FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. — It’s a strange thing when someone can sit next to a version of their future, but there was Adri Mehmeti on Wednesday morning seated next to Tyler Adams.
Mehmeti, 17 years old, will likely receive his first senior national team cap over the next two weeks amid a breakout season for the Red Bulls. He has a calmness on the ball that makes people think he will be the holding midfielder of the future for the USMNT, sort of like how Adams was called into his first camp nine years ago at 18 to play the same position, after breaking out for the same club team, with all those hopes on his shoulders.
“It’s a big step for me,” Mehmeti said. “Coming in with all these young guys and experienced guys, being able to learn [from] them, seeing the different characters and how it blends into the style that the U.S. wants to play, it’s been great. It’s a big jump. It’s going to take some time to get used to.”
Adams knew Mehmeti and fellow Red Bulls teenager Julian Hall prior to this camp, having heard about them when they were of middle school age and working their way through the academy. He has made clear that he’s here for support, and that as big an opportunity as this is, there’s nothing wrong with making mistakes and learning from them.
“Every single player that’s got called into this camp has the potential to become a really good player,” Adams said. “It’s about going through that process.”
Within that, though, Mehmeti sticks out as someone who could become special, dangerous as that word is to attach to a 17-year-old who is only at the start of everything.
The Staten Island native is still, well, 17 years old, with everything that implies about all the development he still needs. But the technical ability and distribution from central midfield is real. So too is the way his skill set might complement Adams’ more defensive nature, should the two get a shot to play together in midfield at some point over the next two weeks.
“Watching him at the highest levels, you can see the character that he has, the personality. What he’s willing to do with and without the ball, watching him be a role model for me,” Mehmeti said. “Because hopefully one day I can take a similar pathway that he’s taken.”
You would say he’s made a pretty good start there.
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