age of eight, Adu transformed his family’s lives through his extraordinary talents. He fulfilled his dream of playing at the highest level of club and international football. Against the odds, he reached the pinnacle of the world’s most fiercely competitive sport. There’s little doubt that Adu could have worked harder, and received better support, but he still achieved far more than most young prospects ever do.

Context is everything and Adu was truly unique. The USA had never had a player quite like him before, so nobody knew how best to handle the situation. There was no blueprint, at least in their football culture, for converting a preposterously gifted teenager into a fully formed star on the world stage. In such unusual circumstances, what really constitutes success or failure? And where does responsibility for Adu’s thwarted ambition lie?

In search of answers, and a sense of the real Adu, the exuberant child whose spark was dulled by overwhelming media attention and publicity, I spoke to people who worked closely with him during the three years he spent at DC United. They were his first professional club, the one where he stayed the longest and made by far the most appearances. While he was there, anything still seemed possible. After leaving in 2006, he was pulled in too many different directions. His career spiralled out of control.

“I don’t know who advised him, who took him wherever he went, but if you can’t hold onto a place in a team for two, three, four years, that’s a problem,” said Dema Kovalenko, a former DC United teammate. “I don’t know what contributed to that. His attitude. His work ethic. Teammates in the locker room. There are a lot of things involved, so I’m not sure, but it’s not good when you go to a team, play for six months and then go somewhere else. He couldn’t hold onto a place.”

As a kid, life was simpler. Adu was just obsessed with playing football. He started off in unstructured environments, chaotic street games back in Ghana, before joining his first proper team – the Potomac Cougars – after arriving in Maryland. His technical ability and dribbling skills were miles ahead of any of his peers, leading to doubts about his age. He won matches on his own. His progress was fast-tracked with a place at the luxurious IMG Academy in Florida, which has helped produced players such as Landon Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley and Jozy Altidore.

In late 2003, the marketing machine went into overdrive. Adu signed a US$1million contract with Nike, appeared in an advert with Pelé, to whom he was unhelpfully being compared by the press, and agreed to enter the MLS Draft. He was just 14 and had already turned down interest from European giants, including Inter, because he wanted to stay at home.

The league, which was desperate for Adu to succeed, facilitated a deal that would see him join DC United as the first pick. He already had that level of power and influence. Other clubs were forced to accommodate his wishes. When he signed his contract, Adu became the youngest professional athlete in any team sport in American history and reportedly the league’s highest-paid player on US$500,000 a year.

United were a serious club with a culture of success. They had dominated the Eastern Conference in the early years of MLS before slipping out of contention. Although Piotr Nowak was a new manager, he was a stern disciplinarian who commanded the respect of a dressing room packed with experienced players. Together, they were on the hunt for more trophies.

“The club had a great history from the days of Bruce Arena, Eddie Pope and Jeff Agoos. They set a high standard,” explained the midfielder Brian Carroll. “At the time that Freddy and I came into the team, we knew that we needed to get back into the play-off picture and then go far in that. That was just the standard that was set at the club.

“I think that filtered down through the coaching staff – how they worked us, how they treated us, and some of the tactics that were used on the training ground and in games. We had great leaders at the time in Earnie Stewart, Jaime Moreno, Ben Olsen and Ryan Nelsen. They really instilled in everybody what it takes, day in and day out, to play at a high level, get into the play-offs and win silverware.”

Carroll had barely played the previous season and was eager to make his breakthrough. At 22, he was one of the players closest in age to Adu within the DC United squad, demonstrating just how far ahead of the curve the teenage superstar was. His progress was unprecedented. Adu’s technical ability and fearless attitude stood out, but he had plenty to learn.

“He was very good on the ball,” says Carroll. “I think he had very good pace, especially for a youngster coming in and playing against folks that are a lot older than him. Sometimes more than twice his age. He was very much geared towards the offensive side of the ball. He was asked to be aggressive and try things. Sometimes that works out great and sometimes the ball gets turned over.”

Adu was a raw talent. A playground footballer in the professional game. He had great belief in his own ability and was always willing to take players on. He came alive with the ball at his feet, unbalancing defenders with a stepover or a drop of the shoulder and accelerating away. Encouraged to play with freedom, as children should be, he had little understanding of defensive structure and discipline. Those elements of the game didn’t come naturally to him, causing occasional friction with coaches or teammates.

