Kids who aren't citizens, aren't close, and #!*%! immigration...

Discussion in 'Youth National Teams' started by Real Corona, Oct 7, 2011.

  1. BostonRed

    BostonRed Member+

    Oct 9, 2011
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Citizenship does pass down. But you can't play for that FIFA country unless you live there for 2 years, if you are relying on a great-grandparent for the closest person born in the territory (thus why FIFA put in the granny clause in the first place).
     
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  2. USvsIRELAND

    USvsIRELAND Member+

    Jul 19, 2004
    ATL
    Hmmmmmm.

    I would argue that article 6 works for Zelalem because if his parents get citizenship he is not technically "acquiring" it as because he is a minor he automatically becomes a citizen. But thats not legalese so I donno. These are good questions you bring up.
     
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  3. USvsIRELAND

    USvsIRELAND Member+

    Jul 19, 2004
    ATL
    Since you are interested in this stuff I suggest you check out the citizenship issue between the Republic of Ireland (FAI) and Northern Ireland (IFA).

    FAI has been calling up Northern Irish kids who have no familial connections to the Republic (no parents or grandparents born in Republic). The Northern Irish kids are eligible for Republic citizenship because of the Good Friday agreement entitling all people on the Island to Republic citizenship.

    The IFA has brought this up with FIFA but failed in stopping the players from playing for the FAI.

    Summary here:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_eligibility_rules#The_Irish_dispute
     
  4. BostonRed

    BostonRed Member+

    Oct 9, 2011
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    In my reading on this, I found some articles that says that FIFA doesn't accept the heritage of your adoptive family if it isn't the same as the family that gave you up for adoption. I can't find the articles now (no desire to plow through them again), but they wouldn't let you claim a parent for the purposes of this regulation. I'm sure this case in the UK will shine a lot of light on the two articles. I'm surprised no journalist has discussed the articles (though one English writer said they were confusing because of the 2 and 5 year language).
     
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  5. BostonRed

    BostonRed Member+

    Oct 9, 2011
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I saw bits and pieces as I went through. Fascinating set of issues. I'll definitely revisit sometime.
     
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  6. fdfd

    fdfd Member

    May 31, 2012
    I see this thread a little differently.. I am a hardcore USMNT supporter but I also don't like our laws and sovereignty violated. My first question when I see a kid like Diego Fagundez who doesn't have his papers isn't to curse the fact that he's not a citizen but to question why his parents were here in the first place.

    In a perfect world of course this country would protect its borders and papers for prospective USMNT players who aren't citizens would be fast-tracked, like most countries in the world
     
  7. Real Corona

    Real Corona Member+

    Jan 19, 2008
    Colorado
    Club:
    FC Metalist Kharkiv
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Like who?
     
  8. fdfd

    fdfd Member

    May 31, 2012
    which part?
     
  9. Real Corona

    Real Corona Member+

    Jan 19, 2008
    Colorado
    Club:
    FC Metalist Kharkiv
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The bolded part.
     
  10. rhrh

    rhrh Member

    Mar 5, 2010
    Club:
    AC Milan
    Look at the case of Almunia. He never played for Spain. He talked about wanting to play for England. When he has lived in England for 5 years, he could pursue citizenship and play for England.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...England-calls-Arsenal-goalkeeper-Almunia.html

    Point being, are we that desperate to have kids on our MNT so soon that we are pressuring them to get citizenship? Or is there something different about getting US citizenship vs. all the other countries getting citizenship for foreign players they pick and choose? Is FIFA playing favorites with smaller countries who essentially pay players to get citizenship and play for their national team?

    Also:
    http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/289417-Qatari-Citizenship
     
  11. BostonRed

    BostonRed Member+

    Oct 9, 2011
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Well, the one thing that is different about Diego's case (and Najar's to an extent), is that he came over as a child. He had no involvement in the decision to stay here. That's why there is such a focus on the DREAM Act, because it focuses on those who were not adults when they came over. It has seemed cruel to send children back to a country they never knew should they ever be deported.
     
  12. USvsIRELAND

    USvsIRELAND Member+

    Jul 19, 2004
    ATL
    Diego Fagundez is american in every way except for some ink on a piece of paper.

    Hopefully he waits until the ink dries to make a NT appearance. If not, oh well.
     
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  13. fdfd

    fdfd Member

    May 31, 2012
    One thing we can agree on is that this isn't Diego's fault, and its very unfortunate that the USMNT and Diego faces this situation.

    I think one of the reasons very few countries give automatic citizenship to kids who find themselves in these circumstances is because it would encourage more folks to come over illegally if they knew their children would be as good as American citizens when they became of age. It's a political football helping kids out who are in these circumstances while not encouraging there to be more kids in the future of the same circumstances.

