Seedorf stands at 176 cm (5 ft 9 1/2 inches) tall, hardly short for a soccer player. And he's still got a couple of inches over Freddy.
Bah, not that special. Our previous opponents scored some breathtaking goals though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB936X-8XlM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZiRnBh8Myc I'm still trying to find that out myself, but I try too keep a positive feeling about him. We paid 9 million euros for 80% of his pass. He was the top scorer for two seasons in Argentina, I've heard. Not sure though, so far he showed no right foot, average heading (despite his hight, 1,93m), very slow BUT, with a VERY powerful and accurate left foot. I hope he adapts soon, and is able to score a lot of goals like he did in Argentinian league. As for Adu, I think he is being protected and being worked with. The manager probably talked to him and explained his options.The right time will come. I still think he should play in the juniors though. He could learn a lot, and gain confidence with young players of his age. Always being called when the manager sees fit. This is Rui Costa's last season by the way, can he be his successor?
You guys crack me up. For starters to pay 2M for a transfer fee is a drop in the bucket in the sport of soccer. Adu will be ok. Look at Demarcus Beasley. He has learned to use his size disadvantage to his advantage, how? By releasing the ball long before a crunching tackle comes along. Freddy will be just fine. I agree with the earlier comments. He has only been there three-months, if that. Let the season play out. Look at Theo Walcott for Arsenal. They bring these youngers up slowly for that purpose alone. They know some of these veterans gun for these young show boats that make all the money, so they can bang em up and say something to them as they scrape them off the ground. Just my thoughts of course.
Freddy and Beasley are very different players. Beasley is an athlete with mediocre technical skills. Freddy is the opposite. If Freddy had Beasley's speed he would be fine. But as another poster pointed out, Freddy is quick but not fast. When Beas gets around his player the opposition he can quickly create separation. This allows him to get space to get off a cross or shot, or often forces the opposition to foul him from behind. When Adu beats his man, he doesn't have the jets to be dangerous in that way. The other area where Beasley's speed helps him is on defense. He can shut down an opposition player in a flash. Freddy, on the other hand, has been a defensive liability on every team he has played on. Not ragging on the guy - I would love to see him succeed. But to do it, he is going to have to really work on his decision making to make up for his physical limitations.
Agreed, along with the comments about Beaz separating with the offensive runs, but I'm not really sure how much of this is due to raw footspeed. I think it's mostly attitude. Beaz is balls-out aggressive, plays traditional U.S. style in top gear. Freddy is more contemplative. Don't think there's much debate here defensively, Beaz is fitter, tougher, better, and Freddy would do well to emulate. But offensively, there are advantages to Freddy's style as well as disadvantages.
I actually think Beas reads the game better than any other Nat player since Reyna. He knows where and when to be to make up for his technical deficiencies. As we have seen with Freddy, that is something he needs to learn.
I've always thought that about Beas as well. IMO he may have the best tactical awareness of anyone currently playing for the NT. As far as Adu goes, I think he should focus on developing into a Van der Vaart type of player -- a player whose game is about tactical awareness, good passing, etc rather than a speedster like Beasley.
Hey, all you Adu fans ... http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=ro-stockreport090407&prov=yhoo&type=lgns Generally, this Rogers guy has been pretty clueless visavis the American soccer, as a newbie to the States but ... if this is what his sources say...
If this is accurate, this is exactly what I was hoping for Freddy coming in. If it takes him a year to be a positive, contributing player on a regular basis, I can think of worse things to project for a 19 year old. There is no hurry---but progress needs to be steady and meaningful.
They may ... in Aaron's case, it wasn't as linear as, let's say, with Bonds. But there are too many variables that effect the total numbers. He also became a striker vs. a winger. And there are other variables to making him a player that he was with Arsenal. Henry, running opposite to the norm, became a more productive/higher scoring forward in his mid-late 20's whereas most speed-based forwards peak in their early to mid-20's. Part of his success has to go to Wenger, who put together some incredibly talented teams that featured Henry ... maybe in Juve, he would have been just a rotation guy in a Del Piero mold. You had failed to prove that the home run prowess is due sheerly to increase in strength. For example, A-Rod hit 36 homers as a 20 year 2nd year player with the Mariners. He also hit 36 as a 28 YO and 35 as a 30 YO with the Yankees. Now, he has 45 as a 31 YO. There's plenty of deviation from year to year to consider other variables to be as or more important to mere strength. The same is true for other big homerun hitters in the "pre-drug" era like Dave Kingman, Gorman Thomas, Greg Luzinski, Mike Schmidt and Reggie Jackson (47 as a 23 YO was Reggie's top year). So, to me, the "other variables" carry a higher statistical significance to this event. If you were to create a stastistical chart of one's strength and one's homeruns, you'd not see two similar patterns. Exactly. You can run them but they won't overlay.
Of course not, he didn't go from hitting 400ft home runs to hitting 800ft home runs, (strength doubling as you mention above) he went from hitting 400ft, fly outs to hitting 416ft home runs, more like 4%. Baseball is a funny sport that way. 5% increase in ability (strength) passing a threshold, can double perfornance due to the fixed target (walls).