“Because of who he was, and the talent that he had, in a lot of other teams he didn’t even have to think about defending,” said Earnie Stewart, a veteran USA international and influential voice in the dressing room. “When he played with his peers, he could probably get away with it. However, at another level, all of a sudden that disappears. If you’ve been used to playing a certain way, and then you go into a situation where other things are asked of you, it’s going to be difficult.”

Assistant manager Tommy Soehn agrees. “The demands put on each other in training, challenging them to win day in and day out, is contagious within a team. Freddy even got some heat from the guys when his team lost because he wasn’t defending. That’s part of the growth process. The longer the season went on, the more he understood that there are two sides of the ball and he started to improve those things.”

Before he’d even arrived at DC United for pre-season training, Adu was already making waves. He wanted to wear the number 11 shirt, which belonged to Alecko Eskandarian, the top pick from the previous year’s draft. The striker refused to budge, telling the club hierarchy that he’d rather be traded than give up his number. Although Eskandarian went on to become good friends with Adu, who took the number 9 instead, it started their relationship off on the wrong foot.

It’s unclear whether such requests originated from Adu or members of his camp. Perhaps he simply didn’t realise how it would be perceived. He routinely had an entourage of agents and advisors around him looking to build his brand, capitalising on the media attention that followed him wherever he went. These outside influences caused Stewart concern.

“There’s a lot you need to do to have a long career. There was a whole battery of people around Freddy at the time and other things became more important than being on the field. That’s not Freddy Adu’s fault. I want to be really clear on that. That’s a 14-year-old child,” he said. “There was a group of players that went out in the afternoon to practise and Freddy had other endeavours that he needed to do. He had a lot on his plate as a young individual and the hype that was around him. His peers were outside training. I did have a couple of discussions with some of the people around him, and the club as well, on how I thought this was going and that it wasn’t a good situation.”

Adu was indulged to some degree by both DC United and MLS, setting a dangerous precedent. There was mutual benefit to his extracurricular activities – TV interviews, endorsement deals, autograph signing sessions – because they had so much invested in turning him into a star. But it never seemed to register that Adu was more likely to earn that status on his own if he was just left to focus on playing football.

Crucially, at this stage in its development, interest in MLS was waning and many saw Adu as the answer to dwindling attendances and mounting losses. The initial rush of excitement that followed the 1994 World Cup, and the league’s launch two years later, had faded. Two teams – Tampa Bay Mutiny and Miami Fusion – were dissolved in 2002 in an attempt to head off further financial issues.

Landon Donovan had recently emerged as the new face of MLS, and the USA national team, but he wasn’t cutting through to the wider public. A new marketing strategy was needed and the effervescent Adu came along at the perfect moment. Although potentially damaging to his long-term prospects, everyone was encouraged to jump aboard the hype train and just enjoy the ride, heedless of where it would end up.

“There was too much attention. He needed to get away from that,” said Kovalenko, a Ukrainian midfielder. “You’d go to a stadium with 5,000 people and when you had Freddy Adu coming it would be sold out. Everybody wanted to see him. Everybody wanted to be around him. Everybody wanted to touch him. The media made him look like he was already a player. Like he’d already played 10 years in professional soccer. He needed to get away from this and just be humble. Put the work in – that’s the most important thing. Unfortunately, the kid didn’t understand that. The media killed him.”

The relentless focus on Adu was stifling and inevitably created some resentment among more established players. They had helped to build the league, proving their worth with consistent performances over several years, but were immediately overshadowed by a teenage prodigy who hadn’t played a single game. Adu earned more than all of them and his image was everywhere – on billboards, magazine covers and late-night talk shows. He was a runaway sensation. A pop culture phenomenon. It felt like he was a celebrity first and a footballer second.

“I think what hurt him is that he had the wrong people around him,” Kovalenko went on. “The kid needed to be pushed. He needed to be humbled. He needed to come in and work. MLS gave him a lot of money at the beginning. He signed a big contract and I think that was a bad thing. Everyone was comparing him to Pelé and other great players and, honestly, the kid hadn’t done anything yet. He hadn’t proved anything.”

