Its funny that Altidore and Adu are the same age. Jozy seems to exclusively get praise on this site (and deservedly so) whereas Adu, at best, gets 50/50 praise to criticism. I think Jozy has incredible potential but I would argue that Freddy has at least as much potential yet for some reason he is written off by some already?? Let's wait at least to see his performance in Canada (with others closer to his age -- he's still 2 full years younger than many of the players) before we write him off completely.
if he can keep possession of the ball, he will be an ok midfield player. I honestly feel sorry for the kid as he will never be as good on the pitch as he was on the marketing field for Nike.
Freddy ingested a lifetime's worth of praise by the time that he was 16 years old. Wait a few years on Altidore. He'll get trashed when compared to the next hopeful, too. The eternal cycle.
Its what happens when you spend too much time listening to what others say about a player and not enough time actually watching and making up your own mind. I will say it again - "For a 17 yo, Adu is great."
I second that. The kid has not disappointed. He's put up quality numbers over the years and under non-optimal circumstances. Looking forward to the U-20 WCs.
The amount of criticism Adu gets is probably roughly proportional to the amount of nutters around here who desperately want the US to have a "Pele" of our own and are frustrated that we don't yet. Adu's been touted as such for going on 4 years now, Altidore probably wasn't on anyone's radar until the end of last season at best. Hence, though they're both excellent players for their age, one gets praise as such while one is criticized that he isn't the best player in the world yet. To summarize: people are dumb.
don't think was can name any americans who could have pulled off what freddy has done from 14 - 17.....a boy against men, when you're NOT quite a man yet shows the talent... with nowak, and dc united, fitting in with a bunch of very good attacking players was always going to be a major test...he was never going to be the guy, but his game grew... if you fell for the next pele ad campaign, shame on you...won't ever be a next pele.... adu and altidore are gonna be a great pair for the usa for many wc cycles....
A bit disingenuous. One wasn't paid a dime until he was 16 years old; the other was a millionaire at age 14. One has zero percent name recognition; the other is the second best known player at my son's junior high school, behind Beckham and ahead of everybody else. Not really. They know Paris Hilton is an idiot (although they can't help watching), they know that Danica Patrick is a marketing creation, and they know that they were sold a bill of goods about Freddy Adu being a once in a generation player by world soccer standards. If Freddy could show a bit of leg like the first two (or like Anna Kournikova), that would help his image.
I don't know about "zero percent". Altidore is my 11 yo daughter's new favorite player, despite the fact that she's a die hard Revs fan (sorry Taylor).
jozy got 15 minutes off the bench from arena yesterday... with angel and mathis, one does wonder how much playing time altidore will get... as to adu, please start naming the other 17 year olds on the planet you'd prefer.... the list will be short...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL94rAgJIKY I nearly have a hernia watching this. {Possibly the best skit in SNL history.
In no particular order and off the top of my head, Lula. Alexandre Pato. Eduardo Salvio. Frederico Laurito. Ibrahim Rabiu. Kelvin Bossman. Hadhria Nour. Yoichiro Kakitani. You're right, mine's a pretty short list, but I'm sure there are several others that I've never seen nor heard of.
a talented adu isn't a "safe" choice for the USMNT. so bob and his assistant nowak, won't make it anytime soon.
Not sure how you figure that. Her IRL career is a lot better than Dick Trickle's NASCAR career. She's just neither Dan Wheldon nor Sam Hornish.
I have a hard time saying that Freddy looked "great" last thursday night. He had some nice moments. But the Rapids purposely did not mark him tightly and gave him more than plenty of room outside. And at that when he was marked and challenged it was frequently by Dan Gargan (one of the few RB's in the league who can compete with Jack Stewart when it comes to suckiness). I won't blame Freddy for looking so-so as a LM / LAM. But for someone who had as much time on the ball as he did I thought he could've done more. He also didn't seem to have a lot of movement off the ball that put himself in a dangerous position. I thought hid did alright; good for being a young pup. But I wouldn't go tossing around the word great when it comes to that game.
I'm sure this has been covered, but Nowak was a true attacking player. He didn't coach Freddy well IMO, but you can't say Nowak wasn't an attacker.
1. Freddy played great. 2. People are making too much of him being 17, and not enough of him being a 4th year pro. There's another side to it.
Not sure which irony is greater, that the Freddy/Peter relationship went bust, or that Jason Kreis is cited as the lone true attacking coaching of Freddy's career.