10 Championship Manager Cult Heroes

4. Freddy Adu

Championship Manager Freddy Adu
Michael Perez/AP/Press Association Images

The story of Freddy Adu is a little heartbreaking to be honest. 

Few players  have ever received as much hype as a youngster than Adu, a kid who was labelled 'the new Pele' at the tender age of 14. Soon after he signed a pro contract, making him the youngest athlete to sign a professional contract in the United States of America. Not long later, the boy was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and was advertising Campbell's Soup.

On top of all of this, he was an absolute legend when it came to Championship Manager, the land of fulfilled potential.

I had Freddy Adu on the left wing of my La Liga-winning Racing Santander side, and he was as dependable as anything, averaging close to 8.00 in a 38-game season. He scored goals, he made goals, he was everything Freddy Adu was supposed to be!

It hasn't quite worked out like this for young man Adu in the harsh reality of, erm, reality. 12 teams have taken him on, spanning 8 countries, and he's done a whole lot of nothing. Sure, he represented the US national side, but that was probably on potential alone. 

Still, he's only 26, so there's still time.

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.