Kovalenko played for some of the biggest clubs in MLS, from Chicago Fire and DC United to New York Red Bulls and LA Galaxy. By his own admission, he compensated for his modest skills through hard work, competitive spirit and mental strength. He was in awe of Adu’s pure ability but felt that he sometimes went missing. He could be complacent and unwilling to put in the hours needed to maximise his potential. “At some moments in games, he was magic,” he said. “He would do something, everybody would grab their heads, ‘Wow! This kid is special!’ Then, some moments, he was nowhere to be found. Guys were tough on him, they’d kick him, and he needed to learn that part of the game. That’s why I was telling him in training, ‘Hey man, I’m here for you. I want you to understand that when I kick you, it’s so you’ll get used to it.’

“People aren’t going to be nice to you all the time. Nice people finish last. You need soldiers on the field. Those players will go far. I always told him, ‘You’ve got to be consistent. Work every day and be consistent.’ You might score an unbelievable bicycle kick and then go 10 games where no one can see you.”

Consistency is a highly prized commodity in football. Managers and teammates want to know what to expect from a player. There’s a place for unpredictability, especially in attackers, but those who can’t guarantee a certain level of performance will often have to settle for brief cameos over a starting spot. Throughout his career, Adu fell into this trap, delivering sporadic highlights rather than sustained impact.

He made his much-anticipated debut on 3 April 2004, at home to Landon Donovan’s San Jose Earthquakes in the opening game of the season. A bumper attendance of 24,603 at Audi Field was directly attributable to the Freddy Adu factor. It was higher than any home crowd DC United had played in front of the previous season and a remarkable 58% increase on their average.

Supporters knew little about Adu other than how special he was meant to be. They were desperate to see the future of American soccer in action but, much to their disappointment, he started on the bench. Just after the hour mark, he was summoned. With excitement audibly rising throughout the stadium, Adu finished warming up, took off his training kit and approached the touchline.

It was a seismic moment for MLS. United were leading 2-1 when Adu replaced Eskandarian, the scorer of their second goal, to wild acclaim. Looking to encapsulate this historic occasion, commentator Rob Stone proudly announced that, “Now the Freddy Adu era officially begins,” as he stepped out onto the pitch. Expectations were enormous and unsustainable.

“He was definitely a talented kid. I don’t think the pressures that were put on him, whether it was MLS or Nike building him up, were fair for any 14-year-old coming into professional soccer. A young kid coming into a man’s world,” said the assistant manager Tommy Soehn. “The expectations were so high. Every stadium we went to, it was sold out to see Freddy get on the field. I feel bad that so much pressure was put on a young kid who had talent but was still trying to figure out who he was.”

That day, there were a couple of glimpses of Adu’s ability but also a reminder of how much further he had to go. Heading towards full time, he peeled off to the left and received the ball in space. Facing up to veteran defender Jeff Agoos, he dribbled with purpose and looked to surge past him into the box but was easily shrugged off. Youth succumbed to experience. Although both sides were reduced to ten men in the game’s final stages, DC United held on for victory.

A couple of weeks later, Adu scored his first goal in MLS, coming off the bench to bundle in a consolation against New York/New Jersey MetroStars. It took until the fifth game of the season, and a rematch with San Jose, for him to make his full debut. Although he featured in all but one of United’s 34 matches that campaign, he was restricted to 14 starts and none in the play-offs.

Adu’s second goal, away to LA Galaxy, demonstrated his frightening potential, but such moments were few and far between. “He took three or four players on and finished in the top corner with his left foot,” recalled Kovalenko. “He did some special things, but I thought he could have done that more consistently. His work ethic wasn’t always there to be honest with you. Not always. Not every day, which you need to get better. He could have been so much more.”

The manager had to strike the right balance between external pressures to put Adu on the pitch and the needs of his team. Playing him meant sacrificing experience and defensive solidity for attacking flair. At heart, Nowak was a pragmatist who valued commitment, physicality and selfless team play, which weren’t Adu’s natural strengths.

“We knew that people were there to see him,” explained Soehn. “At the time, Piotr Nowak made a real effort to accommodate that. Even in some scenarios that you didn’t think were the right place to put him in, he still found a way to do it. He felt an onus to continue to grow the game.”

The demanding Nowak was clear about what he wanted from his players and expected Adu to fall in line. But the message he received from outside the club confused matters. Adu’s reliance on his mental conditioning coach Trevor Moawad, who wasn’t employed by DC, became a particular source of contention. Wherever it came from, a debilitating streak of individualism, a desire for spectacular highs over reliable and steady improvement, was cultivated. Nowak and Soehn fought against it.

