From Soccer America:

Hackworth points out the players who spent their early years in other countries often have exceptional ball skills because they played endless, unorganized soccer.'

'There's no secret to that,'' says Hackworth. ''That's how you become a good soccer player.

''Whether it was Freddy Adu or Alex Nimo or Abdus Ibrahim -- all these guys -- they kicked anything they could. They played anytime they could and that ball was the one thing in their whole world that was their prize possession.''

In fact, most the African players never put on a uniform until they joined an American youth team. Adu never even played with shoes on until he joined a Maryland youth club.

''The first time I put on a pair of cleats they felt so funny and uncomfortable I took them off after a few minutes and played barefoot again,'' said Adu.

The closest Alex Nimo ever came to wearing a uniform was when he used chalk to write the No. 9 -- for Ronaldo -- on the back of a T-shirt he wore when he played, often with kids twice his age, on the dirt streets of the Buduburan refugee camp in Ghana.

"The U.S. national team program has also increased its efforts to uncover players from immigrant communities."