    As a USMNT supporter though, and someone who supports Diego, its unfortunate that the authorities can't accommodate his situation individually to become a member of this team now
     
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  14. Clint Eastwood

    Clint Eastwood Member+

    Dec 23, 2003
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Shrug. It's never going to happen. DCU did everything possible to try to expedite citizenship for Andy Najar, and it just couldn't be done.

    It's not really "unfortunate." It's just reality. Diego Fagundez isn't a citizen of the United States, so he can't play for us. Just the way it is.

    By the way, do you think the general population believes "elite soccer players" are such a glaring area of national need that we should expedite the citizenship process for them? No chance in hell.
     
  15. Bolivianfuego

    Bolivianfuego Your favorite Bolivian

    Apr 12, 2004
    Fairfax, Va
    Club:
    Bolivar La Paz
    Nat'l Team:
    Bolivia
    If only soccer/MLS had the same popularity as Football/NFL....
     
  16. SUDano

    SUDano Member+

    Jan 18, 2003
    Rochester, NY
    Then what?
     
  17. Bolivianfuego

    Bolivianfuego Your favorite Bolivian

    Apr 12, 2004
    Fairfax, Va
    Club:
    Bolivar La Paz
    Nat'l Team:
    Bolivia
    Then comes the power....
     
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  18. Peter Bonetti

    Peter Bonetti Member+

    Jan 1, 2005
    1970 WC Quarterfinal
    I take a back seat to no one in my belief that we have under utilized the talent that we have in communities that are the most passionate about being good at soccer(immigrant communities), but the other side of fast tracking good players for citizenship is that we end up relying too heavily on people that learned their soccer outside of this country or were taught by people that are not integrated into our soccer community. As much as I want these kids more integrated into our system and as much as I would like to help them move their citizenship process as fast as possible (since that is what is best for the kid), I don't know that we want to get carried away with speeding up the citizenship process because a kid is good or else it becomes a way to bypass being good at player development.

    Changing laws to bring in players to prop up the national team is a way of enabling being too lazy to change and get better. I don't care if other countries do it.

    I am currently learning Spanish so that I can help with the process of integrating players into our soccer community when I retire. I support aggressively recruiting and integrating players into our system within current laws. I just stop short when we change laws. I don't think that helps in the long run. We have 300 million people in our country and endless resources. I think that we need to spend more time questioning why we can't do better in the soccer community with that.

    Let's keep recruiting kids. Heck, I think we should get better at it. We used to think college basketball was fully integrated until Don Haskins won the national championship at tiny Texas Western and taught us that college basketball wasn't fully integrated by a long shot. Haskins tells a story in his book about how, when he was in high school, even though he was thought by many people to be the best high school player in the state of Oklahoma, he knew that he wasn't even close to being the best player in his tiny town. The best players was an african american kid who was smarter, more experienced, more highly skilled and extremely competitive, but he went to a black high school and wasn't recruited by any colleges so he joined the army after high school - that was the only way he could continue to play basketball. The college Haskins eventually played for, Oklahoma State, didn't have any black players, even though there were definitely some in college basketball. But even the programs that had some black players definitely limited the number. People looked at Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain and others and just assumed that we were fully integrated even though were weren't close. When he became a college coach at a small college with a limited budget, he remembered his high school experience and set out to find those lightly recruited or, in some cases, unrecruited kids that he knew were probably all over the country - they were and he got a bunch of them.

    Haskins had several successful seasons before he won the national championship but, after he won the national championship, teams throughout the country immediately completely changed their recruiting practices. Don Haskins suddenly had a lot, lot more competition to recruit the players he had been signing left and right. He was still a great coach, but he would never get the opportunity to win the national championship again because, thanks to him, college basketball finally was fully integrated. He was still a great coach, but he had lost his biggest advantage.

    I feel that US youth soccer is kind of at a similar place - at least in one way. A lot of people think we have fully integrated these kids. I don't. I think the reasons are very, very different than what happened with african americans in the early 1960s in college basketball, but the illusion is the same. The solutions are very, very different, but I don't see changing immigration laws for the purpose of recruiting the best possible players to be on the national team to be one of the constructive solutions.

    Sure, let's get better at integrating them into our system. I just don't think that you need to change laws to do it.
     
  19. Clint Eastwood

    Clint Eastwood Member+

    Dec 23, 2003
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    If you're confused about what happened to Mendiola, apparently people much more in the "grapevine" than us don't know what's going on with him either.

    Sean Monaghan‏@SeanMonaghan_SM 16h
    @mlsdraftscout Haven't see him so can't say anything. Is Raul Mendiola still playing in there? Haven't heard anything about him in a while.

