All this attention being lavished on Major League Soccer after so many years of being the leftovers on ESPN’s “SportCenter” is almost embarrassing. It’s like the beauty queen suddenly asking you to dance. You’re left wondering whether she has her contacts in.
For a brief moment soccer is chic, and it’s starting to make me giddy. Suddenly the media is storming RFK Stadium as if Joe Gibbs had suffered a memory lapse on his way to FedEx Field. Blame it on Freddy Adu the amazing lad from Potomac. Maybe he really is the savior of the game and will lead us to the promised land on the banks of the Anacostia River.
Some of us, still suffering shell-shock from all those soccer bashers in this soccer-resistant land, are not quite sure what to make of the Adu phenomenon. We’re still a little numb, not ready to “out” ourselves as soccer devotees before the co-workers at the office. But watch out — it’s coming. We now have poster boy Freddy on our side and he’s been on “60 Minutes,” so it must be true. Soon we’ll be wearing our D.C. United jerseys in public with pride.
When you think how much MLS has used Adu to promote the league, it shows how desperate the game is for love and attention. The MLS brass has put a lot of eggs in the basket of this 14-year-old and taken quite a risk if it doesn’t pan out. From all accounts Freddy is the real thing. The scouts from mighty clubs like Inter Milan, Chelsea and Manchester United seem to think so. They wanted to sign him, so there is flesh and bone to all the hype.
Then again, if Freddy were overseas right now, he wouldn’t have the burden of selling a pro league. He would be simmering slowly to stardom with other youngsters, not being thrown in the frying pan like he will be today at RFK Stadium.
United coach Peter Nowak is in a tight spot: He has to play the youth. Forget strategy and bringing him along slowly. This is not soccer-sophisticated Europe, where the minutiae of a scoreless tie is analyzed for weeks. You can’t sell tickets on the back of the kid and then not play him, or even not start him, and expect all the newly initiated soccer observers to understand.
This is the entertainment business. People are forking out big money. It’s too late to talk about protecting Freddy once you’ve already dumped him head-first into a media storm that has been going on for three months. And don’t tell us about all the pressure he’s facing — that’s the way it goes in the pros.
But Freddy can deal with it all. He’s the nicest of kids, polite, modest, with the vocabulary of a college grad. He holds forth easily with a room full or reporters and swats dumb questions out of the air with grace and respect. OK, he could do without the earrings but give him time.
So there’s no turning back for Freddy now. The big boys from the San Jose Earthquakes await him in the center circle at RFK today.
We of the faith believe in Freddy. He has proved his doubters wrong at every turn so far.
The other guys — With all the hype over Freddy Adu — more than 250 media credentials have been issued for the match — it’s easy to forget that today’s game also features two of America’s other seasoned youth stars: San Jose Earthquakes’ Landon Donovan and United’s Bobby Convey. Donovan was the MLS Cup MVP last year and scored a couple of goals at the 2002 World Cup. He already has two MLS titles under his belt. Not bad for a 22-year-old.
Convey arrives for the season opener after helping the U.S. team down Poland 1-0 this week, giving the Americans their first win in Europe since April 1998. The 20-year-old has has starred for the Olympic team and U.S. under-20 team in major tournaments since the end of last season.
New coaches — Today’s game will see the debut of both coaches, United’s Nowak and San Jose’s Dominic Kinnear. Nowak replaced the fired Ray Hudson, while Kinnear has to fill the shoes of Frank Yallop, who won two titles in his three years at San Jose before being hired as Canada’s national coach.
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