Adu was tipped for greatness in his early teens, but expectations engulfed the then youngster.
Reflecting on Yamal's sudden rise tp stardom, Adu told Football Odds: "There are similarities between me and Yamal, because he's been heralded as a huge talent at such a young age and know around the world at this point just like I was!
"I do think that our situations are a little different. Yamal is obviously at this age already performing at a much higher level than even I was at the time. He's won the Euros already and fully integrated into the national set-up and is one of the best players for his national team leading them to the latter stages of most tournaments he’s played so far.
"He plays for one of the biggest clubs in the world in Barcelona and grew up in the youth system. He's been in that system his whole life, he knows that system. He’s comfortable and it’s all worked out perfectly for him.
"Our playing style was very similar, he’s very skilful, coming in from the right side, cutting in, getting his shots off. I played striker and I played as a winger, sometimes on the right, sometimes on the left, but mostly in the middle, wow I played everywhere!
"Yamal is very skilful. His left foot is just sublime and brilliant. He’s very similar to me, just much more polished than I was at the same age."
Advice for Yamal
In terms of advice for Yamal, who has just turned 18, Adu says the teen should simply focus on his football.
He explained, "All eyes are on him all the time, and that's really hard. For me personally, I couldn't just be a regular kid, and this is coming from someone in America. In the US, football isn't even one of the biggest sports, yet I was going through that and couldn’t handle it.
"I can't even imagine how it is for Yamal in Spain and the attention he must get. It's probably just magnified 1000 times, because football is their national sport and he plays for the biggest team. Everywhere he goes, everything he does; all eyes are on him. As a young player, when you're put in a situation like that, it's just very, very difficult to handle.
"My advice would be for him to just put his head down, train and just focus on his craft. Because there is a lot of distractions, some stuff in the newspapers that I've seen where he was with a woman that was way older than him on vacation, everybody's talking about it. Every little thing he does is going to be talked about by everybody."