    Charlie Nobile ‏@mlsdraftscout 16h
    @SeanMonaghan_SM He is the biggest mystery around here. He was playing with their reserves, but he may be in Mexico now.
     
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  20. Bolivianfuego

    Bolivianfuego Your favorite Bolivian

    Apr 12, 2004
    Fairfax, Va
    Club:
    Bolivar La Paz
    Nat'l Team:
    Bolivia
    Great post!!

    I agree! Good post. Outside of soccer I know very little of americna football or basketball and the shockingly similar challanges thos sports probably faced early on.

    I can vouch for many immigrant youth that don't get scouted because of lack of exposure to the higher levels of the game/money/parents who are too busy working to even care. This isnt even hispanic too. It's african too. We have many great african immigrants who are in the same boat as the central/south american kids in my area. I am working on getting my licenses to shift into coaching in the future. This is my goal....and hopefully make a dent in my soccer pond over the next 10-15yrs :)

    But to your point about making things too easy? I am not sure I competely agree. It's all about changing our system too, to make things easier for these 'hidden gems' succeed. Put a 5'6 attcking midfielder who's game is based on possession and a lot of touches on the ball in a direct style of play and they will be out of place.

    IMO it can help more than hurt.
     
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  21. Peter Bonetti

    Peter Bonetti Member+

    Jan 1, 2005
    1970 WC Quarterfinal
    I am going to have to talk to you in a few years about some of the players that you are seeing. I am hoping to set up a thorough network of people scouting throughout northern Virginia for kids who are outside of youth soccer, but showing unusual talent and passion for the game. Don Haskins couldn't travel to New York more than once a year on his budget and they didn't have game film back then, but he had people looking for kids who's opinion he trusted. You can't find these kids unless a lot of people are looking for them in places that most people don't think to look. I want to be systematic about finding kids. Nobody was out looking for Andy Najar. He was just playing pick up soccer at a high school a couple of miles from my house. I don't need Andy Najar talent - just unusual passion for being good at soccer.

    Last spring I was watching a high school game at Lake Braddock Secondary School. For those of you who don't know about Lake Braddock, it is one of the three biggest schools in the state of Virginia. They have a rich high school soccer history with several state championships on both the boys and girls sides. Mia Hamm went there. Anyway, I was watching them play Annandale High School which is a tiny high school that usually can't compete with gigantic schools like Lake Braddock. Annandale basically had a bunch of small, nonathletic kids who would have never gotten close to making the varsity squad at Lake Braddock but...they had three little hispanic kids who you could tell loved playing soccer. Lake Braddock could not beat them. These three little hispanic kids - one in the defense, one in the midfield and one up front, tied Lake Braddock almost entirely on their own. What they lacked in size they made up for in savvy, intelligence, drive, and skill. The game ended a two to two draw. Lake Braddock were very cocky and they did work hard physically, but they were taught a lesson by three fantastic little players and a bunch of other guys that just tried to run around and get in the way. It was a joy to watch. I remembered back to when I coached high school soccer. I remembered back to how hard of a time that I used to have with JEB Stuart High School, another small, heavily hispanic high school in the Annandale area. This year's state champion was Mount Vernon HS - yet another northern Virginia High School that relies heavily on new immigrants to the country - although I understand that some of their key players were African.

    The step that I need to work on is finding a sustainable way of paying their way. The plan doesn't work if I can't work out that. I have an idea that I don't want to share yet. It may not be replicated by others, but it will probably be sustainable for me if I can get it to work.

    Looking forward to running into you on the youth soccer fields of northern Virginia sometime in the future.
     
  22. Dave Marino-Nachison

    Jun 9, 1999
    Mt. Vernon does indeed get a lot of African players and has for a while now. They seem to do a good job integrating recent immigrant students into sports programs, something a lot of schools don't always do well.

    I remember seeing a guy named Chernor Diallo with them a few years back; as a high school player, he was amazing to watch. Athletic, yes, but not a giant among little boys -- just a baller.

    Quite a story, too. The Washington Post profiled him a while back, and apparently he accepted a full ride to Longwood after not quite getting the scores needed to get one at U-Va.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402545.html
     
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  23. Peter Bonetti

    Peter Bonetti Member+

    Jan 1, 2005
    1970 WC Quarterfinal
    My problem with recruiting Mount Vernon players is that everybody knows about them! I would have to get in line to do that! I will probably have to focus in other places, but we will see how things work out.
     
  24. BostonRed

    BostonRed Member+

    Oct 9, 2011
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Though getting something like the DREAM Act onto the books to give these kids a legal status of some kind would be a step in the right direction.
     
  25. Dave Marino-Nachison

    Jun 9, 1999
    Indeed, once the ACC is treading your hallways the secret is pretty much out.
     
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