Others = Altidore and Beasley. Even Feilhaber and Spector found their place with their clubs once they got healthy. Altidore has shown more maturity in his national team appearances and does not have as many responsibilities as Adu would have. Then there is Beasley, who has arguably the most experience on the team when it comes to both club and country. And, Schalke is going after him again, so Bradley isn't the only person who thinks Beasley has something left.
Clearly there must be other reasons he's not being utilized, as Bob Bradley has shown the willingness to use players lacking match time when the situation calls for it.
In case you all hadn't seen this post on the USMNT N&A forum, another perspective on Freddy: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1059432 I would tend to think the poster's explanation makes alot of sense.
So you guys that watch him regularly for the USMNT, how good is he? What level would he be comfortable at? 96 is in need of a central attacking player so badly. Would he start at a lowly to midlevel Bundesliga team like 96?
I don't know if he would be a starter but he could contribute if given the opportunity. 96 would be a good fit for him ie: mid level team looking to improve but without the hype of Bayern Munich or some other place like Barca, etc.
He doesn't play regularly for the USMNT! At this point, playing in any top tier league for any team would be progress IMO -- even the recently promoted. I would even think that being in La Segunda (as a regular starter) would be a good thing.
No ya stuff Hey, I have a unbefristete aufenhaltserlaubnis too, are you sure if your wife moves, you can work in that EU country too????
Not automatically, but it would give me an advantage. At least, in some countries... A friend of my wife's who's Bulgarian had it easier here in Germany, because she's married to an Austrian. Again, every country has it's own rules, but an EU citizen can live and work, and spouses can come along, so I'm pretty sure you have a better hand as the spouse of an EU citizen, than just any random non-EU citizen.
So now you're tying the importance of playing time to the relative skill set desired from each player, ie, playing time is not as important for someone meant to "hold up the ball" as it is for someone meant to have good "decision-making"? See, when you get to this point of arcane analyis of sport, I have to wonder about motives here b/c its as if you're trying (quite desperately) to search for a reason NOT to play him. The US is squandering talent b/c of ill-informed and naive powers that be. It's atrocious.
The truth is none of us have any idea. He doesn't play often enough anywhere to know how well he could do. His appearances in youth tournaments have been dazzling, but he hasn't played enough club or national team soccer to know how he'll look at the senior level. I doubt he'd start at '96 for his first few months there. Different style, and he'd have to adapt. I'm not sure how well he'd handle the physical demands of the league. And, more important, he's a product of the American youth system, so he reads the game a little too slowly and doesn't always work well off the ball. On the other hand, he has great vision, can pass well if he understands what his vision is telling him, and is extremely creative off the dribble. So I can't shake the feeling that if he got on a team whose coach believed in him (and coach stuck around for more than two months), instructed him a little, and gave him regular sub appearances, he could blossom into a special player. He'll never be a guy who plays great defense, so he'd need to be on a team that was okay with mediocre defensive work and (potentially) stellar offensive play. In a way, he's more likely to succeed with a higher-level team (those teams can more often integrate such players successfully), but to get to such a team, he'd first have to prove it on the pitch with a team willing to gamble on him. I hope that happens.
Freddy always seems to be in a Catch-22. I think to really maximize his value to your team, you need to "hand him the keys" and trust him a lot. Yet how do you really trust the decision-making of a player who hasn't played much in a couple of years now? So, he has to earn that trust yet . . . which he will struggle to do (I think) until he's really the attacking director of a team. He's in a hard spot. I still think the worst decision he made in his life was turning down Inter's offer to join their academy. Having trained him themselves, they (and other clubs) would have more confidence in him. I don't want to come off as a hater-- I love watching Freddy play and I dream of him fulfilling all that promise and becoming one of the best players in the world (which Nowak said he had the potential to do). I also truely believe that only a small number of players anywhere in the world could hit the goal that he scored against Poland (his first in that match) in the U-20WC in Canada. He is something special. I just think that you have to be realistic. It's asking a team a lot to take on Freddy, given his relatively scant body of work. He's still got a lot of work to do to convince people that he can consistently take the responsibility for running the attack of a good side. Catch-22.
