world cup-ees who claim dubious provenance

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Morbius is irked that Mike Piazza (~~New York~~ San Diego ~~catcher~~ first baseman) gets to play for the Italians in the World Baseball Classic; he sez, with some logic, that Piazza's simply not Italian, he's A Murkin. And he is. Altho altho, Piazza's grandpa was BORN in old Italy. Are there World Cuppers who pull this routine, and what do you think of it?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:12 (twenty years ago)

http://www.pibburns.com/ireland.jpg

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:13 (twenty years ago)

I'm pretty sure that the more controversial World Cup practice is when naturalized citizens of a country play for that country rather than the country they are born in. I'm pretty sure there are quite a few current U.S. players who fall under this category.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:15 (twenty years ago)

Although looking at the current US team I can't find anyone who wasn't born here so maybe I am wrong.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:17 (twenty years ago)

Freddy Adu, surely?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:18 (twenty years ago)

Convinced he would never get a game for Scotland (obviously he couldn't foresee how shite our midfield could get), Ged Brannan got himself capped for the Cayman Islands.

Only slightly less ridiculously, professional geezer Vinnie Jones spent part of his career kidding on he was Welsh.

There was some controversy about Deco choosing Portugal over Brazil, wasn't there? I'm sure his first game was against Brazil and the commentators were making it out to be a big deal (this doesn't mean it actually was a big deal, I'm sure).

― ailsa (ailsa), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:19 (twenty years ago)

Oh wait it is just listing hometown as in WHERE they live as opposed to WHERE they are born so nevermind.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:20 (twenty years ago)

Anyway, this is quite common. In recent years the Italian national team has had Christian Vieri (Australian) and Simone Perrota (English) line-up for it. Vieri's brother Max actually has been capped by Australia, to make it all the more ridiculous. England has Owen Hargreaves, who has never spent a day of his life living in the UK, let alone England. The Irish national team was notorious for this practice in the mid 90s, where references to "His grandmother drank a pint of Guiness once" abounding in the national press. In a similar fashion, of the so-called "Reggae Boyz" who played for Jamaica in 98, the star names were all second and third generation Jamaican immigrants whose forefathers had came over to England in the 50s and 60s, and weren't anywhere near good enough to get in the England side.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:21 (twenty years ago)

(I realise that Vinnie Jones and Ged Brannan never got to a World Cup, but what the hell...)

― ailsa (ailsa), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:22 (twenty years ago)

And of course, there's the case of Emmanuel Olisadebe:

http://www.sporting-heroes.net/files_footballworldcup/OLISADEBE_E_20020614_GH_L.jpg

You might not be able to tell from that photo, but he isn't actually Polish. If I remember correctly, the Polish government changed the citizenship laws solely to enable him to play for their national team instead of Nigeria's.

Also, haven't Kuwait and the UAE effectively "signed" a bunch of African players and paid for them to adopt Arab citizenship so they can play for their national team?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:24 (twenty years ago)

All of this makes me love the World Cup.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:26 (twenty years ago)

Fuck nationalism. I like it when things are messy.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:26 (twenty years ago)

Not to forget players like Zinedine Zidane, John Barnes, and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, who instead of playing for their country of birth (Algeria, Jamaica, and Surinam) played instead for the heads of their respective commonwealths instead. Long live the Empire.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:28 (twenty years ago)

Actually, looking into this a bit closer, Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf, and Aron Winter were all Surinamese by birth as well! Man, Surinam could have been a player in the late 90s footbal sphere with a team like that!

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:30 (twenty years ago)

another map. another planet

5 teams??
http://www.realdaysout.co.uk/Map/images/britishisles.gif

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:32 (twenty years ago)

surely 2

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:32 (twenty years ago)

actually do jersey and guernsey have a team?

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:33 (twenty years ago)

See also the procession of players that got capped for Scotland because they weren't ever going to get a game for England (Dominic Matteo, Matt Elliott, Graham Alexander, Nigel Quashie, Andy Goram etc etc etc)

Celtic starlet Aiden McGeady has decided he's Irish (his grandmother made a pan of Irish stew once, or something) because Celtic wouldn't let him play for Scotland. This, sadly, is true, and probably why we end up with dross like Graham Alexander instead.

