As far as Football Manager wonderkids who failed to live up to the hype go, Freddy Adu is the undisputed king.
The American was dubbed the next Pele when he became the youngest professional athlete in team sport history aged 14 in 2003, and not just by the Nostradamus-like scouts employed by Sports Interactive, but by Pele himself! He signed a record-breaking sponsorship deal with Nike and had trials at Manchester United, and then… faded into obscurity.
A debilitating cocktail of overwhelming expectations and intrusive brand managers left him treading water in the US for a few years before he was thrown a lifeline by Benfica in 2007. But he spent the majority of his four-year stint at the club out on loan, firstly at Monaco, and later at Belenenses, Aris and Caykur Rizespor.
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Looking back, Adu says he wishes he'd stayed put in Lisbon, admitting his itchy feet probably cost him a career at the very top. "I felt that when I was at Benfica, I had three different coaches in my first year there. It was a little much," the 34-year-old told Sport Bible.
"I'm thinking it would be better going to play for a different team and hopefully, that would give me more stability. But it turned out that was the wrong decision. For me, it was my biggest regret. I wasn't mature enough to handle all the distractions at the time in Monaco.
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"In turn, my play suffered big time. That was basically the beginning of me having to go on loan to different teams because I just wasn't playing well enough," he added. "I don't blame anybody. I blame myself because I made that decision. I did. Nobody forced me to. I was the one who decided to move."
He shared a dressing room with a young Angel Di Maria when he first joined Benfica and claims he was better than him at the time. Though three years later, the Argentine was snapped by Real Madrid while he was warming the bench in Super League Greece.
"The crazy thing is, during my first year there, I actually played better than Di Maria," he said. "I got on the field more. I scored more. I had a better season but he stayed and I went on loan. He then became a regular starter and took off from there. I went to Monaco, didn't play and from there, I went on loan to Belenenses. That hurt me a lot."
Adu left Benfica in 2011 and spent the next six years aimlessly club-hopping. Between the ages of 27 and 28 he was a free agent and by 29 he unofficially retired. He's since reversed his decision, and although he's still without a club, he hopes to get back into the game as soon as possible.
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"I took a few years off after I lost my love for the game," he said. Believe it or not, I'm thinking about getting out there again and playing. I'm still young enough."
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