His American father died a) before marrying his mother and b) before he was born. He's had little or no contact with his father's side down the years and seems to have expressed less interest in having that contact. Maybe I'm reading between the lines too much, but it seems like his father, if he'd lived, may have been AWOL (a la Thomas Dooley), rather than absent but caring (Julian Green). Meantime, his mother is a native-born Croat whose family is, at most, 12 hours drive away. He'll speak at least some of the language, have relatives there, and would be in a squad that's no less likely to qualify for 2022 and 2024 than the USA and is very likely to qualify for the Euros. The latter is a much better platform for a player than the Gold Cup. If I'm in his shoes and I'm giving up on Die Mannschaft, it's Croatia all the way. The only factor that could repel him would be racism in Croatia: some people say it's quite rough there; others say it's no worse than anywhere else/marginal.
I do resemble a rock. The poster mentioned the racism. Ethnic Croatians are the majority in Croatia. Usually it's the minority who face racism. It'd be akin to saying Whites have to deal with racism from a Black minority, when it's usually the other way around. That's why I asked.
This may come across as crass but are we even sure that the father is dead? I suppose there is really no way of knowing but this is a somewhat common occurrence (wish it wasn't so). Dad leaves mom before baby is born, mother tells son/daughter your father died rather than tell him/her your father wanted nothing to do with you, was a complete a**hole, etc.
https://www.bundesliga.com/en/news/...dium=social&utm_term=english&utm_content=post whoever writes for the Bundesliga's website, knows a lot less than we do it seems.
It does sound like Toljan is more connected to Croatia. Not sure who they have at fullback. It is interesting then that he has never played for them. But maybe he becomes best friends with Pulisic; starts hanging out with him and Weston, Haji, Nick making runs to Chipotle... Ok, long shot.
IANAL, but if I'm reading this guide from the State Department correctly he would probably need to have a DNA test done with his father's family to prove paternity AND have his father's family provide documents that his father was a US Citizen AND hope that his dad never renounced his US Citizenship for whatever reason (acquiring a different citizenship, political protest, etc). I guess maybe the DNA test could be replaced with some testimony from both his mom and his dad's family that said "yeah, that guy is very much Jeremy's father" but either way it would require close communication with with his dad's family. So... yeah. Barring a deep and beautiful bromance with Pulisic, I can't say that I have high hopes of ever seeing Jeremy in a US uniform.
Pulisic says he goes once a month or something. All the more time to hang with the bros. We have plenty of friendlies coming up. Doubt he would have to file a switch to play for us in a friendly. Of course, if he has no real intention to play then I'd rather get more minutes to guys like Antonee Robinson. But if he is at all curious, bring him in.
He would actually need to file a one-time switch to play in a USMNT friendly. Again, I'd be absolutely stunned if this happened.
You always come along and throw water on our fun! Continuing with the silliness, if Toljan didn't file a switch, played with the USMNT vs.Japan on March 23rd, what would FIFA do, make us forfeit the friendly retroactively?
Fielding an ineligible player has happened a few times, and each time FIFA gaves the opponent a 3-0 victory and fined the federation around $12,000. If we kept playing him, FIFA would probably increase the fine and eventually threaten to revoke the federation's recognition. Also, I assume that his club could turn down a call-up from a federation that he's not registered with, so he could face fines from the club for breaking his contract. edit: I guess I should note that each time this has happened, it's been in a World Cup qualifying match, and that the fines are set in the World Cup rules, but I assume the same thing would happen in a friendly.
A lot of times players will give a very savvy PR-conscious answer about repping countries when deep-down they have no interest, and he didn't even give us that. I probably have as big of a tent as anyone in these forums when it comes to dual-nats, but absent a legitimate change of heart (which is possible, people change) I'm all set with this guy. No hard feelings, no harm done, but his heart lies somewhere else. And I can appreciate it when a player turns down what is probably a better chance to play internationally in order to hold out hope for his country of choice.