Bidding Freddy adieu

The 2006 World Cup was a key moment for the further development of soccer (it's still too strange for an Australian to say "football") into a truly dominant world game, as the success of the Asian nations like South Korea and Turkey in 2002 spread to Australia and other nations previously seen as minnows.

Of course, the final frontier for the sport is to find some penetration in the lucrative American market, where the money from potential sponsors and owners could easily create several new Chelsea All Star-type teams with the revenue available. Although Americans embrace sports such as gridiron (where 60 minutes of game time is spread over four hours of TV) and baseball (where the majority of the pitches result in no swing offered or a fouled off ball), the prospect of watching 90 minutes of continuous play on a soccer pitch does not inspire American sports fans at all.

And now, the best player to have ever graced American pitches (at least, the best one who wasn't on his last legs and trying to cash in on his own legacy. You've been outed, Romario.) has been banished from a major city in Washington to the sports back alley that is Salt Lake City. Freddy Adu was compared to Pele and other legends when he signed to D.C. United as a raw but electrifying 14-year-old soccer prodigy, and his name has been linked to such football meccas as Chelsea and Manchester United in recent years.

Only in America could a soccer player with such promise and such rare ability be treated this poorly. One only hopes that Adu is saved from the quick slide to obscurity in Utah, where he will never receive national media coverage or a big Nike deal which could propel him to stardom in America, and that he is signed to England, Italy or Spain where he can become the type of player which we would love to see. Unfortunately, such a move would likely end any hope of the U.S. becoming a new breeding ground for elite soccer talent as even if he were to live up to his initial hype this would likely be forgotten in the land of the Red, White and Blue.