a) The "they were good as youths but bad as adults" is flimsy supporting evidence. It happens even in countries above any suspicion of cheating. We ourselves have had our share of players that looked great in the U-xx competitions only to fizzle around 22-24. b) Iraq is about as successful (or unsuccessful, depending on your take) at both the youth and the adult level. c) Bone testing is iffy at best. As with most of medicine, it fails to take ethnic variations into account. It's perfectly possible that people of some ethnic groups mature faster than others.
So often mediocre to average players make good coaches/managers. It would be ironic and heartening if Adu became a good coach.
Usually that is because those mediocre players had to use their heads to survive amongst much more talented counterparts. Which doesn’t really describe Freddy
I can see him working as a motivator. He's had to keep motivating himself for years, failure after failure. That he's still trying is remarkable, most everybody else would have given up long ago. If your life cannot be an example, at least make it a warning.
I don't know about Freddy as a manager/coach, but I could see him as a youth trainer focusing on teaching technique particularly if he can consistently bring the kind of enthusiasm he displays above. Kids tend to respond well to an upbeat approach while learning ball skills.
People need to stop facking with Freddie. Ain't his fault. And on top of that he had more than a fair share of good NAT moments, whether with the yutes or the full team. He did what was asked of him.
Where I play soccer it's with a lot of Mexican and Central Americans. Obviously no one is near professional, but some guys got close and the 'great touch, technique, fat, out of shape' player is very common. He'd probably be hard to distinguish from a lot of other guys, and get run circles around by the fitter guys which has been the main downfall of his career.
You could put this on his gravestone as his epitaph. It'll be in all the obituaries. OK. OK. The obituary.
I think it is a service where you can pay a cameo person like Freddy to make a video “shout out” to someone. I guess like a $25 Freddy Adu birthday card/video?