(xpost if Jersey had a team it would be Graham Le Saux and Matt Le Tissier and, erm, Bergerac?)

― ailsa (ailsa), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:34 (twenty years ago)

Wasn't the entire Senegal team that beat France in 2002 all French?

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:34 (twenty years ago)

Celtic starlet Aiden McGeady has decided he's Irish (his grandmother made a pan of Irish stew once, or something) because Celtic wouldn't let him play for Scotland. This, sadly, is true,

No it isn't.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:35 (twenty years ago)

Channel Island footballers also have the option to play for France though, correct? I'm sure Le Tissier was offered the chance to play for Les Bleus back in the early 90s.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:35 (twenty years ago)

Celtic were quite happy for McGeady to play for Scotland, they wouldn't let him (or any other Celtic kid) play for his school team because he was getting ~~shite~~ inferior coaching and because they didn't want their investments getting injured.

The SFA then refused to select him for Scotland because he wasn't playing for his school team so Ireland was his only option for international schoolboy football. That he chose to stay with Ireland after he came of age is entirely understandable.

Nowadays no SPL club allows their players to play for school teams and the SFA has had to change their selection policy.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:43 (twenty years ago)

Didn't stop the press from working the Paddy McBigot angle all the same.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:44 (twenty years ago)

OK, pedant, Celtic wouldn't let him play for his school and you can't get a Scotland schoolboy cap if you don't play for your school. So Celtic sort of wouldn't let him play for Scotland, in a roundabout sort of way. Will that do?

(xpost)

― ailsa (ailsa), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:45 (twenty years ago)

Ah yer too late :-P

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:47 (twenty years ago)

actually do jersey and guernsey have a team?

I *believe* Guernsey applied for national team status to FIFA within the past year but were knocked back, alongside some Danish territory?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 10 March 2006 00:58 (twenty years ago)

Didn't Tony Cascarino find out that his Irish grandmother wasn't, in fact, Irish, thus making him ineligible for the national team? I remember reading that in an excerpt from his notorius autobiography when it was serialised somewhere. He told someone (another Irish player?) about it, who told him to keep his mouth shut until he retired. Which he did.

Can you naturalise someone then get them to play for your national team? Surely not?

― Matt #2 (Matt #2), Friday, 10 March 2006 01:23 (twenty years ago)

I think Mastroeni was born in Argentina.

― Rotgutt (Rotgutt), Friday, 10 March 2006 01:48 (twenty years ago)

Can you naturalise someone then get them to play for your national team? Surely not?

I think the ruling is that if they've been resident in your country for five or more years and have never played for their national team they can apply for dual citizenship and play for their adopted country. There was talk a couple of years back of Lorenzo Amoruso playing for Scotland, like we needed another big hairy useless centre half. Didier Agathe was allegedly another candidate.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 10 March 2006 10:14 (twenty years ago)

Carlo Cudicini for England! Though he said he'd never even think of it, didn't he?

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 10 March 2006 10:43 (twenty years ago)

Alfredo di Stefano to thread.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Friday, 10 March 2006 11:05 (twenty years ago)

(not that he played in a WC, mind)

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Friday, 10 March 2006 11:05 (twenty years ago)

Didn't Puskas play for Spain too?

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 10 March 2006 11:07 (twenty years ago)

Again, not in a World Cup tho

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 10 March 2006 11:07 (twenty years ago)

Just Fontaine is the only player to play for two different nations in the world cup, correct? (excluding former Yugoslavian, Czech, and Soviet players).

Also: what did the first Israeli national team consist of?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 10 March 2006 11:28 (twenty years ago)

Who, apart from France, did Just Fontaine play for?

