Adu—Oh No He Did-uhnt!

It's a beautiful thing when adults come together with a minor child's best interests at heart. The grown-ups who run DC United are reportedly scrambling to warn sometime-wunderkind Freddy Adu off a move to Manchester United. There's ominous talk of six-four "goons" at Watford (presumably not a reference to Adu's future national team comrade Jay DeMerit, who stands only 5'11") and the threatening suggestion that ManUtd occasionally plays games in the rain...Zooks!

The United (our United) brass apparently urge a move to the Dutch league for their young apprentice. As it happens, this more or less accords with the official XIDevils fatwa on the subject—I can't think of a more potent recipe for disaster than an Adu move to one of England's Big Two. At Chelski or Man U, Frederico will sit on the bench; hell, he'll probably sit on the bench for the reserve team. He'll pout; he'll whinge; he'll get in a nightclub brawl with Craig Bellamy or some damn thing. The kid needs to go somewhere where he'll play in the First XI all the time (thus to accustom himself to those towering goons).

At the same time, you can almost hear the wails of anguish in the MLS financial department, where they've probably already built a $10M Old Trafford transfer into next year's budget for halftime entertainment at the MLS All-Star Game. They'll just have to ratchet down their expectations...a bushel of organic potatoes from Rapid Bucharest, anyone?