In modern-day football, we've become accustomed to seeing teenagers breakthrough at a ridiculously early age and perform on the world stage.
Lamine Yamal is the latest example, who at still just 17 years-old is already a European champion with Spain and a key player in Barcelona's rebirth under Hansi Flick this season. He followed a succession of names that burst onto the scene during their teenage years, like Jude Bellingham and Bakayo Saka and are now superstars for both their club and country and on huge contracts to match their talent and future potential.
However, if you turn back the clock to twenty years ago, there was one teenager who was the talk of the football world, and his name defined an era before his career even got going.
Freddy Adu is a name infamous with the noughties. He was America's first teenage 'soccer star' and a player with so much hype around him that he was viewed as the future of the sport in the US before he'd even had a chance to establish himself.
Born in Ghana, Adu's family moved to Maryland in the late nineties, and after starring for his private school, the teenager's performances in the US Olympic Development Program alerted the MLS as well as a host of big European clubs about the potential of Adu.
Despite huge interest from Europe, Adu became the youngest American ever to sign a major league professional contract when, at just 14, D.C. United chose him as the number one overall pick in the 2004 MLS SuperDraft. The deal was worth £1 million, but talking to unibet online betting, Adu believes it would have been worth even more in today's market.
"In today’s society, it would be ten or twenty times more to be honest with you," he said.
"As far as the transfer and going over to the team and going over to Europe, because of all the hype around everything, I think it would be over £100 million.
"Even though I was only 14 or 15, there would have been a lot of teams that were in on it that would have boosted up the price, it would have been a bidding war.
"Nowadays, there are a lot of younger players, a lot of great younger players, but when I was coming out there really wasn’t a lot. Guys like Messi were already in the Barcelona youth system, so they weren’t going anywhere, so it was a little bit different with me. It would have been crazy, and I do think it would have been over £100 million at that point."
Much was made of Adu's decision to sign with the MLS, when some of Europe's biggest clubs courted the teenager and were prepared to offer an even bigger financial incentive to the young star. However, the now-retired 35-year-old admits he wanted to stay in the US and wasn't ready to live abroad at such a young age.
Adding: "It was crazy and a lot of people don’t know how crazy, and I had a lot of options at the time, but I decided to stay here in the MLS because I was just so young.
"My mum didn’t want me to have to go and live in another country, because we came here to have a better life, with my family. At that point, I just wasn’t ready to go to another country.
"If everything was there and I had gone to another country, it would have been crazy I’m telling you. At that point, I didn’t even entertain leaving to go overseas, there was interest, but my agent didn’t really push for it, because I had my mind made up that I wanted to play here first and stay here until I was older."
The spotlight on Adu never lived up to the unfair billing, and after spending two seasons with DC United, the forward embarked on a career that saw him play his football all across the world.
It included a trial at Manchester United, spells with Benfica and Monaco, and stints in Greece, Serbia, Turkey and Finland before retiring in 2021 whilst at Swedish side Osterlan.
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