No, I think it's putting a good spin on a less than stellar performance. He points out that Adu learned this fact, or had it reinforced. He later points out that the team as a whole did not succeed, which is absolutely true. Did anyone else think of the De Niro Untouchables baseball bat scene with that ". .part of a team . ." bit?
You could also interpret that as saying, "Freddy learned you can only do so much when your team sucks."
You know, you can interpret things a lot of ways. For instance, was Nowak saying "Freddy learned ONLY one thing." Or...."Among the things that Freddy learned, one thing was....". As a coach, I follow Nowak alot (I try to learn from any of the MLS coaches--to figure out "what does he do that I can steal, err...learn from?"). I was one of the people who both criticized Nowak and praised him last year--often at the same time. I think our midseason slump (where we ran out of midfielders) was due to Nowak's inexperience. I also think he's got a lot of integrity as a coach and does a great job setting a direction and making roles and expectations clear. But in any case, I won't sell myself as a Nowak expert. Only a guy who pays attention to what he does (and doesn't do). And he's a guy who will talk to the press but two things he doesn't do: he doesn't talk tactics/lineup before the game and he doesn't criticize his players publicly. The closest he's come to "calling Freddy out publicly" this year from my perspective was when he pulled Adu at 70 minutes in the NE/Gillette game that we lost 1-0. When asked Nowak muttered about he didn't think Adu was going to do anything different in the remaining 20 minutes from what he'd done in the first 70. My understanding was that Adu just blew the "gameplan" for that match. If Etcheverry had done that to Arena or Adu had done that to Schmid, what do you think either would have said publicly? So my interpretation (and again, only Nowak knows for sure what he meant) of that statement is not a public calling out, but a claim by Nowak that this was not a wasted or negative experience for Adu but a positive one. That he got a take-away: something positive from this experience. Also, not mentioned by many people (can't remember who said it first in this thread but I meant to rep him for him and didn't) is the comment that it speaks volumes of his maturity that Adu from the gitgo talked about "I played poorly." How many pros duck responsibility. Freddy is going to be a good one--he's got a great future. But right now he's a youngster older than his years with tremendous talent but going through puberty and with a lot of holes in his game. We all need patience. Part of the reality I experience as a youth coach is that at some level, the kids suddenly discover that having good technical ability and fine individual moves isn't enough--they have to integrate into a team. And the level of play gets sharper, not as sloppy. So stuff like following runners after they pass the ball (rather then watching the ball and then thinking "maybe I'd better drift back"), or clearing space for a teammate to run into becomes more important as you progress to older and more competitive ball. Freddy Adu's having to learn this stuff. Every 16 year old does. And if I misunderstood TOTC, all I can plead is that I"m sarcasm-impaired.
Face it.Nowak craves attention for himself.Remember when Freddy had an assist in the first leg against Harbour City from Jamaica in the champions league and Nowak confined him in the return leg in Jamaica.Nowak is the one with the big ego not Freddy.Nowak benched Freddy against PUMAS of Mexico and started Van Sicklen,a rookie to play against Pumas.Nowak will give the benefit of the doubt to Moreno,Gomez and the like when they suck time and time in games past but will confine Freddy to the bench after a not so dominating game.How is the kid supposed to handle this psychologically.
So you're advocating that Nowak should just get Freddy on the field regardless of position? I think that they should get Freddy on the field in the right position. Something that may slow down Freddy's growth is putting him in situations that are ill-suited for his skills/ablitities. He's not a wide midfielder. He just won't get the touches, and the sideline bottles him in. Van Sicklen is a wide player, so playing him in that situation makes sense. Granted, he wasn't up to the task. Freddy needs to play in a central midfield role in order to be effective, and his time will come, you just need to be patient and stow your perceptions of how young players should just step onto the field and run things.
So, you honestly think Freddy was the right guy to take that spot? The job that day was to run as fast or faster than whatever wing player PUMAS sent down that side, never leave the guy. Do you think Freddy could have done that? Would you want him to? If he had, would you have commended Nowak for it? No, you'd have claimed he stuck him out there to fail and that he wants Freddy to fail. If Novak wanted Freddy to fail, he'd start him every game, or not let him practice with the main team, or trade him to Columbus or New Jersey ..... nice talking to you, troll.
