I'm not so sure Adu was humble and down to earth with respect to his feelings he should start at DC. How many times did Adu openly/publicly express his dissatisfaction in not being consistent starter. There's alot of pressure to prove your worth when you're the youngest, and one of the highest paid players in the league. Lest we forget, he's the product of ole media hype. Being offered multi-million dollar contracts as a kid to play overseas, that can screw with your mind, inflate your ego a tad. When everyone's comparing you to Pele, only the greatest soccer player that ever lived (some would argue Maradona), you star in a commercial with Pele, and still can't land a starting position in a lesser (MLS) league ? thats gotta sting a bit.
One important thing to note as a corollary to your post is this: the US team had so many injuries and yellow card accumulations that even if they'd won their quarterfinal they would have been playing with a 3 man backline for a reason other than tactical, and we would have had a tiny bench. In addition to believing that the World Cup was a young man's game (a quote belied by Arena's continued insistence in bringing in injury prone players and older scrubs over young guys with upside (and risk), I believe Arena came away from that Cup believing that he needed to bring #1 healthy players and #2 a collection of defenders, midfielders and forwards that allowed for interchanging of positions. Last time he had to plug holes, and throw together lineups that wouldn't have been 1st, 2nd or 3rd choice if he had his way but injuries and cards necessitated it. That makes bringing in players that can play forward and midfield interchangeably, midfield and defense like Lewis, maybe Convey etc. One last thought. To me Noonan, Ching, Ralston etc are like the Mike Burns types of the 21st century, guys that wouldn't look out of place domesticly, but more and more are simply no match for the soccer intelligence and skills of elite international teams and players we face today. Its one thing to start players like this when we've got a squad that's group play filler, it's another thing to bring them when we want to challenge for a place in the quarterfinals. For guys like Noonan and Ralston and Ching to get a slot over Adu to me is idiocy. I understand that Ching fills a role only McBride, and a healthy (but equally ineffective) Casey can fill as a target man, but the fact remains that starting Ching as a target forward is a net loss in any scenario when the guy can't get things done in Concacaf hexagonal's, let alone friendlies with solid-good international sides. Though Adu may be pushed off the ball, may dive too much (though a necessary part of the game, remember, Liverpool one the Champions League in part because Gerrard was able to sell a dive to accentuate a minor clip with Gattuso-diving is ugly and horrible but necessary in order to get PK's that should be given in certain circumstances), and may have a lot to learn he can pass, and put together attacks better than any players on the US side not named Donovan or Reyna, he thinks at a pace and level when it comes to attacking that few of our players can compare to. His mental approach is defficient in that he doesn't take care of responsibilities he needs too, but it's also superior in that he see's the game at a level and pace when attacking the other players don't. Think of Donovan's beautiful through balls, the kinds of passes that are two or three steps ahead of guys that play like Noonan and Ralston. Adu thinks at that level. Adu is a net loss when it comes to defending in his own end, and some aspects of his mental approach, but he also brings forth an ability and skill that Noonan, Ralston and the like simply don't have. That's why to me, he should still be in the running. Is he too young? Yeah, but he's also young enough to play as if anythings possible, the opposite of guys like Ralston, Noonan, and Ching who simply play an American game and style that no longer exists. The great effort, not much skill game, that can get you to the Cup, but will never win you anything.
Do not forget that Ronaldo was 6-2 190 and played like a man .....and Freddy is 5-5 140 and plays like a 16 yrs old Freddy must learn that if you are small you have to play like Edgar David or get benched by Novak, Arena or any other professional coach. Every position must play defense even forward at this level.
Freddy's about 5'7 and 155 He gained about 10 pounds of muscle this offseason, so hopefully that won't be much of a problem anymore.
paging superdave or mikelastort .... Freddy is NOT 5'5'' ... nor is he 140 lbs. one of them will be around shortly to set the record straight. okay i'll do it for them: Adu is 5'8'' 145 pounds ... and that was last season. he's probably grown in both over the past year.
Actually, he thinks reaching the second round will be a successful World Cup. Given the group we are in, I agree. I also have the game recorded. Could you tell me at what point in the game (according to the clock) that he was shown to be hamming it up "too much?" He was indeed exchanging words and gestures along with EJ and DJ DemC. Should he have sat with his hands folded and politely nodded when DemC was cracking a joke? So now we are even criticizing Freddy for how he handles joke-telling? Give me a freaking break. I can't wait to see Freddy start in the world cup--hoping this will give you and your ilk a massive BigSoccer aneurism.
donovan tearing his acl puts adu back in the mix... still, adu is on the outside looking in, but the SI article clearly lays out what adu has to do... start for DC... play well.... and then I think injury needs to crop up for adu to have a serious chance... lot of IFs here...