“I think there were probably other people, who managed Freddy, who always wanted more. That’s normal when you’ve got a so-called prodigy. The information they were giving him wasn’t always the best. ‘You need to score. You need to score.’ Our message was, ‘Hey, just understand that when we defend well as an 11, we’re going to create chances.’ Some of the messaging wasn’t always great from his supporting cast, but we had to deal with that.”

The coaching staff tried their best to keep Adu grounded and treat him like any other player, while bearing in mind his age and exceptional circumstances. “They brought him in very slowly and there were also moments when he didn’t play,” said Stewart. “There were tasks like carrying balls that are just a tradition in soccer. When you’re young, you have to do that. They made sure that those things were kept in place because that’s just part of growing up and being part of a team. That was what was needed.”

Under Nowak, DC United’s greatest assets were their resilience, flexibility and nous. They had staunch leaders who set and enforced certain standards, while the likes of Jaime Moreno and Christian Gomez offered game-changing quality. They were dogged and increasingly difficult to beat as the season wore on.

“We had a pretty decent team that was capable of playing in different ways,” explained Stewart. “If we needed to play high, we could play high. If we needed to press, we could do that. If we needed to drop back, we could do that as well. The coaching staff almost gave us the freedom to determine in games where our lines of pressure would be. It was very flexible.

“Within that, Freddy had a role as a forward at times. Sometimes as a nine, sometimes coming from the right side, sometimes as a 10 – a withdrawn striker – because he had those capabilities of creating chances and playing one on one.”

He expected a bigger role in the team, but Adu was often used as an impact sub, providing a burst of energy late on in games in which DC United were looking to hold on or turn the tide in their favour. He did so effectively as their form improved after a pivotal team bonding session at owner Phil Anschutz’s Colorado ranch. They finished second in the Eastern Conference to secure a play-off spot.

In the first round, Adu played just 11 minutes over the two legs as United saw off New York/New Jersey MetroStars. That set up a one-off meeting with New England Revolution to decide the winners of the Eastern Conference, who would go on to face Kansas City Wizards in the MLS Cup final. A pulsating game ended 3-3 after extra time so penalties were needed.

“All these young kids stepped up, from Santino Quaranta to Freddy Adu, to take PKs and they did it with amazing poise,” recalled Stewart. “Over the whole year, a lot of those young players had a huge contribution to us even being able to play in the final. Freddy played significant minutes. He scored goals, he made assists. He was creative for us. I thought he had an excellent first season.”

That was capped off with a 3-2 victory in the final. Adu was introduced after 65 minutes, with DC United reduced to 10 men following Kovalenko’s handball and looking to hold on. He helped them successfully to navigate the tense closing stages, showing great diligence and a much better understanding of the defensive side of the game to keep the opposition at bay.

Brian Carroll was impressed. “He came in during the MLS Cup final, rolled up his sleeves and played on the wing. He played offence and defence. He tracked back more than I’ve ever seen him do and he, along with a lot of other players, just played at a really high level and executed their roles to help us win. He did that when we were a man down against a very well-coached and experienced side. I’ll always remember that.”

At the end of a successful season, Earnie Stewart returned to Europe with VVV-Venlo. He’d spent the year trying to support Adu and guide him in the right direction. He felt like his efforts were initially misinterpreted as unduly harsh or insistent, but Adu grew to appreciate them. Stewart evidently cared about him and didn’t want his talent to go to waste.

“When I left DC United, he told me, ‘I thought you were my enemy, but I found out you were my friend.’ That takes a lot for a 15 year old. I would tell him the things that he needed to do, in my view, to have a long career. In the beginning, when there was hype and everything, everybody was talking positively, but when things didn’t go so well, I was also there for him in a different way. He recognised that, which I think is very mature and adult.

“When I questioned him not being on the field in the afternoon, spending time with his peers on making his craft better every single day, that can be seen as, ‘Dude, I’ve got all this other stuff to do. I don’t have time for that.’ I guess I was, at times, maybe a nag for him, but he was sitting next to me, so we’d talk about these things in the best possible way and comfort him in the fact that he had an amazing upside in talent and potential.”

Regrettably, that promise was never fully realised. Adu became increasingly frustrated at United and his development slowed. Although he grew in stature and importance at the club, starting more games in each of the next two seasons, his attacking output decreased. Curiously, he produced fewer goals and assists than he had at 14.

