After two years away from the pitch, former American soccer sensation Freddy Adu has signed a deal to return to professional soccer with Sweden’s Osterlen FF.
Adu, who last played for the USL’s Las Vegas Knights in 2018, has inked a contract to return to the game in a very modest fashion, signing with a team in tiny Brantevik, Sweden which plays in the country’s third tier.
The 31-year-old player expressed his happiness with the deal on social media with a series of posts showing his excitement to sign for Osterlen.
Adu, once considered one of the world’s biggest soccer sensations, has seen his career fall into a downhill spiral over the past decade. After debuting for MLS’s DC United at the age of 14 in 2003, he then moved to Real Salt Lake before making a $2 million to Portuguese behemoths Benfica in 2007.
After failing to impress with Benfica, Adu went out on a series of unsuccessful loans to AS Monaco, Belenenses, Aris, and Çaykur Rizespor before returning to the MLS’s Philadelphia Union in 2011.
He then played two seasons with the Union, improving and scoring 7 goals in 35 matches before heading off to Brazil’s Bahia, where he flopped once again.
After short stints with Serbia’s Jagodina and Finland’s KuPS, Adu returned to the States where he spent three seasons playing for NASL and USL clubs, scoring only 1 goal in 27 matches.
Adu will now have one more, and perhaps the final, chance to get his career back on track at the age of 31 in the most modest of surroundings.
