Soccer America: Adu joins Monaco as an ambassador to France

AS Monaco finalized the loan deal that brings American Freddy Adu from Benfica to the French league. Jerome de Bontin, Monaco's French-American president, said Thursday that the club has an option to buy Adu for 5 million euros ($8 million) at the end of the season, and he was on the lookout to sign another American before the end of the French transfer window in August. "He is the leading figure of a new generation of U.S. players," de Bontin said of Adu. "He is going to be an ambassador for the United States. I can picture Freddy Adu, for instance, as the one player who can do for U.S. soccer what Greg LeMond did for U.S. cycling when he won his first Tour de France. Let's be frank, U.S. soccer is unknown in France and in some ways looked down upon. Freddy and AS Monaco can change that." De Bontin, who is overseeing all... [read full story]