At some point you have to feel bad for him.

He was anointed as some kind of Soccer Messiah before he was old enough to even decide what it was he really wanted to do with his life. It was decided for him. And in an age when we, the American soccer commentariat, didn’t truly understand what it took to be a world-class midfielder. (Hint: an engine. Also correct: a body capable of fighting off bruising opponents twice a week.) Freddy Adu was just 13 when the implication was made none too subtly by a Sierra Mist commercial that he was the second coming of Pele, an impression those entrusted with his development were only too happy to let fester.

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On Tuesday, news emerged that Adu, still only 27, when a soccer player ought to be in his prime, is going on trial with the Portland Timbers of Major League Soccer in his latest attempt to keep his career alive.

I'm hearing among the trialists joining PTFC in Tucson will be Freddy Adu, who has a relationship with Porter from USMNT U-23 days. #RCTID — Chris Rifer (@ChrisRifer) January 24, 2017





Since 2004, when he was just 14, Adu has played for D.C. United, Real Salt Lake, Benfica, Monaco, Belenses, Aris, Rizespor, the Philadelphia Union, Bahia, Jagodina, KuPS, KuFu and the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the United States, Portugal, Monte Carlo, Greece, Turkey, Brazil, Serbia and Finland. We mention them all not to bore you, but merely to illustrate the length of Adu’s travails in his enduring search for the destiny preordained for him.

Adu has said in the past that he didn’t take his craft seriously enough. That he should have worked harder. That he should have partied less. And that all may well be true. But it’s also true that he probably was never going to become what we thought he was. Because he lacked the capacity to play hard for 90 minutes. And the body to do it in the middle of the field – where he prefers to play, to the exclusion of an early-career switch to the wing, which might have changed some things for him.

His career is once again on life support. He has been handed yet another opportunity not on the strength of the things he has done but the promise he once held. Because at none of those clubs did Adu deliver on the expectations, or come anywhere close. The expectations, of course, towered over him so tall, casting a shadow so long, he could never hope to escape it.

It’s unpopular, perhaps, to feel bad for a man who became wealthy during puberty without earning his privilege. A man who likely remains wealthy, unless he has made catastrophic decisions. But consider a life in pursuit of a goal you’ll never reach. The world knows it. At this point, he surely knows it too. The Timbers likely have no greater hope than to find in him a solid role player. Somebody who can bring energy off the bench perhaps, and make the occasional start when a tactical plan calls for his narrow skill set.

Imagine a life spent as a synonym for failure. For under-performance. For baseless hype.

Freddy Adu will never be the Freddy Adu that made him famous. Freddy the prodigy will always be just that. Never the superstar. Like an egg unhatched. He’ll turn 28 during the upcoming MLS season – should he spend it with the Timbers or any other team – an age at which players are nearer to the end than the beginning of their careers. The best he can probably hope for is to become a late-bloomer. A wunderkind who needed a decade and a half to shake off his youth and come good as a late-arriving adult.

I’ve met Adu a few times. We had lunch once. He was hopeful about his career. That was a few years ago. He was disarmingly honest. He was also charismatic and impeccably well-mannered. I couldn’t help but like him a great deal. To root for him. Which makes it painful to write the above. He has acknowledged that these sorts of pieces on him hurt his feelings.

Almost exactly a year ago, Adu spoke of his fear of his career petering out altogether. “What has happened is I’ve gotten to the point where I’m basically scared of failure right now,” he told Goal.com. “That’s the honest truth. If I don’t change something, or change everything really about how I approach my career and this game, then that’s what’s going to happen. It’s been trending that way for a while and I’ve had to make a lot of changes.”

This was all at his last club, in Tampa Bay. Now he’s once again having to try out. Hoping to pick up the pieces of his shattered promise. Hoping to become Freddy Adu, or somebody who sort of looks like the boy from the commercial, but all grown up.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.