By DAN KARELL
Freddy Adu has finally landed with a new club.
After arriving in Serbia on Thursday and attending FK Jagodina’s UEFA Europa League qualifying match, a 1-0 defeat to CFR Cluj, Adu signed his contract on Friday and officially became a member of Jagodina’s squad. Adu confirmed the reports of his signing with a picture posted to his Instagram account.
The deal ends Adu’s seven-month spell without a club after he was released by EC Bahia last December. Adu went through unsuccessful trials at Blackpool in January, Stabaek in June, and AZ Alkmaar in July. It’s also Adu’s first time playing in Europe since 2011.
According to reports, Adu chose to sign with Jagodina over clubs in Sweden, India, and AEL Limmasol in Cyprus.
With the Europa League defeat, Jagodina will have to wait until Aug. 9 until their first match, when they kick off the Serbian Super Liga season.
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What do you think of this news? Glad to see Adu latch on to a new club in Europe?
Share your thoughts below.
Kind of wish he’d gone to India. I would have gladly chipped in for a camera crew to follow him around.
We should call him Frodo Adu. He is on an endless quest to destroy something of surpassing value – his soccer talent.
His brother is actually named Fro.
So Freddy is right handed and left footed. Could that be at the root of his indecisiveness?
If you have made millions doing what you are doing and still make a decent living out of it, you are successful. Its good to go somewhere you are wanted and if its Serbia so be it. There is no surprise about the negativity and bias comments surrounding Freddy Adu, I mean if we can hate him, muck him, bring him down with all the talent we’ve seen first hand, not to mention representing us, the stars and stripes I see to reason why players and coaches from other countries shouldn’t judge or have the right to do the same.
Go somewhere that you are judged on the now and not what people thought you would be. All the best Freddy….
Well, this is the cleanest of clean slates he can possibly get. Good luck to him!
Damnit. I did it again! Read another completely useless Freddy Adu article. Damn!
Hey, at least there’s news in this one.
Leggo! The wonderkid rises again!
dear God freddy just come back home.
I wonder what the problem is with him. Never learned to play with others? Poor work rate? He has the individual skills.
I don’t think he contributes enough on defense. The only midfielders that get away without playing much defense are the ones that are so good in attack that it’s worth the tradeoff (Ozil, Mata, and … not very many come to mind). Adu doesn’t carry enough of an attacking threat that the rest of the team can carry him on defense.
It’s the poor work rate. At the pro level, you need to play well all game and not just have moments of brilliance. It’s why you rarely see him play 90 mins; mostly 15 – 20 mins when he can make a difference but the style in MLS isn’t a good platform for him to show his quality all game.
I’ve never seen the Serbian league, but they have good teams like Red Star Belgrade and Partizan from the old Yugoslavia era, and their players are considered the best technically in Europe. These ex-Yugoslavia republics (Serbia, Croatia, Montengero, BIH, etc) are great hunting grounds to find cheap talent that is exported to throughout the world.
For me, his biggest weakness is inconsistency. One game he is by far the best player on the field the next he is by far the worst. That doesn’t fly at the pro level.
Freddy would have been best off developing in the MLS.
But of course, no team can pay him enough because of his raw talent.
Brutal.
in MLS its either a DP contract or peanuts. Nothing in-between. That shuts out a lot of players. Adu isn’t worth DP money but he’s worth more than 100k a year.
In MLS if you are worth the money you get the money. Simple as that.
lol
Also non-DPs can make more than $100k
Good for him. I hope he does well.
Sweden! India! Cyprus! such a wealth of opportunity!
Six weeks into the season, Jagodina will announce that Adu’s contract has been sold to a team in Greenland for $3,000.00 and a case of frozen reindeer steaks.
He’s worth at least a second case of reindeer steaks.
LMAO…come on guys be nice…I am dissapointed too in the way his carrer has panned out, but he has alaways played well for the USMNT and still had techincal abilities that alot of American players still don’t have.
“he has alaways played well for the USMNT ”
Untrue
“and still had techincal abilities that alot of American players still don’t have.”
Like what abilities?
Its true he has technical ability that very few American players posses, but technical ability is only one of many necessary abilities to be a top professional. Adu clearly lacks in other areas.
Name me a midfielder in the USMNT 30 man provisional squad who has proven to be inferior to Freddy Adu.
