Adams came to Yeadon to dedicate a new mini soccer pitch at an elementary school. Then he talked with The Inquirer about the high stakes of the last summer before the biggest World Cup ever.
On the last day before the U.S. men's soccer team starts a high-pressure summer, star midfielder Tyler Adams could have been anywhere.
He chose to be at Bell Avenue Elementary School in Yeadon to help the U.S. Soccer Foundation and its sponsors open a new mini pitch.
It was a nice gesture by one of the national team's most popular players, and it was as heartfelt for him as it was well-received by the crowd.
"Being abroad, you sometimes lose the sense of the impact that you have," Adams told The Inquirer, referring to his club home, the English Premier League's Bournemouth. "I think coming back is always a realization that there's more to what you're doing than just playing. Giving back to my community is something that I've emphasized I've wanted to do for a really long time."
The Philadelphia area isn't exactly his community, as the 26-year-old grew up in New York's Hudson Valley. But it was enough that Adams felt at home, especially as one of the sport's leading Black Americans, in a diverse community. He felt the simple pleasure of "being able to hang out with the kids and kind of realize the influence that you have."
Adams spent some time with youth players at the new facility, a hard court about the size of a basketball court. (His 16-month-old son, Jax, made an enthusiastic cameo.) He watched a clinic on a nearby field and gave remarks with school principal Dr. Kim Evans, longtime U.S. Soccer Foundation president Ed Foster-Simeon, and sponsors' officials.
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Then he went inside, sat down in one of the classrooms, and talked candidly about what's next.
When the U.S. takes the field next Saturday to play Turkey in East Hartford, Conn. (3:30 p.m., TNT and Telemundo 62), it will be the team's first game since the ugly flop at the Nations League final four in March. Critics of the losses to Panama and Canada have been swift and loud, and Adams has not stood in their way.
"Obviously, I can only speak from an individual perspective, and anyone that knows me knows I hate losing," Adams said. "There's not a sense of complacency ... but we just need to know that when you start winning, it becomes infectious, the same way that a bad run of results can come become infectious. So we need to break that cycle. It needs to happen quickly."
After the Turkey game, the U.S. will play Switzerland on June 10 in Nashville, then head to the Concacaf Gold Cup. Though the regional championship mostly has less-famous opponents, the tournament is the last official competition before the World Cup. That makes for even more pressure for the U.S. to win the title.
" READ MORE: Why the U.S. men's Nations League flop became about who wasn't there, not just who was
"We have a good opportunity in front of us here with the Gold Cup," Adams said. "And we can't just keep saying we have good opportunities. We actually have to take ahold of these opportunities."
The 27-player training camp before the games will be overshadowed by talk of who isn't there. Christian Pulisic, the team's biggest star, has drawn more criticism than he's ever received at home for asking out after a long European season. There have been reports since then of a chronic hip issue, but he hasn't said anything about it.
Other major absentees include star left back Antonee Robinson, who's having knee surgery; midfielder Yunus Musah, who asked out to deal with personal matters; and midfielders Weston McKennie and Gio Reyna and winger Tim Weah, who will be at the Club World Cup.
"It's always a little bit of a sticky situation, right?" he said. "Because from the outside, it can look like something more than what it really is."
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As Adams addressed the subject, he didn't name anyone. But he didn't have to.
"Put the soccer and physical side to the side -- I think it's more of a mental thing," he said. "They need a mental break, and they need to shut off for a second, and I understand that side of things. I think from a personal perspective, I've probably not played as many games as some of those people this year or in the past two seasons, so I feel a little bit more eager to play with the national team and be able to represent my country."
The reference to numbers of games played was as close as he came to Pulisic's situation. Soccer stats outlet Opta recently noted that the Hershey native is one of only 10 players across Europe's five biggest leagues to have played at least 50 club games in each of the last two seasons. That's a pool of around 2,400 players across the top divisions in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.
U.S. manager Mauricio Pochettino filled the holes in the roster with MLS players he wants to see, including the Union's Quinn Sullivan. Whatever the future holds, Adams hopes the newcomers take their chance to make an impression.
"For me, it's exciting because I was a kid from MLS that got an opportunity to play with the national team," he said. "I believe that a lot of these kids deserve to have a chance to play. But now, it's about showing up and really realizing the opportunity in front of you."
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If criticism is bad, apathy is worse, and there's been plenty of that, too. The U.S. played to notably small crowds at the Nations League. While ticket sales were run by Concacaf, not U.S. Soccer, a spring weekend in Los Angeles was not a destination trip for many fans of the U.S. team.
There's also a sense around the sport that American men's players aren't that big a deal at home, even those who play for big European teams. They're seen on TV all the time, but rarely felt as true presences.
Would it be different if they played in the United States, where they'd be seen in person more often? That's not to say they should, because the big European leagues are a higher level than MLS, and that's where top players need to be. But is there something missing with stars working abroad?
Perhaps Adams was onto something when he talked about the feeling of coming home. Asked his opinion, he agreed with the idea and said he has discussed it among colleagues.
"When you're abroad, you just don't have the same opportunities as being in the States," he said. "When you play in MLS, and you're a good player in MLS and American, you're probably going to have opportunities to do more things than guys playing abroad because our schedules are just a little bit more enduring and we just don't have as much time."
" READ MORE: U.S. manager Mauricio Pochettino wants his team to play with more intensity. Can Brenden Aaronson help bring it?
There are ways to fix that, not all of which are the players' responsibility. But a big one is: Get back to winning games. That will fix a lot of things, not least among the U.S. team's frustrated fan base.
"I think that we've, in a sense, probably lost a little bit of momentum," Adams said. "I think a bad run of results is always going to have a negative effect of some sorts. But when you play well and you win and you create that noise around the team again leading into a World Cup, that's going to be the biggest thing."
Adams has long been one of the U.S. team's most outspoken players and one of the most respected as a result. Though he doesn't always wear the captain's armband in games, he is widely seen as the de facto captain by fans and in the locker room.
"I think people sometimes try to beat around the bush a little bit of what needs to happen and how it needs to happen," Adams said. "I consider myself a leader in the team. I've always considered myself a leader at whatever level I've played at. I think people need to be able to deal with the truth and deal with the circumstances -- I've always been able to do that myself."
He knows not everyone else is like that, and he knows it can be a risk to talk as candidly as he does. There are times when he wishes he might have dialed it back a little. But overall, he said, this is how he wants to be, for club or country.
"Oh, I don't care," Adams said, later adding that "if anything, there's more pride and more emotion" when he's with the national team.
"Honestly, it's not, you know, 16-year-old me when I first started playing, and then 17-year-old me when I made my debut at the national team, [and] I was a little bit careful," he said. "I say what I want. I stand by it."