Adu was often inclined to try something spectacular rather than keeping it simple. It could feel like catching the eye was more important to him than being effective. He was a highlights player. There were plenty of stepovers, nutmegs and backheels, but the hard currency of football typically eluded him. He suffered with poor decision-making and a lack of composure in the final third.

This was exacerbated by Adu’s inconsistent levels of effort and commitment. Sometimes he seemed to grasp that more dedication was required, and would temporarily address the issue, but this improved attitude wouldn’t last. There were too many distractions away from the training ground and too many people ready to stroke his ego.

“A couple of times I heard, ‘Hey, I’m making all this money, I’ve got to play.’ My friend, hold on one second. You’re making all this money – good for you – but you’ve got to show people inside this locker room that you can play the game,” said Kovalenko. “You’ve got earn it with your teammates. Forget about everything else. Earn the respect of your teammates and the coaching staff. That’s what matters. Everything else comes second.

“If you earn the respect of your guys, they’re going to be 100% behind you. They’re going to fight for you. They’re going to go to battle with you. You disrespect somebody in the locker room and think you’re bigger than the game, nothing’s going to happen. Nobody’s bigger than the game.”

When he was in danger of getting carried away, Kovalenko and others looked to rein Adu in. They reminded him of his responsibilities and what it takes to become a trusted player. They wanted him to succeed and believed that he wasn’t always going about his business in the right way. Their feedback could occasionally be blunt when they felt he needed to hear some uncomfortable truths. At other times, they comforted and cajoled Adu.

“We all gave him a bunch of support,” says Carroll. “We kicked him in the butt when he needed it and we put our arms around him when he needed it. He fit in great with the group. Obviously, there was a bit of hoopla and media attention that came with that, but that just became the new normal. I think we all got used to it and tried to steer him in the right direction as much as he would allow and as much as we could.”

Adu occasionally got on his teammate’s nerves in other ways too, especially early on. Sometimes he was playful and boisterous in situations where more professionalism was called for. This could be perceived as a lack of focus or respect, but it was more just a reflection of his age and the absurdity of the situation he’d been thrust into.

“As good a kid as he was, he was also a little naïve,” said Soehn. “In all fairness to him, he’d never been in a pro environment, understanding that there were some 30-plus year-olds that he was going to have to be teammates with and how to deal with that. He was getting into a different world and understanding what it meant to behave there. He had to grow into that.

“It was a pretty established team. There were times where guys got on him and there were reasons for that, because he was acting like his age. It’s fair that he was because that’s how old he was. He had to learn how to act more mature in a man’s world when he was just a child.”

Such growing pains were rarely taken into account by the media, who had cultivated a misleading image of Adu. He had been presented as an unstoppable force of nature, a superstar in waiting, but the reality was rather more modest. He was still a peripheral figure in his second season, his impact lagging well behind that of Jaime Moreno and Christian Gomez. The South American duo were DC United’s star turns as they once more finished second in the Eastern Conference.

The World Cup loomed on the horizon and Adu was upset at still not being considered an automatic pick. Ahead of the play-offs, he spoke publicly about his disappointment over a lack of playing time, generating unwanted controversy. Adu was accused of undermining the manager and prioritising himself over the team. He refused to apologise and was suspended by the club for the first leg of their tie with Chicago Fire. A 4-0 defeat in the second leg, in which he returned as a late substitute, ended their run.

These tensions came to the fore in the 2006 season, hastening Adu’s exit. Nowak had agreed to find a compromise, moving away from his preferred 3-5-2 formation to enable Adu to play through the middle. He started 29 regular season games as a dominant DC won the Supporters’ Shield for the team with the best record in MLS.

While Carroll saw clear improvement in Adu’s performances, he scored just two goals, a poor return from such an attacking position, and was devastated to be left out of the USA squad. Later that year, as Nowak left to become Bob Bradley’s assistant with the national team, Soehn stepped into the manager’s role at DC United. Adu’s relationship with the club had run its course and he started actively pursuing other options.

There was still plenty of interest in Adu, even if much of it was speculative. In November 2006, he went on trial to Manchester United. Sir Alex Ferguson spoke positively of him to the press, but no deal was struck. Many felt that Adu would be better suited to playing abroad, away from the unremitting spotlight he was subjected to back home. In an environment that was more competitive, and much less forgiving, he’d soon have realised that he wasn’t unique. He’d have been expected to work harder.