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 10 March 2006 11:29 (twenty years ago)

in a reversal of sorts, the majority of croatia's defence - didulica, seric, simunic - is australian and they probably would be playing for us too if they hadn't been fucked around by the old administration.

tim cahill couldn't play for australia for a very long time because he helped make up the numbers for samoa (his mother's from there I think) in an under-20 friendly - at 14! - and was tied to them from thereon, despite samoa having no interest in calling him up at any point since.

― electrogrouse (haitch), Friday, 10 March 2006 12:55 (twenty years ago)

pretty sure puskas played for spain at the '62 WC, not di stefano tho.

― electrogrouse (haitch), Friday, 10 March 2006 13:00 (twenty years ago)

also luis monti (on the losing end in the final for the argies in '30, champion with italy in '34). italy pinched quite a few players from uruguay and argentina like that in the '30s and '50s.

― electrogrouse (haitch), Friday, 10 March 2006 13:20 (twenty years ago)

Yes, that's right

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 10 March 2006 13:21 (twenty years ago)

who can forget world cup winner and two-time oceania footballer of the year, new caledonia's christian karembeu??

― electrogrouse (haitch), Friday, 10 March 2006 13:27 (twenty years ago)

one reason i ask i because the Wall Street Journal ran a piece recently on this phenomenon for the Classic, and rather hilariously i thought attempted to make the genealogy required of those who want to play for their grandparents' country into some laborious, UNNATURAL act. but what could be more natural than the country one's grandparents come from? and isn't fusting about with old letters and photographs and notebooks, and tracing the steps of one's family kinda, i dunno, neat?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 10 March 2006 14:31 (twenty years ago)

"Some players were forced to rummage through old boxes of family records and photos to document the exact birthplace of a grandfather."

the horror!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 10 March 2006 14:32 (twenty years ago)

Fontaine was also capped for Morrocco, I believe?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 10 March 2006 14:34 (twenty years ago)

Not quite right on Zidane and Vieri. Zidane, although having Algerian parents, was born in Marseille and has lived the majority of his life in France. Vieri was born in Bologna, happened to live in Australia between the ages of 4 and 14, but has played his entire professional career in Europe, so can't really be claimed to be Australian.

― ojitarian (ojitarian), Friday, 10 March 2006 15:41 (twenty years ago)

I guess it's hard to know what to do with nation sluts like that.

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Friday, 10 March 2006 15:44 (twenty years ago)

They should be made to play for Antarctica. Great squad, terrible training facilities.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Friday, 10 March 2006 15:52 (twenty years ago)

The UK has four national teams and only one nationality (is that right? I think so). So a UK citizen born outside the UK is allowed to choose which of the "home" nations they represent.

Now I'm actually posting the above, I've no idea whether any of it is actually true. Since I'm carrying the fact(oid) around in my head though, I might as well share it. Please accept my apologies if I've made it up; please correct me if I have.

― Tim (Tim), Friday, 10 March 2006 15:52 (twenty years ago)

so theoretically, i can play for scotland?

(after all, i lived 10 years in Aberdeen, Hong Kong. in my childhood)

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 10 March 2006 15:55 (twenty years ago)

No. The 4 "home" nations have the same birth/parentage rules as the rest of FIFA, I think.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 10 March 2006 15:57 (twenty years ago)

Oh wait, I'm wrong. Didn't read the "born outside the UK" bit.

As you were, and good luck filling that tricky full-back slot Ken.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 10 March 2006 15:58 (twenty years ago)

I'm leaving that one alone.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 10 March 2006 16:05 (twenty years ago)

http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/fifa/gen/fifa/20050707/i/1085364912.jpg

Chris Burchill's mother (or was it grandmother) was merely born in Trinidad & Tobago (but not of native descent there) and this is enough for him to play for their national squad. No complaints from anyone though, certainly not after that terrific goal he scored against Bahrain.

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 10 March 2006 16:09 (twenty years ago)

There may be a few complaints when he repeats the feat against England

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 10 March 2006 16:12 (twenty years ago)

you mean 'if'

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 10 March 2006 16:13 (twenty years ago)

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