D.C. United coach Peter Nowak is concerned that not enough is being done to protect 14-year-old phenom Freddy Adu. Three games into the Major League Soccer season, Nowak says everybody wants a piece of his prodigy though Adu has yet to start a game.
“There are a lot of people right now saying how they are going to disrupt Freddy’s game, how they are going to throw elbows when the referee is not watching, how they are going to talk trash to him when the referee is not watching, and this kind of situation really scares me because we’ve said he’s 14 years old and we’re going to protect him all over the field and off the field,” Nowak said.
Comments supposedly made by the Haitian Under-20 national team about Adu before last night’s friendly against the U.S. U-20s at Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., prompted Nowak’s concern over the youngest and highest-paid player in MLS.
“Then I see comments from the players and from the coaches in the newspapers that I really don’t appreciate, and we have to do something about it,” Nowak said. “The kid is only 14 years old, and he loves to play soccer. We cannot put him in situations where he is going to be mentally saying, ’These [opponents] don’t care about me.’ I saw the comments from the Haitian team saying, ’Who is Freddy Adu? We don’t know when he is going to show up on the field, but we’re going to get him pretty good.’ These kind of comments really scare me.”
United enforcers like Ryan Nelsen, Mike Petke and Dema Kovalenko can’t protect the Potomac teen when he is playing with one of the U.S. youth national teams. With United, the 5-foot-8, 140-pounder is surrounded by experience, size and moxie. With the U-20s, U-17s, or perhaps one day with the U-23s, Adu has only other youngsters watching his back.
Adu believed he had an X on his back once United selected him with the top pick in January’s MLS SuperDraft.
“We all knew from day one that players were going to go after him,” Nelsen said. “If I was on the opposition team, I would probably go after him — he’s a young kid and he’s playing against me. But who’s the U-20 Haitian team? Freddy should be able to score all of [the U.S. goals]. I’ve said all along, pick your times when to be creative, pick your times when to play one touch.”
In United’s second game, a 1-1 draw against Los Angeles, the Galaxy’s Korean defender, Hong Myung-Bo, fouled Adu from behind a couple of minutes after Adu entered at halftime. Later in the half, the Galaxy’s 35-year-old Austrian midfielder, Andreas Herzog, committed a hard foul on Adu. Adu responded by knocking the veteran playmaker off the ball on the sideline in front of the United bench.
As soon as the Galaxy got rough with him, Adu responded with his best performance of the season.
“The great thing about Freddy is that it backfires on you, because he gets even more angry and he thinks even more, and that is a good thing because he gets smarter and puts in performances like L.A.,” Nelsen said. “He realizes now that this is not MTV, this is not hoopla, this is a game of adult men trying to play for their living. It’s as simple as that. At 14, it’s kind of hard to fathom that every game means so much, because it’s young and exciting for him and all that, and now he’s realizing these are seasoned veterans week in and week out.”
Hard fouls aside, nobody forced Adu to sign a professional contract. Physical play is part of the game, especially when you’re a millionaire at 14. There’s no babysitting in professional soccer.
“Freddy is going to get what Freddy deserves, and the publicity and everything that has happened so far is huge and it’s never happened before, and people are going to be jealous because it’s not them,” United midfielder Bobby Convey said. “I feel bad for Freddy in some ways because he didn’t ask for it, but that’s what he got when he signed a contract to be part of MLS and that’s what he’s going to have to deal with.”
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