As a DCU fan it's just hard to see Freddy starting this year once again unless he really ups his defensive game and figures out how to play left wingback for Nowak. I can say this too knowing that most of the main posters on the DCU board basically agree with this assessment. There are possibilities for Fred to start but he'll have serious competition for each spot. Even Dema's vacated left wingback spot has (the #1 superdraft choice, two Discovery picks, and several times stated by DCU management of "young Argentineans coming to spring training". I'm not saying this because I hate Fred or anything. I think he's probably the best a-mid/ #10 player on DCU. Better at that position than Gomez. Gomez is gonna start somewhere though. He could start at forward but then Gomez isn't gonna supplant Moreno. It's then hard to see Adu playing behind a withdrawn forward tandem of Gomez and Moreno, though I wonder if Nowak told Gomez that he'd have to act like a real bona fide striker, that he could do it. But I doubt that will happen. To make that scenario even more complicated, Quaranta's best position is withdrawn forward and he was definitely ahead of Adu last year there showing in the little time that Moreno wasn't playing quite a good future there. Ah, who knows what's gonna happen with Freddy. He's definitely not being gifted a position though.
there's a quote somewhere by eddie pope about how fun it is to be at the MNT...and how everyone jokes on each other, and has fun...including the new guys like freddy and eddie (specifically mentions those 2)....and how it keeps him young... there are people who will criticize anything the kid does....why they do, i have no clue...if there was a screen shot of freddy sitting on the bitch, watching the game with his legs crossed, and leaning back on the bench...there would have been a poster saying that bruce could not like the fact that freddy was looking so dour and upset about not playing, and how freddy is a cancer to the team... the kid can't win, one way or another...
Nor was Ronaldo 6'2" and 190 at that age as the other poster claimed. Ronaldo, regardless of what he is listed at, is about 5'11" NOW. So unless he got 3 inches shorter since the 94 WC, he wasn't 6'2" then. For reference, he is at best the same height as Beckham (as seen when they stand next to each other), and Zidane is clearly a couple of inches taller than him (as seen standing next to him as well).
Possible. Of course several posters knew that DCU was trading Adu this offseason and so far that hasn't happened.
it's going to take a chunk of the season for the next big adu v. nowak flareup, then other teams will smell the blood and come in for the hunt. just you watch lalas and the metros.
Of course that will be way to late for Freddy to go to Germany, which is what this thread is about. It also begs the question, why not trade for him now? Do teams think United's demands will go down if Adu pouts again? Doubtful. Obviously a lot has been discussed by all parties to get from the end of last season to now, including an agreement to work with United without a guarantee of a starting job. Nowak and Adu maybe getting along well now but there's no obvious starting spot for him. Maybe United is waiting to see if Fred can win a position in training camp before trying to move him. At any rate it's kinda obvious that all parties are going into this season a lot wiser than before.
It really is amazing. It seems like 80% of Bigsoccer posters hate Freddy or think he is extremely overrated. They play down every thing he does well and exagerrate everything he does poorly. They blame him for almost everything, and in their eyes he can't do anything right. If we dissected other player's as much as we do with Freddy, we'd find many things wrong with them too. Freddy is the greatest player at the age of 16 the U.S. has ever produced, however, among serious U.S. soccer fans, he seems to be one of the most unpopular.
I don't see that at all. 80%? Maybe 5% What I do see is that almost anyone that doesn't have a full on man-crush, Freddy can do no wrong, attitude being painted as a "Freddy hater". It's the same thing as with Convey, Donovan, Armas, you name it. Frankly, I think most BigSoccer posters don't feel overly strongly pro or anti-Freddy. They recognize that he's a great talent. One who while compared to kids his age is awesome, but in the absolute terms of being a professional player or an international player hasn't really accomplished much notable. That's not hating, that's analysis. He has great potential. Every once in a while he shows the promise (the run against RSL, the abusing of Shavar Thomas, and so on). But not annointing him the Next Big Thing doesn't mean there's any "anti-Freddy" feelings present, just a realization that being one of the elite 16 year old soccer players in the world doesn't mean that he's ready to take on the best age-unlimited soccer players. I would say, that 80% of BigSoccer is tired of the unending Freddy hype that some posters around here engage in. Why don't we let Freddy develop on his schedule. When he wows us, great. When he makes a mistake, we can talk about that too. Barring a career ending injury, he's going to be playing for another 20 years. His prime, if he develops like most players, is still two or three World Cup Finals away. When Zinedine Zidane was Freddy's age, Freddy wasn't born yet. Zizou's first cap was 8/17/94 when he was 22 years old...
There's still time for Freddy to prove he deserves a spot in Germany, but IMHO he is still too young and unexperienced. Our attacking options finally fairly deep, so there is no rush.
Well, I thought he pretty clearly said something like "So, tell us about your goal" to Pope in a teasing way. And I saw absolutely nothing wrong with it......