PBP: Freddy Adu: Belenenses vs. Nacional [R] 10/12 3:15 EDT

He definitely needed more weight on that ball.

 

I agree that he looks rusty, but not out of place. The whole team needs to do better. He gets very little in the way of service or support.

 

Somebody should tell the Nacional players that this is only the 1st half.

 

Well that was five minutes of my life I'll never get back. Enjoy the rest of this crap fest.

 

am i wrong to think that MLS games have more quality than this?

 

No.

 

Looks like Adu w/ the long, searching free kick, which finds the head of an attacker, who puts it over the ball.

Later, looks like Freddy with a very long pass that finds an attacker. Ball out of play. Belem ball. (Then out of play again to Nacional. Deeper than you'd expect Freddy to be, btw, so maybe it wasn't him w/ that pass.)

 

Adu got a nice helping of boot in the midsection to win that foul.

 

I really hope he isn't subbed out, but it wouldnt shock me if we didnt see adu in the second half.

 

he cant seem to keep his feet. He cant be that weak on the ball. He is low to the ground.

 

i would hope the coach gives him at least 15 more mins in the 2nd half to see ifhe has anything left in the tank.

 

And that's the half

Terrible stuff

I don't think Adu looked good at all

I hope Adu rips it up in the second half but I am not going to watch after such a s**tfest.

 

I really like Adu when he's on his game, but more often than not he just looks like an extremely lazy player who goes through the paces. I mean there was a 50/50 ball a foot away from him near the end of the 1st half and he didn't even stick his boot up to try and get it, he just conceded possession to the other team. He's such a frustrating player, I wish his youth coaches would've had the balls to try and discipline him for playing like that instead of just being fanboys which I'm sure a lot of them were.

 

Wouldn't surprise me either. He looks rusty and he and the rest of the team aren't always on the same page. I can't say he's looked worse than the others, but if the others have their spots set, and Freddy's the only one that needs to impress, I can't say he's done it.

You can tell that if he was match fit, in form, and on the same page as the others, he'd really benefit this squad.

Nobody's pointed it out in the thread, I don't think, but he does look bigger to me. I've seen some elsewhere claim he looks fat. The thing is, he looks faster at times to me than before, e.g. when he ran across the field to slide into that strong tackle early on. So maybe he's just been working out or has naturally grown a bit. I don't know...

I hope he's given more of a run than a half. And, obviously, we all hope he rewards Belenenses for giving him that run.

 

Davies needs to teach him some wrestling. Davies and Messi are so good at using their bodies to their advantage despite their small statures.

 

Not a lot of anticipation shown....very few runs or balls into space. To Nacional's credit they seem to clog up the lanes pretty well as they look to counter. Belenenses had the better of possession in the latter part of the half.

 

Unless they look to push him up top with Lima by subbing off or pushing up a defensive mid to the attacking role, he will be coming off.

He's not getting te job done. The 4-4-1-1 or any variation of it doesn't work well when your playing end to end like they are. The coach needs to look at doing something of 4-1-2-1-2. Freddy shines when he's able to split the central defenders, but he's not able to do this because Nacional's midfield is too big for him to handle.

 

What's incredibly conspicuous for me about this game is how horrendous the tackling is. I mean, I've seen better tackling on fields which are covered in snow and mud. I think that may well be the worst collection of tackling I've seen in soccer at the professional level.

 

He hasn't been awful but he hasn't really shown anything either. Some cute step-overs in the corner but no result. Got muscled off the ball when he tried unwisely to split two defenders. Handball in the box. It would be nice to see him get on the same page as Lima as well. Lima got on to the end of a long ball late in the half but had no support whatsoever. You'd like to see Freddy trailing on that play. I think these are things that'll get worked out with more experience, but the coach needs to worry about getting a result in this game first.

The way the coach was vigerously writing on that notebook just before the half ended, you kind expect there to be a couple changes.