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Freddy Adu was barely into his teenage years when the hype began.
Even before he made his senior debut at D.C. United as a 14-year-old, Adu was heralded as ‘the next Pele’ as he was talked up as not just a promising young player, but a generational talent who was being tipped for global stardom.
But compared to the Brazilian great at such a young age came with a weight of expectation that no child should have to even comprehend, let alone live up to. As Adu looks back at this career, he explains that the excitement of being compared to his idol would soon give way to the realisation that he needed to forge his own path.
Adu on the pressure of being the next Pele
Asked by FourFourTwo when he realised he might be destined for something special, Adu says: “When I was 11 or 12. My team, the Bethesda Internationals, were one of the top four teams in the nation and we were in the national championships.
“A lot of teams were playing, there were a bunch of fields, and when my team played, everybody – and I mean everybody, all the other parents, all the other teams – would come and gather around our field to watch.”
This was the first time that Adu had experienced this kind of attention, as his matches became must-watch affairs for local fans and players.
“They’d heard of this 11-year-old, and it was under 14s, so I was playing three years up. It was really cool – that was the first time I got a taste of pressure,” he continues.
This excitement would grow, with Adu’s name going way past youth tournaments and into the mainstream media.
As a consequence of this, comparisons with Pele, Adu’s hero, began to emerge.
“As a kid, when I first heard it, I thought it was cool to be compared to your idol, because Pele was my idol,” Adu continues.
But eventually, the enormity of the situation would sink in and the comparison to the three-time World Cup winner and all-time great began to weigh on him.
“Then it set in that ‘Oh my God…’ It took a few months to realise ‘Alright, now you’ve really got to perform’, because people aren’t just comparing anybody to Pele. Then I started thinking ‘You can’t allow this to happen’.
“I had to say ‘Look, I’m my own player, you can’t compare me to one of the greatest players who ever played, I’m not him’. I had to come to terms with being my own player and just focus on being me, rather than being Pele.”
