A career body of work condensed into three games of a single tournament is surely too ambitious a task for even the most accomplished and driven of professionals. Consider that this professional, American soccer player Freddy Adu, is just over a month shy of his 18^th birthday, and the statement smacks of hyperbole.

Hyperbolic though it may be, at the FIFA Under-20 World Championships in Canada, Adu is displaying the type of performances in the tournament’s group stage that indicate he is beginning to marry the tantalizing technical ability with the impossibly high expectations that have surrounded him since he burst onto the American soccer scene as a 14-year-old from Maryland, via Ghana.

But what about Adu’s meteoric rise in this country’s popular sports culture has not been over-hyped and overblown? There is a voyeuristic fascination in this country with anointing talented athletes as “phenoms” at early ages, then observe and dissect them as they mature both as professionals and as individuals.

LeBron James was crowned “King” before he was able to cast a vote in a national election, and we salivated amongst ourselves as he displayed ability in his teens that seemed to defy his age and experience; it certainly did our expectations. So the only natural response was to raise them higher, increase the standard performance for which he was responsible for providing us with.

Freddy fell into a similar trap, but there was a profound difference with his expectations and those of, say, Lebron James. There is an established history of teen prodigies in this country bringing their skills to the NBA, and competing amongst the world’s greatest athletes on the biggest stage in international basketball. That LeBron was a prodigious talent with seemingly unlimited potential was nothing new. Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, Amare Stoudamire, all entered the NBA with baby faces but armed with adult games with a swagger to match.

When in high school, LeBron was able to compete against the finest competition his age group had to offer. When it became clear this level, as well as college would not provide him adequate competition, the NBA process, with its infinite marketing machine took over and LeBron “the product” was born. There was a mechanism, and avenue in this country developing and nurturing young basketball talent, and LeBron became a product of that system. Say what you want about how the AAU circuit has degraded the fundamental quality of American basketball, it still allows young players to challenge and showcase themselves against the finest competition their age groups have to offer.

There is, however, no established mechanism, no culture in this country with developing and nurturing young talent in the game of soccer. When Freddy Adu, the sheepish 14-year-old Ghanaian immigrant became Freddy Adu, Teenage Prodigy and Savior of American Soccer, a process was set in motion that no one could predict, nor had any tangible control over. You can argue that he didn’t have to step into that spotlight, and accept the lucrative endorsements that he was being showered with, but how complicit can you be in such a decision-making process when you’re 14?

Freddy’s talented was recognized and thus showcased and exploited from the time he was 14. He signed an MLS contract not so much as a way to nurture him as a professional, and bring his game along as he matured as a person, but to enhance the public image of a struggling enterprise dwarfed by other professional sports enterprises in the country. He was part of a sophisticated and coordinated public relations campaign to “create a buzz” for the MLS, and by all accounts he did just that. He was able to hold his own playing amongst players 10-20 years his senior, but predictably, he struggled. When he wasn’t “dominating”, “taking over”, and “posterizing” the opposition, he was labeled a “bust” or “burnt out” to coin just a few American euphemisms designed to label and categorize and quantify our athletes’ accomplishments, or lack thereof.

I had the opportunity to watch Freddy play for Real Salt Lake at Foxborough, when they took on the New England Revolution. It was the day of his 18^th birthday, and he looked listless, unenthusiastic, as if he was going through the motions. The passion and fire seemed to have escaped him. But in the FIFA U-20 World Championships, suddenly there were traces of a fiery kid who is armed with undeniable technical ability, if not physical stature, and who was seizing the opportunity to perform against the world’s best young players. A spectacular hat trick against Poland was followed with two assists in a landmark win over Brazil, 2-1, which won the U.S. their group and a place in the knockout rounds.

Critics may point out that he is only playing against competition his own age, and that the finest of which have already graduated to their respective senior national teams, a feat Freddy has yet to accomplish himself. But this is only partly true. Indeed, the likes of Argentina and Barcelona’s Lionel Messi, and England and Arsenal’s Theo Walcott are not appearing in Canada. But when Freddy isolated himself in the corner late in the game against Brazil, juggled to himself, then split his two markers, setting up Jozi Altidore’s game-winning goal, it was against Brazilian left-back Marcelo, who Real Madrid saw fit to shell out around 7 million Euros for when he was 18. In an online poll voting for the best player thus far at the tournament’s website, fans selected Freddy as the second best player behind only Barcelona’s top prospect and Mexicoan youth international Giovanni dos Santos, and he is tied with Altidore for second in the tournament in scoring behind Atletico Madrid’s Argentine forward Sergio Aguero, who, at 18, was bought from Independiente for around 23 million Euros.

So if Adu is to be judged by his peers, those being young players similar to his age around the world, then he is surely putting forth a quality showing. When I spoke to Freddy on his 18^th birthday, he reiterated his desire to one-day play for a “good European club”. It’s time for him to take that step, where there exists a successful and established mechanism for developing and nurturing young talent, which simply doesn’t exist in our sports culture. He should be in a situation where soccer becomes his life, not in a commercial aspect, but in a developmental one. He needs to be in a situation where he is competing and scratching out a name for himself as an anonymous young talent amidst a sea of similarly gifted young players, not receive the throne as a squeaky voiced 14-year-old.

Holland would be a good possible destination, where the Dutch pride themselves on nurturing attack-minded, free-flowing soccer players who possess advanced technical skill. Maybe its no coincidence Freddy has exhibited his best performances under U-20 coach Thomas Rongen, Dutch born himself, Rongen is coaching Freddy in his second U-20 championship, and appears to have instilled in him the confidence and freedom to express himself on the field in a way that suits his strengths. It’s time for Freddy, for the good of his career, to leave the MLS, so that his career will no longer be about propping up a commercial enterprise. He needs to be one of dozens talented young players, with everything to prove, not the talented young player. As Brazilian U-20 coach Nelson Rodrigues said to FIFA.com following his side’s defeat to the Americans, no slouch in evaluating talent himself, “Adu is a very special footballer with the kind of ability you see usually only in South American players. He showed the efficiency that we were lacking.”