First of all, do we really NOT know about Adu? I mean, do we NOT know about Adu in comparison to Altidore or Feilhaber? Certainly for the USMNT, it's comparable in terms of PT. I've yet to see an Adu performance for the senior team that wouldn't at least warrant another look and the majority of them have been very impressive. Secondly, how exactly is the US in a position of not being the one to take the "gamble", to the extent that Adu playing is a gamble? For one, he's OUR guy. Born in Ghana, he didn't even have to choose the US to play. Bet yet, he chose our country early on and started his career in the MLS. From a pure loyalty standpoint, I feel it's our duty to take the "gamble" on our own players who, with the exception of sparse pt at club level of late, shows immense promise...why shouldn't we do everything in our power to help along our prospect's careers? Perhaps a string of games for the Nat's will inspire PT for the club? As to "gambles"...in comparison to what? Playing Damarcus Beasley who's form has tanked so much he can't even trap a ball passed directly to him on the ground from a corner? In comparison to playing Feilhaber? Marvel Wynne? Perhaps we've forgotten something here...at the moment, most of the US is one big gamble on the field. We've got players ranging from rookies to vets giving balls away for fun. We're in no position to act like we're Man United and hold our noses up to guys like Adu. Is playing Freddy Adu such a risk that we can't even test him on the crap team that is the USMNT right now? One would have to think Adu were some sort of posessed, own-goal succubus to think that he's too much of risk to play for the senior team right now. Someone who's merely composed on ball would be a step up from the performances we're getting. I've been following this debate for awhile now and I have yet to see a good argument that why Adu has received such negative treatment from the US Soccer. Reading Donovan's comments about Adu recently only further solidify that.
Yeah, for me, I'm wondering what is this huge risk everyone's scared about with Adu that presumably doesn't exist with pretty much the entire USMNT team at the moment? Do we think that putting Freddy Adu on the field in a meaningful match will unleash doom and destruction? Will our players spontaneously combust?
You both make good points. I just keep wondering what it is that coaches see . . . but don't say . . . that keeps Freddy off the field. I hope it's making him real hungry - hungry to prove the world wrong.
Listen, if you play Adu, you really could risk a three and done confed cup, looking bad while doing it.... What? Oh. Nevermind. Adu needs a very special club to break through. He needs a place that is desparate enough that they're willing to hand him the keys, but willing to play attractive footie. If Palacios moves, someplace like Wigan under Martinez, though really more like Swansea under Martinez, because Wigan have the cash to bring in established players. I mean, you'd move to see him in Werder or a Stuttgart, but he'd never break into those teams. Maybe if Hoffenheim has a fire sale (which is rumored but probably not true), he could work there. But again, he'd have been better off with them in the 2bund coming up. I believe by the middle of a full season, a club would be reaping benefits. Get him rolling, and he's impressive. But there might be a rocky start. But, as i said, he needs a very special situation. Lower top level clubs don't want fancy dan, they want grinders and plough horses. Maybe an ambitious, attractive side on the edge of challenging for promotion to the top? There simply aren't many clubs like that.
That's certainly true. But let's pose this question: how about WE take the gamble? Afterall, he is our player. Of course Europe is tough for Americans. Why should we make it worse? The US is in the best position to make something of this guy. It's frustrating to watch Adu ride pine in France, but even moreso when it's his own country in a warm-up tournament.
My take is that it ultimately stems from a poor US soccer mentality. On the US side, the US soccer establishment is inherently conservative and cynical towards skill. It comes from soccer being primarily a suburban, middle-to-upper class sport. Soccer in the US is relegated to that lower tier where sports is primarily a team-building exercise favoring humility, grit, and determination. Highly skilled or flashy players are seen as "showy" or "ball hogs" who need to be humbled whereas in professional sports, they are embraced. Ironically, Adu, from outward appearances, is incredibly humble and patient. However, he came into the picture with the American hype machine which was ridiculous. But hype works both ways...it can fool people into believing the hype and it can fool people into dismissing the hype. Seeing that US soccer is firmly rooted in the overtly conservative mentality mentioned above, I feel they have reacted in the latter direction of being overly dismissive of the hype. In other words, Adu is forced to fight against hype which he is not responsible for and otherwise fight against being a skilled, confident player. US soccer seeks to break players like Adu down so that they can "know their place" below the more humble, "americanized" version of a good soccer player a la Hejduk, McBride, etc. That is not a slight against those players either. It's a slight against the mentality that that's the only version of a good soccer player we can embrace. The bottom line is that US Soccer is more concerned with making a statement or teaching lessons about Adu's hype than it is simply concentrating on the player that is Freddy Adu. As to Europe, well, Adu probably has more of a problem b/c he's fighting against the general cynicism most of Europe already has towards American players plus he's fighting against the American hype machine who made him out to be America's pele. It's a double whammy of sorts. All the more reason for US to take the reigns with this guy and create the actual resume ourselves.
Oh, i think he should be playing, and not on potential. I think he brings an element to our games, and has every time i've seen him, that we need. Not saying he's pre-printed as a starter, but he should always been in the frame as a second half sub. As to the lower point, i think his problem in Europe is different than you do: It's not about perception there, it's about performance. We expect him to play, because we believe in his qualities. but managers there need points to keep their jobs, and he hasn't convinced anyone he's capable of instantly providing those