Sooner or later, EVA and financial performance converge, as long as the accounting adheres to the Clean Surplus Relation. Accounting is like a black hole: eventually it sucks in all value created (or destroyed) as "abnormal earnings." The present value of abnormal earnings is equal to the net present value of the firm's investments. EVA typically measures this more quickly than accounting does, because accounting is conservative. But if you consider all future abnormal earnings and all future EVA, the present value must be the same.

Economic Value Added is a short term criterion, just for one year..It is an interesting one because, it tells us that making a profit is not enough for the firm. In fact this profit must be higher than the average cost of capital multiplied by  the invested capital at the beginning of the period. In others words, real profit happens when you are able to pay your assets'consumption and thus, you will be able to renew them in due time when mandatory. But it is a short-sighted criterion, and some firms avoid some long term investment to keep their EVA positive instead of preparing the future. Beware short term financial performance must not be achieved at the expense  of long term financial performance!