English players Dual Nationality thread

If this was any other age group then Harrison would definatly get a call-up.

 

He's been pretty good all season.

 

At minimum. He is worth calling up and playing for 30 seconds in one qualifier. Can't play for anyone else then.

 

Ok. He doesn't even try to get back at Harrison once he gets past him. By the end of the clip he's wandered off to somewhere off-screen. Clearly either can't be bothered or has nothing left in the tank.

 

Ok - That clip is not how he has played this season. That was my point.

You are judging him on a 12 second clip......

 

I'm judging his play in the clip on the basis of the clip, not his entire season. Sorry if that wasn't obvious.

 

Yep. And I was merely pointing out that it isn't indicative of his season. Sorry if that wasn't obvious.

 

You've lost me.

 

It'll be worth calling up Harrison and see some American supporters claim that he's more American than English. That's always fun to see.

 

I doubt any but the most blinkered would claim that.

They would claim it as a big success for and vindication of their college-to-MLS development system though. He had 7 years on the books of a top English academy beforehand but that wouldn't get dwelt on.

 

One of Dembele's goals for Scotland u16s today

Karamoko Dembélé (2003) a inscrit son 1er but en sélection avec l'Ecosse #U16 pic.twitter.com/fW4CSukl4G

— Jay Jay (@JayhJJ) July 25, 2017

 

Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it for some players changing their nationality. For example, Michail Antonio will likely get no more than 5 caps if he's lucky. If he played for Jamaica, he would be starting in their team and playing in the Gold Cup.

 

That sort of thinking completely ignores national pride and personal ambition.

Why is getting 30 caps for a mediocre nation you feel little or no affiliation towards worth it if you end up thinking "what if" you'd been more ambitious and chased the dream of playing for England?

 

But what's the point if you'd rather player for someone else? If it's not a privilege then it's a burden, especially if it's a team like Jamaica that you have to fly half way around the world for.

 

Would it be feaseable to callup Dembele for the U17 Euros in England next summer? He'll be 15 at that time.

 

I'm sure they could. He probably won't be good enough for the side though so it'd be a shame to have someone not in there on merit.

 

If a player has no affinity or passion for Jamaica (such that the best description of his feelings for it is "mediocre little nation half way around the world that I have to give up my England ambitions for"), then it is not worth it to change nationality to represent Jamaica.

Because we're not England and not a major football power, many assume that Jamaicans don't have much pride in their country or football. We do, actually - we're no less passionate than England fans. We want players who feel that same pride and passion for their ancestral home. We do not want players who lack this and are just going through the motions or using Jamaica as a vehicle to get a small resume boost. We don't want players who are only going to show up for big tournaments (ex: guys who will only commit once we get to the WC and want to ignore every call up that isn't for a big name friendly or major tourney) because that's the only way they can see value in representing Jamaica.

We need guys who value EVERY opportunity to represent this country. That means as much of a willingness to fly out to play Guyana or Suriname in the Caribbean Cupas they have to play Uruguay or Argentina in a Copa America or Chile in a big name friendly.
You guys wouldn't be happy with a player whose commitment to England was shallow enough that he refused to be present for anything but "big games" and wouldn't bother with San Marino or Lithuania. We're no different.

Michail Antonio is not a committed player as far as Jamaica is concerned. He has been approached multiple times. Had he accepted, he would have featured in at least 2 Copa Americas and might well have a trophy to his name (Gold Cup or Carib Cup or both). He'd have at least 20 caps by now.

He turned that down because Jamaica doesn't mean much to him beyond "mediocre little football nation half way across the world" that his parents are from. Jamaica, to a guy like Antonio, is a nice place to vacation and a nice place to mention you have ancestral ties to when you're speaking modern English slang (talking about "mandem and ting" - this vernacular is primarily derived from Jamaican patois), or when you're getting Jamaican food, or when you're listening to Drake (another fan of jamaican patois-derived speech) or Bob Marley and blazin for fun.

Jamaica is just a nice cultural accessory to guys like Antonio. It is a novelty, not a passion. We need passion. Antonio's passion is with England.

I never want to see Antonio in a Jamaica kit. I hope he gets his chance with England.

 

Is that based on anything Antonio's said or have you just made it up?

 

Are we that good again in the U17's? I haven't been following them as much as the previous years because of all the international action this summer.

 

It is based on what he said and did.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/35835036

That kind of dismissal is prototypical for the dispassionate diasporan for whom Jamaican heritage is a novelty, not a passion.

For Antonio and others like him, it is best they remain true to themselves and continue to hope for England. Jamaica doesn't need that kind of attitude in the program.

 

Are you serious? You got all of that from "Jamaica called but if I keep doing what I'm doing hopefully I can get an England call"?

 

Antonio has been approached about Jamaica multiple times and given multiple responses so no, that is not the sole source of my conclusion.
However, it would be enough on its own.

