Link? I thought you had to be a citizen, aka eligible for the team, not eligible to get citizenship. Or are they counting potential dual citizenships as some sort of passive citizenship?
This is really a matter of semantics. When you are born overseas to an American citizen who meets residency rules and a foreign national, you are automatically a US citizen, even if you or your parents never apply for nor intend to apply for a US passport. You are also probably a citizen of your foreign parent's country (though you may not be a citizen of the country you were born in -- the US is one of the few countries that award citizenship based on place of birth). Depending on a lot a factors, you could have 5 or 6 citizenships at birth or shortly thereafter. An example would be Danny Williams. He had represented Germany at U-15 level. He never had a US passport until about 8 days before his first match with the US team. http://www.socceramerica.com/article/44055/danny-williams-passport-in-hand-ready-to-serve-u.html I've tried digging through FIFA regulations, but they aren't easy for finding the pertinent passage with the interpretation. As I understand it, FIFA is differentiating this type of citizenship (one you are born with or acquire early in life) from naturalization which some federations are using to quickly grab players to fill out their rosters. If a young man moved to the US with his parents from Honduras and participated in a U-17 tournament for Honduras before his parents became naturalized in the US, then he wouldn't meet the provisions to be able to make the one time switch. I'm sure I could be wrong, but all the articles I'm reading seem to follow this line of reasoning.
Derrick's dad was was born and bred in America and was serving in Germany when he met Derrick's mum who is Irish! The family then moved to the states where Derrick lived till he was 7 before moving to Ireland. He has a younger sister who was born in America so he would have no problem proving his eligibility to play for USA if he wanted I think he choose Ireland because he lived there from 7 years old and considers there home...
Where does he fall on Villa's depth chart? Might it be better for him to be loaned out to a lower division team?
He got straight red tonight for ROI U-21 against Italy in 2013 qualifying. Interestingly, Ireland had already been eliminated from next summer's tournament.
http://www.avfc.co.uk/page/ReservesProfile/0,,10265~2091284,00.html I wonder if Tab Ramos even knew about this kid. We definitely should have made contact for the U-20's.
Correct. According to this link, he has played for the Irish U17 & U21 teams in UEFA competition: http://www.uefa.com/teamsandplayers/players/player=250012722/profile/index.html
An Irish buddy of mine in NYC grew up with Derrick's family. This kid is very proud to be part of the Irish system. File this as unlikely. Even just following him on twitter, he's committed to Ireland
Hey you never know. If I had a twitter and was a baller you'd think I'd be proud to be part of Irish system too. At the minimum you'd hope that Tab reached out.
The Republic of Ireland U21 international turned down a new deal with the Premier League club in order to secure regular football with City. "I thought it was a good opportunity," he told BBC Radio Bristol. "I wanted to play games and Bristol City are a big club so I thought I'd take it and see how it goes." The age old question: Stay with the big club or get PT at the smaller club? Hopefully he made the right choice!
Good news is he's starting regularly, bad news is he hasn't won yet: http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/derrick-williams/leistungsdaten/spieler_128287.html