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Finnish focus
U-17 prodigy Adu concentrates on field as agent fields offers
Posted: Wednesday August 13, 2003 12:38 PM
Updated: Wednesday August 13, 2003 1:45 PM
LAHTI, Finland -- Last Saturday, on the eve of what may be his first taste of international stardom, Freddy Adu called his adviser and former youth coach, Arnold Tarzy, from England.
Adu, America’s 14-year-old soccer prodigy, the boy Nike recently signed to a $1 million contract, had been tearing it up in warmup games for the FIFA Under-17 World Championship. Three goals in 24 minutes vs. Blackburn Rovers’ under-18 team. A penalty kick drawn and converted against Australia. A goal and an assist to beat Manchester United’s under-18s.
And now, just days before the U.S. opener against South Korea here on Thursday, Adu said this over the phone: “We’re going to win this thing.”
Win this thing? Did somebody forget to remind Adu he’s 14?
“He’s so focused, it’s all he can think about,” Tarzy says. “He knows he can get it done in the final third of the field.”
Two main arenas will be the focus when the most talked-about player in American youth soccer history -- the subject of stories in Sports Illustrated and SI.com -- makes his debut in a major international tournament this week.
The first will be a tiny, 7,700-seat stadium in this small Finnish city best known as a hub of Nordic skiing and the birthplace of composer Jean Sibelius. Before a world TV audience, Adu’s U.S. team will meet first-round opponents South Korea (Thursday, Galavision, tape delay 1 p.m. ET/PT), Sierra Leone (Sunday, live 7:55 a.m. ET/6:55 a.m. CT/delay 7:55 a.m. PT) and Spain (next Wed., live 12:55 p.m. ET/delay 1 p.m. PT).
The goal is simple: Help the U.S. advance. If the right talent evaluators are wowed by Adu, well, then all the better.
“Every top professional club in the world will have people at this tournament,” says Adu’s agent Richard Motzkin. “Clubs like to sign players young. This is the youngest tournament of its kind, and it will be well-attended by scouts, agents and club officials.”
Indeed, that brings up the second venue to watch this week: the back rooms in Helsinki and elsewhere, where Motzkin plans to meet with suitors interested in jumping on the Adu bandwagon.
“Some things are already set up, and other things will happen as the tournament goes on,” Motzkin says. According to the agent, he will meet with reps from European clubs, potential endorsers wishing to join the Swoosh and (perhaps most intriguingly) Major League Soccer.
Both MLS deputy commissioner Ivan Gazidis and his sidekick, Todd Durbin, will be in Finland. Both have plans to speak with Motzkin. And both no doubt realize the buzz that Adu could generate domestically if he were to sign with MLS.
But all sort of questions are swirling. Can Adu handle the pressure? Will MLS be willing to break the bank -- the maximum league salary is supposed to be $270,000 -- to compete with potential European offers? And what about the new FIFA rule that supposedly prevents under-18 players from moving into the European Union? Is there a loophole, as there appears to be, to allow youngsters whose parents can find work near their child?
Whatever happens, don’t expect any contracts to be finalized during the tournament. Says Motzkin, “Ever since Freddy signed the Nike deal, the plan has been to insulate him from the business side of things so he wouldn’t have to deal with too many distractions. The general plan after the tournament is to sit down with Freddy and his family and look at the options that exist.”
Here’s what we know with certainty: 1) Adu will not play in MLS in 2003, according to Motzkin. 2) This tournament will have a huge impact on determining Adu’s market value. “Who knows?” Tarzy says. “The MLS maximum [$270,000] may be 10 times what he’s worth, and it might be one-tenth. We won’t start finding out until next week.”
FYI, here are some of the international stars who have played in previous Under-17 World Championships:
Under-17 World Championship Stars
Year Player (Country)
2001 Carlos Tevez (Argentina), Diego (Brazil)
1999 Landon Donovan (U.S.), DaMarcus Beasley (U.S.)
1997 Ronaldinho (Brazil), Iker Casillas (Spain), Sebastian Deisler (Germany), Xavi (Spain), Gabriel Milito (Argentina)
1995 Pablo Aimar (Argentina), Shinji Ono (Japan), Nuno Gomes (Portugal), Junichi Inamoto (Japan)
1993 Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Francesco Totti (Italy), Hidetoshi Nakata (Japan), Nwankwo Kanu (Nigeria), Celestine Babayaro (Nigeria), John O’Brien (U.S.)
1991 Alessandro Del Piero (Italy), Juan Sebastián Verón (Argentina), Marcelo Gallardo (Argentina)
1989 Luis Figo (Portugal), Claudio Reyna (U.S.)
1987 Marco Etcheverry (Bolivia), Emmanuel Petit (France)
1985 Fernando Redondo (Argentina), Hernán Medford (Costa Rica), Marco Etcheverry (Bolivia)