“The United States is a lot about hype,” said Kovalenko. “I understand why, because kids like that come around very rarely. What he used to do at a young age was amazing, that’s why he got so much attention. In Europe, there are a lot more kids like him but they’re hungrier.  If he was there, in a club that kept him humble, it would have been so much better for him.”

Joining Real Salt Lake in December 2006 was seen as a backwards step in Adu’s career. The club had only recently been founded and were struggling to become established. They had twice missed out on the play-offs, finishing bottom of the Western Conference in the previous season. But after just seven months in Utah, and 11 games without a win, Adu moved to Benfica for US$2million almost as soon as he turned 18. His starring role at the Under-20 World Cup, where he scored a hat-trick against Poland and led the USA to the quarter-finals, came at just the right time.

Adu already had more than 100 senior appearances to his name and was confident of accelerating his development by competing with, and against, better players in a more technical league. He played 21 games in an encouraging first season, including three in the Champions League, before embarking on a series of ill-advised loan moves. Many clubs seemed to view him primarily as a marketing tool. His playing ability was little more than an afterthought.

The same mistakes were made time and again. Lucrative moves to volatile clubs where managerial change was all too common. Adu needed stability, the chance to focus solely on football and develop a specific role for himself. Instead, he unthinkingly ricocheted between France, Greece, Portugal and Turkey. His progress stalled and he became disillusioned with football.

“I remember him wanting more of a role and always having the desire to play internationally. He wanted to fulfil those dreams and he did,” said Carroll. “It just ended up with him bouncing around a little bit more than someone like myself, or another player, would have. I think part of that is just finding a place, a home, where you fit in well with your strengths. That led him to a lot of different clubs and a lot of different countries.”

Burned out by his European adventure, Adu sought familiar comforts and the chance to reignite his faltering career. In August 2011, he returned to MLS with Philadelphia Union, where he was reunited with Piotr Nowak and Brian Carroll. By then, Adu was seven years into his career and stagnation had set in. He’d got too comfortable.

Carroll identifies the following areas for improvement. “Decision-making on the ball in the final third, being able to beat a player one-on-one and create goals and assists, but also have great positioning and tracking all across the field from a defensive standpoint. Those demands just got greater and greater as our careers moved on,” he said.

Adu was guilty of coasting on his talent and eventually that caught up with him. He didn’t build on the substantial advantage he had over his peers at such a young age and it was gradually eroded. The game was becoming faster and more physically demanding. Being good on the ball was no longer enough. Few teams were prepared to carry a skilful player who wasn’t willing, or able, to put in the extra work out of possession.

“From the time that I started to the time that I ended my career, the game evolved tremendously. It’s evolved even more since I’ve been retired,” observed Carroll. “I think the game has grown to a point where it doesn’t matter if you’re a defender or a forward or a midfielder, everybody is asked to play on both sides of the ball at all times, with full energy and to the best of their ability.”

In the ten years since he left Philadelphia, Adu has barely played. Spells in Brazil, Serbia and Finland yielded little more than a handful of games each and a deepening mistrust of the football world. Clubs would say they wanted to help Adu realise his potential but then spend more time using him to court publicity. The discrepancy between his inflated reputation and underwhelming performance grew ever wider. The phenomenon he was still promoted as and the erratic player he appeared to be.

In 2014, Adu had trials with Blackpool, Stabæk and AZ Alkmaar, but none were sufficiently impressed to sign him. As AZ’s director of football, his former teammate Earnie Stewart facilitated the last of these in July. It was a decade since they’d played together and Stewart was disheartened by what he saw.

“I got a call from his agent seeing if I could give him a trial,” he remembers. “He was over for about 10 days. Unfortunately, it seemed like he had paused from when I knew him at 14 years old. It was still the same player. In my eyes, at least, the progression wasn’t there. Obviously, I didn’t see his career in between, so he could have had big highs within that, but it wasn’t what we were looking for.”

Stewart’s greatest fear had come true. For whatever reason, Adu had simply stopped improving. He was no longer a child prodigy with huge scope to develop and mature. He was now an established player, entering what should have been the prime of his career, still dogged by the same shortcomings – lack of physicality and work rate, game intelligence and tactical awareness. He was a tricky dribbler with creative flair, but that wasn’t enough to compensate for his other flaws.

