14-year-old
the great hope for American soccer
NEW YORK (AP) -- Like millions of other
kids, Freddy Adu will be driven to soccer
practice by his mom next spring. Not much
else is ordinary about this 14-year-old
phenom.
Sure,
he loves to listen to rappers Eminem and
50 Cent, has posters of David Beckham and
Maradona in his room and lists ''Lord of
the Rings'' as his favorite movie.
But
no other teenage soccer player will make
hundreds of thousands of dollars in the
United States and has been called everything
from the next Pele to the LeBron James of
MLS.
"If
you're good enough, you're old enough,"
Adu said Wednesday, a day after signing
with Major League Soccer. "If you feel
like you're ready to go, hey, give it a
shot."
He'll
start his career with DC United, hoping
to earn a place in the starting lineup and
play his way onto the U.S. team for the
2006 World Cup, which starts a week after
his 17th birthday.
"I
like to think of myself as having a pretty
good chance," he said.
Already,
MLS is ready for Freddy. His new team's
opener on April 3 will be televised nationally
by ABC. What viewers could see is a boy
showing rare speed and skill against men.
At
5-foot-8 and 140 pounds, Adu looks too small
to be a pro, but there's time for him to
fill out.
"He's
a very graceful athlete. His first touch
and his vision are outstanding for a player
of his age," U.S. national team coach
Bruce Arena said.
Adu,
who left Ghana in 1997 and became a U.S.
citizen in February, was introduced by MLS
at Madison Square Garden, where the soccer
world gathered 12 years earlier for the
preliminary draw for the 1994 World Cup.
He
sounds far more mature than most 14-year-olds;
he's scheduled to finish high school in
March. But when you're regarded as the top
soccer prospect in America -- the world,
according to MLS deputy commissioner Ivan
Gazidis -- it's tough to be just another
teenager.
"It's
been pretty hard, I guess, but I have fun
with it," Adu said. "Sometimes
you go out, you want to have fun with your
friends and stuff, but you go out, people
recognize you and just swarm you, and you've
got to start to give autographs."
Manchester
United, Chelsea and PSV Eindhoven tried
to sign him, according to his agent, Richard
Motzkin. But if he had gone to Europe, soccer's
complicated rules probably would have limited
him to a youth team rather than a top club
until 2007, when he turns 18.
In
MLS, he can play as soon as DC United thinks
he's ready. It also allows him to stay at
home.
MLS
gave him a four-year contract with a two-year
league option. While no details were disclosed,
league officials say that for ''special''
players, there are marketing agreements
that give them more than the maximum salary,
$280,000.
If
he gets on the field with DC United next
season, Adu would become the youngest player
for a major American team since 14-year-old
Fred Chapman debuted for Philadelphia of
major league baseball's American Association
in 1887, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
His
neighborhood is far different than his surroundings
growing up in Tema, Ghana.
Adu
started kicking a ball when he was about
2 1/2 and learned to play in bare feet on
fields littered with rocks and broken bottles,
he said.
He
came to the United States after his mother,
Emelia, won a State Department visa lottery,
hoping to improve the education of her two
boys. Adu has a 12-year-old brother, Fro.
It
will take years for Adu to show whether
he's soccer's next great star. Arena said
it was impossible to forecast just how good
Adu will be.
"There
are young athletes in every sport in this
country and around the world that are highly
regarded by the adults at early ages that
never meet the expectations of the adults,"
he said.
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