Few teenage footballers - if any - have ever been hyped up more than Freddy Adu.

At the age of just 13, back in November 2003, the American signed a $1 million endorsement contract with sportswear giants Nike.

He was being referred to as “the next Pele” at the time and expectation levels could not have been greater.

Aged just 14, Adu became the younger player to appear in a Major League Soccer game.

He also became the youngest player to present the USA national team. America, it seemed at the time, had unearthed a potential phenomenon.

All of Europe’s big clubs were keeping close tabs on Adu, who could move away from D.C United and MLS in 2007, once he turned 18.

So, towards the end of 2006, Adu had a two-week trial with Sir Alex Ferguson’s revered Manchester United side.

What Ferguson said about Adu after his two-week trial

Adu, who was also attracting interest from Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea, trained alongside United’s first-team stars - the likes of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Wayne Rooney - at the Red Devils’ Carrington training complex.

Considering how his career has panned out, that sounds crazy now - but how did he get on?

Well, you might be surprised to know that Ferguson - an excellent judge of talent - was actually impressed with the teenage star.

This is according to a BBC Sport report from 2006, which quotes Ferguson as saying: "Freddy has done all right. He is a talented boy.

"He'll go back to the US and we'll keep a check on him. When he is 18, we will have to assess what we can do next."

On the purpose of the two-week trial, Ferguson added: "What we did was to bring him here to give him an idea of what United was like so he could see the place and see how comfortable he was with it.

"He is a very confident and good, young boy but there is nothing we can do about him."

Sadly for Adu, though, United decided against signing the attacking midfielder when he turned 18 in June 2007.

He joined Portuguese giants Benfica instead and that’s where his career started to go rapidly downhill.

Given Ferguson’s positive comments, it’s fair to assume that United would have signed Adu had he been 18 years old at the time of his trial.

Things could have been very, very different for the lad.