Too late to edit, the above was intended to be a nice post No more "fighting" for me, this a sport not political forum ..... That's why sterioids have such a major impact on baseball in particular, hitting just a few extra feet can mean the diffrence between 20 fly outs and 20 home runs.
Just chiming in on steroid usage. anabolic steroids were used extensively during the late 1930s+ to treat medical conditions. http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/drugfact/steroids/index.html widespread usuage of steroids in sports began in the 1950s http://www.steroid.com/steroids-in-sports.php Drugs that increased heart-rate such as early versions of meth were used during the 1930s (saw a pbs special on drugs in sports). Hank aaron broke the home run record during the the era (1950s-1970s) were steroids were becoming widespread and sophisticated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Aaron It is a real posibility that he may have juiced or he may not have. Barry bonds has never tested positive for steroids http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_bonds Steroids will not make you a superstar athlete; however, they will allows some rather ordinary athletes to continue their careers. True sports greatness is rare and is not tied to strength, speed, or athlethicness; rather greatness comes from a ruthless desire to win. I very much doubt that Freddy will somehow become a superstar if he bulks up. The only way he will improve is if he has a desire and work ethic necessary to improve his skill-level.
But the steroids he's accused of taking were designed not to show up on tests, and several track and field athletes have been banned from the sport for varying lengths of time without a positive test. They were linked to drugs from BALCO, which also has a clear connection to Bonds through trainer Greg Anderson. http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/sprinter-banned-for-doping/2005/12/14/1134500888122.html http://www.usatoday.com/sports/balco-timeline.htm http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2564340 And then we have all the eyewitness accounts in Game of Shadows: http://www.gameofshadows.com/ Sorry to threadjack a derailed thread, but it's just impossible to let the "he never tested positive" defense go without pointing out the rest of the story. His defense needs to be "Anderson never gave me anything," "the leaked testimony is incorrect" and "a bunch of people lied to those reporters." "Not testing positive" is this case is about as much of a defense as saying the motorcycle that passed me going 80, 85 a few days ago wasn't speeding because a cop wasn't there with radar.
My post was that juicying is substanially more widespread in sports and dates back decades. Whether or not bonds juiced doesn't matter, he still had to hit the ball and it cannot be known if earlier athlethes didn't also juice. Remember the era of steroids began during the 1940s and not the 1990s I don't want to minimize steroid usuage but it is quite clear that sammy sosa and mark mcguire were definetly juicying (just look at their physiques), yet no one is complaining about them. Ball parks have become more batter friendly and the composition of the ball have also become more home-run friendly. While Barry bonds may (probably did) juice other earlier athlethes may also have juiced. Hank Aaron's career occured when steroids were not banned nor difficult to acquire. Babe ruth's career occured when Blacks were not allowed to play and other earlier drugs could also have been used to improve performance. Do remember that pitchers have also probably juiced.
Oh sure -- that much is true. Bonds has been a convenient scapegoat for a widespread problem. Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll leave for others to judge.
That's ridiculous - Bonds had a significant body change late in his career and his home run numbers went up significantly late in his career. I don't think anyone believes Bonds didn't juice, and that's the first time I've heard anyone suggest Hank Aaron might have juiced. Sosa and Maguire didn't get as much coverage because folks realized after the fact that their home run chase was probably steriod related. You may have noticed that Maguire isn't getting into the Hall anytime soon.
What do you mean Bonds home run numbers went up significantly late in his career? He hit over 40 homeruns in 3 seasons before his 35th birthday, he hit 37 homeruns in 112 (162 game season) games when he was 30. So that season should have been another 40+ homerun season. Bonds went from a career high 49 homeruns one season to 73 homeruns the next season, sure thats a 48% jump. But that's not unheard of... Roger Maris went from a career high 39 homeruns to 61 homeruns the next season, thats a 56% jump from one season to the next. I'm not saying I think Bonds is clean, I'm just saying those reasons aren't justified in todays day and age when we're hearing health commercials on the radio saying shit like "70 is the new 40" "50 is the new 30"
I was just pointing out that barry bonds and hank aaron had similar career number improvements as they got older. Both had late career home run numbers. This statistical improvement is abnormal, most players peak in their mid 20s then start to have declining numbers soon after. Steroids have existed since the 1930s so it is possible that players juiced during that time. Aaron had a batting average of .301 and a SLG of .555 while Bonds had a batting average of .298 and a SLG of .607. They're numbers are remarkable similar and follow a similar career path. My point is that while Barry probably juiced, so did the opposing pitchers. Furthermore, the design of the ball parks and the composition of the baseball have also contributed to increased number of homeruns. So it is quite possible that his improvement in homeruns may be due to a trinity of changing ball-park/baseball design, juiced pitchers, and steroids. I don't care if he juiced or not because other players have also engaged in the same behavior and have failed to match his production. Steroids will not improve a batters hitting average.
Hitting average is not based on strength, it based on whether or not a batter can place the ball on the bat. Steroids can only improve a batters strength and endurance not their eyesight. Putting the bat on the ball has nothing to do with steroids, you misunderstood what i meant by hitting average.
In other words steroids doesn't improve hand & eye co-ordination. But it can still improve batting average...