Freddy Adu signs for Tampa Bay Rowdies

If you had Tampa Bay as Freddy Adu's latest stop after flaming out of Finland's Veikkausliiga, congratulations. While most people probably had the New York Cosmos as Adu's NASL destination, it was Thomas Rongen - Adu's USMNT U-20's mentor that was able to convince him to return to the United States and play for the Rowdies.

Just 26 years old, Adu is on his twelfth (thirteenth if you count playing on his last club's reserves squad in Finland's fourth division) club. One has to wonder if the problems that have dogged him throughout his career - lack of ambition, unwillingness to train hard, being a distraction in the locker room - will follow him to Tampa Bay, of if Rongen can recapture that lightning in a bottle that he had with Adu, who hung a hat trick on Poland and had two assists against Brazil as a member of the US U-20 team in 2007.

Adu's stint with the Philadelphia Union was a forgettable one - seven goals in 35 games, all while continuously doing Freddy Adu things like being spotted at Xfinity Live! the night before a day match against the Red Bulls in New Jersey, scheduling Lasik surgery - a voluntary procedure that would have sidelined him for a few matches - during the middle of the season, and famously being barred from being with the team by John Hackworth while Hack shopped him around to anyone who would take him.

Since then, Adu has played in Brazil with Bahia, in Serbia with FK Jagondina, and in Finland with KuPS and KUFU-98 in just ten games, scoring only twice with KUFU-98.