I am sick and tired of all the hate that Freddy gets from many Union fans. He was wrongfully anointed the savior of US soccer when he was a 14 year old kid and it is ridiculous how many people cannot get over that. He did not bring it on himself, but rather the media brought this attention to him and thus he has been held him to unrealistic expectations. I will admit that as the highest paid player on the Union, he should consistently be one of the best players on the field-- and he has not done that time in and time out. However, he is the only player on the Union that, when he is "on", single handedly dominates a game, and he needs to start every game for this reason alone.

Forget about Freddy the wunderkid, he is almost certainly never coming to fruition (albeit he has had some terrific cameos). However, the Adu that the Union have is pretty damn good in his own right. I feel that people analyze his game way too closely and overstate every little mistake he makes simply because he is on this pedestal where he isn't expected to make any mistakes. If you view him objectively, I think you would see that he is one of the top 3 players on this team. After all, the most important statistic of all seems to imply that he is pretty important to this team:

Union record with Freddy in starting line-up: 7-6-0

Union record without Freddy in starting line-up: 0-4-2