I’ve always said his future lies in beach soccer.. he’s good with the ball in about a six foot square area…
You have to be realistic Bac. Can you really expect a guy of his age to be able to get to the beach by 11:00 am for practice? Everybody seems to think Freddy is some kind of super robot!
Awesome. Looking forward to his Americans Abroad status every week, which will probably read “Freddy Adu did not dress for Jagodina.” Occasionally, that status will be broken by a “Freddy Adu dressed but did not play for Jagodina.” Then we will see three dozen posts about how he is our most gifted tactical player.
If you’re small, slow, and play no defense, all the tactical gifts in the world mean nothing.
Exactly. Which is why he never has and never will play a significant role on anything other than a small team in a small league. Even then, the odds are against him, since small teams in small leagues don’t pay huge wages based on delusional demands.
I’ve never read any posts about Adu being gifted “tactically”.
People talk about his ball control, etc., etc. but “tactical isn’t something anyone associates with the man.
True…people here like to point out his technical skills, not tactical. In fact it’s his complete lack of tactical skills, the kind he could have leaned at an academy instead of starting in MLS, that’s helped hold him back throughout his career.
I remember a few years back when one of his ex-coaches said he simply never learned how to play soccer.
Yes, you are correct. I used the wrong word. People here do call him technically gifted.
Sh!tty player with a great agent.
Decent player that’s been getting horrible advice for his entire career. Chasing after the money instead of going to places where he might actually learn something.
He seemed really happy on his facebook page thanking God for this move. Wish him well and hopefully he turns his career around.
Will be rooting for him
he is gonna have a blast as a black man in eastern europe
Oh please, since when have the Serbs ever let things like ethnicity get in the way of their fun loving spirit?
My first thoughts exactly. Monkey chants are only going to be the tip of the iceberg. I honestly feel sorry for the guy.
damn your right. I never thought about that.
Re: Jeremiah White
According to the 2011 census, ethnic groups in the municipality of Jagodina include 68,898 Serbs, 764 Roma, 41 Romanians, and 67 Yugoslavs. UPDATE- 1 African-American.
I did not just LOL. I literally laughed out loud!
Like others, I will be rooting for him.
Super talented player that deserves to succeed. I wish him the best.
Marginally talented player that’s burned more bridges than I’d care to count. He’s been given so many opportunities, and thrown so many of them away. What makes him more deserving to succeed than anyone else?
+1 Matt
Hope he finds some playing time. People love to bash Freddy but he makes good money playing a game we love, and gets to travel the world. Good for him, as his “problems” are at least partly due to our expecations, not just his shortcomings
Good for Adu. His career hasn’t panned out as many would have hoped but he has been playing soccer for 10 years now which puts him way ahead of most and at 24 he still has a shot at redemption. I hope he finds it.
Well, I wouldn’t say he’s been “playing” for ten years. He’s been collecting splinters in his a$$ 81.3% of that decade.
The financial question only his accountant could answer is whether he’s burned through the cash earned from these payday-motivated choices. If his big concern was making money and he’s saved any, maybe the laugh’s on us. But from a sporting perspective, not so wise. Stubborn, in fact. I expect the fans will be quite rude.
My other concern playing in Serbia would be paycheck arrival. Beasley could tell you that the number on the contract is immaterial if they start repoing the gym equipment and not handing out paychecks.
If he really is 24…
http://www.bigapplesoccer.com/teams/redbulls2.php?article_id=34327
“When Jozy was 12, everybody was thinking about Adu,” Schulz said. “I always said in Boca Raton, there is a better player in our club that is a better player than Adu. People said, ‘What are you talking about? Are you kidding?’ Adu is very, very good, but he is limited. He is limited when he becomes 17- or 18-years-old. He will be physically limited because he’s not really 12-years-old.”
And this matters because?
….because if everyone knew his age, we wouldnt have been saying “wow, for an 18 yr old he’s amazing. Imagine what he’ll be like at 22 or 24.”
Players peak. I was probably one of the best players in the country when I was 10-14. National pool, great club etc. Once I hit my junior year in HS I just didn’t develop physically like everyone else. Ended up playing D3 ball. Just because a player is great at a young age and doesn’t turn into a superstar doesn’t mean he’s faking his age.
If this doesn’t work out, maybe he can become a travel agent. He’s seen a good part of the world already.