Listen to him speak. Jamaica is a foot note, a meaningless distraction from the real goal. The opportunity he was presented to represent that country (which was a significant one - it's not like he'd have been playing coconut cup football, he'd have featured in 2 Copa Americas by now) means nothing to him. He publicly, on the record, dismisses the chance as though it were nothing.

"Jamaica called, but I could care less about that. I don't really want to represent that country. Hopefully if I keep doing what I'm doing I'll get an England call. That would really mean a lot to me."

There is what he actually said. Read between the lines and listen to him.

The response shows one fundamental thing: the opportunity given to represent Jamaica was of no real value to him. This is why it was dismissed immediately as if it were a footnote or distraction. The opportunity to represent England is what matters to him.

Antonio is a guy who has mentioned his Jamaican heritage on many occasions, including during his time at your club (when a very highly capped Jamaican international was his teammate - his conversations with said teammate may have been part of how the Jamaican federation learned of Antonio). All of the superficial aspects of being Jamaican are fun to him - it's cool for him to mention his parents ties there, the music, the food, use a little slang from time to time, etc.

But when given the opportunity to actually represent this nation? Dismissed publicly as though it were nothing at all. He publicly notes that he received such opportunities and his tone about them is like "yeah, they're whatever".
The man will wait with bated breath for an England chance. He would do no such thing for Jamaica.

That's Michail Antonio. As noted earlier, I sincerely hope he never comes anywhere near my national side in the event his England dreams do not work out. If the chance to represent our country doesn't mean much to you, then don't bother.

 

I doubt he's any more or less respectful of his heritage than many English players who have accepted a Jamaica call up.

 

I'm quite confident he is.

The thing about those players is that most of them gave up the opportunity to do what he is doing, which is hold on for a chance at England after being given a chance to represent Jamaica even while the England chance seems small at best.

There is a big difference between players like Antonio, Troy Deeney, Nathan Dyer, and others who "hold out" this way and players like Michael Hector, Wes Morgan, Adrian Mariappa, and Garath McCleary who do not.

The players in the latter group forego the chance to "wait and see" what England might bring in the future because the chance to represent Jamaica actually means something to them, and is worth taking now even if it means killing any small likelihood they had to playing for England going forward. They don't see a future with Jamaica as "the death of their ambition in service of a mediocre nation", they see it as the start of something important with a country that matters.

The players in the former group decide to "wait and see" because the opportunity to represent Jamaica doesn't count for much in their eyes, so taking that opportunity is not worth giving up even a small shot at becoming the next Jamie Vardy. The chance to represent Jamaica is not valuable in and of itself, it is just the death of ambition for England, which is the country that really matters.

Jamaican heritage means far more to the latter group than the former group. Their actions make that clear.

 

Athlone, I'm sorry but I think you've gone off the deep end on this one. You of all people understand that people's identities can't be reduced to ridiculously unnuanced binaries: this group of guys care passionately about Jamaica and are quite right to embrace the culture of their parents/grandparents, and this group of guys couldn't care less and deserve nothing but contempt for even using the slang or eating the food derived from the culture of their parents/grandparents. It's a nonsense.

Maybe this is a function of you being raised in the US rather than the UK, but many British Afro-Caribbeans apparently find it perfectly possible to identify primarily as British or English without feeling divorced from their roots. Antonio clearly had no trouble deciding that his first choice was to play for England. However, Antonio was also raised by two parents who are Jamaican born and raised, so setting aside that you've completely invented that disparaging picture of how he uses and relates to his heritage, it would hardly be surprising if some artifacts of Jamaican culture or language had become a part of his identity. The fact that he almost certainly relates to his Jamaican roots differently from how a Jamaican-born man would doesn't make it an inauthentic put-on. You almost certainly relate to Jamaican culture yourself in a way that's different again, but I don't suppose that you consider it inauthentic.

As an aside, I don't know how you're so sure that every British Jamaican who's accepted a call-up from Jamaica would have had no interest in playing for England if he had the chance. Wes Morgan, for instance, was near his 30th birthday when he first played for Jamaica, and with all due respect he'd been playing at a higher level than some of his Jamaican international contemporaries for a while. If you read his comments about accepting the call from Jamaica, he did say that it had always been an ambition, but also that it was only in the back of his mind, and that his response to the call was "why not?". Those seem to me to be the words of a guy who liked the sound of playing for Jamaica, and not particularly those of someone who saw it as the necessary fulfilment of his destiny. If Morgan had looked like he might ever get an England call-up at the time, perhaps the "why not?" would have been less rhetorical. If Antonio hadn't believed that he had a chance to play for England, maybe he'd have thought "why not?" too, and talked enthusiastically about his commitment to the Jamaican cause. Neither of them is going to tell us because it would risk creating awkward headlines, so you can't possibly know that they see things so differently.