By Paul Kennedy
Managing Editor, Soccer America Magazine
At 16, Freddy Adu became the youngest player ever to play for the U.S. national team when he came on late in the friendly against Canada in January. But other teenagers shared the headlines with Adu early in the year. At 18, Lionel Messi, who turned pro in January with Barcelona, might make Argentina's World Cup team. Arsenal snapped up 16-year-old Theo Walcott, the hottest English prospect since Wayne Rooney, and Nigerian John Obi Mikel was making waves, on and off the field.
LIONEL MESSI: The new Maradona?
The new Maradona! Haven't we heard it before? In their time, young Argentines Diego Latorre, Ariel Ortega and Juan Ramon Riquelme were called the second coming of the great Diego Maradona.
Lionel Messi is drawing comparisons to Maradona, not just because he plays for Barcelona, the club at which Maradona started his European career.
Like Maradona, Messi won his first international title with Argentina at the World Youth Championship, which Messi won in 2005.
And like Maradona, Messi made his debut at the senior international level in a friendly game against Hungary last fall.
Like Maradona, Messi is only 5-foot-6 and that's only because he moved to Spain at the age of 13 to be treated with growth hormones.
Soon thereafter, Barcelona youth coach Carlos Rexach gave Messi a tryout and was so impressed he pulled out a napkin and signed Messi on the spot to a contract.
Messi was a top prospect in Barca's youth system, debuting in La Liga at 17, but he didn't draw considerable attention until his break-out performance for Argentina at the 2005 World Youth Championship in the Netherlands. (The only game he didn't start was the first, which Argentina lost to the USA, 1-0.)
Messi developed so quickly Barcelona risked losing him on a technicality. He could play for Barcelona as a pro because he was a foreigner, and Barcelona already had three foreign pros – the maximum – in its starting lineup. He could continue at Barca on an amateur contract, but that meant another team could snap him up for an indemnity of $350,000.
Barcelona's Messi affair was solved when he was granted Spanish citizenship in an accelerated naturalization procedure last fall.
In his second year with the first team, Messi's playing time has increased. He played in 15 of first-place Barca's 23 games and scored five goals.
He got off to a rocky start with Argentina's national team – he was sent off 90 seconds after coming on against Hungary – but has gained the confidence of Argentina national team coach Jose Pekerman.
Messi lacks the build of the muscular Maradona, who had tremendous strength despite his small frame. He won't be the main man in the Argentine attack that Maradona was once he stepped in the first team on a full-time basis in 1979.
Messi, who would probably play on the right side for Argentina behind playmaker, Riquelme, does have Maradona's ability to take on and beat defenders.
A week after his sending off against Hungary, Messi rejoined Barcelona for a final preseason tuneup at home against Juventus and tantalized the Camp Nou crowd with an assortment of moves. It was a performance that won over Juventus coach Fabio Capello.
''I saw Messi do things that I'd never seen since Maradona's departure,'' Capello said.
JOHN OBI MIKEL: Caught in the middle
Contract problems also threaten to sidetrack 18-year-old Nigerian Obi Mikel, the sensation of the African Nations Cup.
Mikel is caught in the middle of a tug-of-war between English giants Manchester United and Chelsea, who have been battling it out to sign the young Super Eagles star.
His case is one the worst examples yet of the skullduggery that takes place in the placement of young talent.
United and Chelsea spotted Mikel at the 2003 Under-17 World Championship in Finland but couldn't sign him because of FIFA's new rules restricting the movement of minors.
He signed a pro contract with Norwegian club Lyn last spring. Lyn in turn signed an agreement to sell Mikel to United, but the youngster threw United's plans up in the air when he said that he was coerced into signing and preferred to play for Chelsea.
Chelsea stepped forward to claim it had an option with Mikel based on its agreement to pay for Mikel's tuition and that of three other Nigerian teenagers at an Oslo soccer school run by a former pro, Rune Hauge.
Things got so bad that Mikel ran away last spring from the hotel he was being holed up in Oslo, eventually reappearing in the company of a Nigerian agent in London, where he reasserted his intentions to play for Chelsea.
Six months later, the case remains at an impasse. Mikel hoped to have an Oslo court nullify the contract he signed with Lyn, but it ruled it had no jurisdiction in the dispute. FIFA will ultimately be called upon to resolve the matter.
In the meantime, Mikel joined Nigeria's senior national team for the African Nations Cup, where he helped lead the Super Eagles to third place.
Coming on for the first time in the 53rd minute against Zimbabwe, he set up one goal and scored a second in his first seven minutes on the field.
Mikel was voted the top newcomer at Egypt '06 and is the successor to retiring Jay-Jay Okocha as playmaker for the Super Eagles.
THEO WALCOTT: The natural born scorer
Englishman Theo Walcott is modest about his soccer skills as a child.
He didn't kick a ball until he was 10 and didn't play his first season of organized soccer until he was 11. Walcott says he didn't have a clue about how to play that first season.
All he did was score 100 goals in 35 games.
Those kind of numbers, even at the U-11 level, attract attention, and he soon left his hometown AFC Newbury, first for Swindon Town, then to Southampton, where he remained until January when he was sold to Arsenal for $8 million.
Walcott is considered the best English prospect to come along since Wayne Rooney. He finished school last spring and joined Southampton's academy program over the summer. He quickly moved up to the first team for which he scored five goals before being sold.
At first, his father drove him to and from Southampton for practice twice a week. Since the summer, he lived in a hotel dormitory with other players in its academy program.
News of a 2 million-pound ($3.6 million) transfer offer from Chelsea last year excited a girl in his class, who thought it meant that Walcott would get the money.
No, Walcott can't sign his first professional contract until March. Until then, all he earns is a stipend of $150 a month.
(This article originally appeared in the March 2006 issue of Soccer America Magazine.)