Adu has never technically retired, and sometimes speaks about his desire to play professionally again, but it feels like football has made the decision for him. His last two teams were Tampa Bay Rowdies and Las Vegas Lights, who released him in 2018. Despite subsequently signing for Österlen in the Swedish third tier, his contract was terminated without playing a single game amid accusations that he was seriously unfit.

If this is the end, as it appears to be, then it feels harsh to judge Adu’s career as a failure. He won trophies. He represented his country at major tournaments. He played alongside Rui Costa, David Luiz and Ángel Di María. He earned more than enough money to take care of his family. He inspired a generation of kids to take up football. It’s remarkable list of achievements for someone who started playing for fun in Ghana, never believing that any of those things were remotely possible.

For several years, Adu carried the hopes of MLS and attracted new supporters, watching on TV or in person, many of whom were from ethnic minority backgrounds. He helped to diversify the sport in America, where it had traditionally been white, suburban and middle-class. He became a reluctant vessel for the hopes and ambitions of others, enabling a new generation to push football forward again.

“I don’t think his career has gone the way that he would have originally envisioned but he’s been all over the world. I’m sure he’s had some incredible experiences and met a tonne of great people. He’s played at some of the biggest clubs. By and large, soccer has been a great thing for Freddy,” said Carroll, who shared the field with him more than anyone else. “He was certainly a great kid. A dynamic, exciting presence on and off the field and he really contributed to fast-forwarding the game of soccer in the United States. He was a great person to move the game forward.”

The expectations placed on Adu were simply unrealistic. Being labelled the saviour of MLS and the US national team was far too heavy a burden for any player to carry, let alone one who was still going through puberty. In some ways, despite the instinctive disappointment that his career didn’t continue on an upward trajectory, it’s a surprise that he coped so well with the pressure and managed to reach the level he did. Other wonderkids have flamed out far sooner than Adu, and with much less to show for all that early promise.

While an unavoidable sense of regret and squandered potential surrounds this story, everyone is reluctant to assign too much responsibility for that to Adu himself. He was a child fed into an unhelpful and unedifying hype machine, who couldn’t always trust those around him to have his best interests at heart. The hope is that lessons have been learned and a different, more sensitive, approach, will be taken with the next emerging star.

For Kovalenko, the issue was one of mentality. Adu felt like he’d already arrived at the top because that’s how he was treated. He was always viewed as exceptional and encouraged to see himself as such. Sometimes he was surprised to discover that normal rules still applied to him. He was already earning so much, and routinely being told how special he was, that there was little incentive to push himself as hard as he could have done.

“There was too much pressure on the poor kid. He just needed to be a kid. He needed to be a young professional learning from the right people. He was in the right environment, around the players we had in the locker room, but he was just with the wrong people outside the locker room,” said Kovalenko.

“I think the biggest problem he had was the mental part. He couldn’t adjust mentally to all the pressure. Professional sports are mental. If you’re right upstairs, you’re right everywhere else. You can work on the physical part by going to the weight room, but I think the mental part is the biggest thing he needed to work on.”

Adu had to deal with external pressures and influences on an unimaginable scale for someone so young. The further he got into his career, and the further his ambitions retreated from view, the more alienated he felt. Football gave Adu so much, but it took a lot from him too.

A media circus followed him wherever he went. He was a marketeer’s dream, with a winning smile and talent to match. Even when there no real developments to report on, an insatiable curiosity and fascination still surrounded Adu. Few people would be unaffected by that level of fame. MLS, Nike and the media created a monster that ultimately couldn’t be tamed. In a sense, his career was the collateral damage.

“Freddy was a young kid. If he would have had different people around him, who would have asked him to do different things, maybe it would have been different, but we’ll never know that. Unfortunately, maybe there’s a legacy there of what it should have been and why it didn’t become that way,” reflects Stewart, who’s now sporting director of the US Soccer Federation.

“However, I would automatically go back to the fact that the legacy that people put on him was not fair from the beginning. If he would have been treated as a 14-year-old top talent, this conversation would probably be different as well. But because he was named ‘the next Pelé’, we’re having this conversation right now.”

Sean Cole is a freelance journalist. He has written for BBC Sport, FourFourTwo and When Saturday Comes among others. @seanccole