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner. I would argue that when it comes to developing young players, there are a couple of things that really matter. --let them experience some initial success. --push them, but not too hard or too far (ie: don't let them drown by throwing them in deep surf--demands beyond their abilities). There are other factors but I'd argue these two are crucial. Arena does it with the USMNT and how he integrated players like DMB and Donovan. Bradley does it superbly with his teams (I don't think he's a great coach but he's great at growing young talent). We tend to make this assumption that the way to develop young players is to play them. And if they play alot, they'll get better. This is proven time and time again to be wrong. Just look at the Dallas Tornado in the NASL that at one point tried to field a team of 18-19-20 year old kids (with the idea that they'd all learn by playing and turn into a strong team). They got killed. Or the NASL franchise in Colorado under Dave Clements that tried the same thing. If it was just about giving minutes, than the reserve league would mean that every young reserve player in MLS would be turning into a future all-star (look out--here comes Devin Barclay!). Some kids get better by weaker competition (b/c they can shine). Others get better by tougher competition. Some learn a lot by watching. All learn some by playing but getting minutes doesn't always equal growth. If you throw someone in before they're reading (or when they still have big gaps in their game) then you can wreck their confidence and/or encourage bad habits. For instance, I never learned to defend well. Never had a coach that taught me good defensive technique. So when I got older and was on teams where even strikers had to defend and I sometimes found myself having to play defensive roles, I found I couldn't stop a decent attacker without either having to totally sacrifice my attacking game OR I had to grab continually (which ended up leading to a lot of cards and conceded free kicks). To this day (I'm in my 40's now), my instinct when facing a good attacker is to grab or push--I have to foul inorder to defend. All of the stuff that I teach kids on my team ("stay goal-side, focus on the ball not the attacker, stay balanced, lead with one foot") I don't do as a player. All of my own experience as a player who got thrown into defensive situations I wasn't prepared to deal with meant that when faced with that in a game I don't think, I fall back on bad habits acquired over a 4 year period in HS when I was about 15-18. I played plenty of minutes in defensive roles but never learned to defend. Instead, I learned mostly stuff that helped me make it through the next 15 minutes of the game but cost me overall and led me to develop horrendous habits defensively. I'm a story-book case for how just playing a young player can lead to bad habits and actually limit development. Some of the folks that are arguing Nowak is anti-Adu are really grasping at straws here. Maybe, just maybe, starting Adu against Pumas would have been bad for his development. Knowing my side was going to be mostly defending and tracking back and needed to stay organized and wouldn't get the benefit of any calls--those are not compelling reasons for starting Adu. More importantly, if you want him to see significant minutes against Columbus (who you play in 48 hours) and who you think he can play well against, than you don't start him against Pumas.
Damn, I wish I hadn't given out so much rep in the last 24 hours. I must agree with TEConnor. Well stated, JoeW, as always.
Joew,the surest way to develop in soccer is by playing and practising.When you`re denied playing time in competitive games it stunts your development.Take Chelsea`s Kezman for example.He is leaving Chelsea to go play in Spain and today accused Jose Mourinho of waisting his talent by limiting his playing minutes in Chelsea.Why do you think players complain about their minutes for. 9
DAMEN, Joe loves Nowak, from start to finish. I've never heard him say a negative word about the guy, ever. Ya won't get anywhere w/him on that front SO give up the fight and talk w/someone who might listen to yas.... I'm curious, why do you care about Adu's development?
That states an opinion about JoeW's crushes, which may be right, but that doesn't address his points, which seem to me to be a heck of a lot more general in their scope than just the relationship between Nowak and Adu. If you disagree with those, fine, address them. In fact, in that last post, he only discussed Nowak and Adu in the last paragraph or so.
Yeah I could....he makes some great points. I found fascinating his view on defense. I've played some defense-it takes a hell of a lot of footwork as well as balance and instinct, and catch-up speed always helps. But I digress.....
I agree, as I've played defense for a good deal of my playing life. Fine, address his Adu/Nowak arguments. Being fond of Nowak doesn't necessarily mean he's wrong in his assessment, that's all I'm saying. And that rather long last post was all in service of the idea that maybe Nowak knew that the style Adu would have had to play in the Pumas game would not have helped him in terms of confidence or ability. He wasn't ready, defensively, to play that kind of game, and both the team and he would have suffered for it.
His skillset is every bit as suited to wide midfield as central midfield. What he's not suited to, however, is the kind of wide midfield position usually employed by DC United.
Damen, every single one of your posts to date has been complaining about Freddy's lack of minutes. So which one of the following are you: Freddy, Emilia, or Fredo? The post where you claim Nowak only wants attention for himself is where you lose credibility. I don't see Nowak getting much attention as a result of all this, from anyone except for two categories of people: Freddy's peeps and Freddy's bashers.
DAMEN, I'll have to agree with your theory regarding Nowak being jealous of Adu or hating him or anything like that. Nowak is so tough on Adu because he holds him to a higher standard than everyone else. Players with Adu's natural ability don't grow into their potential by getting complacent. Honestly, from everything I've read Nowak and Adu are very close and Peter has become like a father to Adu.
Fredo, you're nothing to me now. You're not a brother, you're not a friend, I don't want to know you or what you do. Sorry, this thread is a boring rehash of a thousand others...