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

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

  1. Balerion

    Balerion Member+

    Aug 5, 2006
    Roslindale, MA
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  2. Clint Eastwood

    Clint Eastwood Member+

    Dec 23, 2003
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    #802 Clint Eastwood, Jul 14, 2016
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2016
    Ruben Luna is now a US citizen :)
    Still only 24 years old, by the way. For newer posters, Ruben is a former USSFDA Player of the Year, and was actually the reserve league's top scorer. Never could break thru at FCD, moved to lower divisions in Mexico, and didn't break thru there either. Great kid. Fantastic attitude.

    I'm glad that both RGV and San Antonio seem to be trying to sign players with Texas roots.
     
  3. nycfc919

    nycfc919 Member+

    Aug 17, 2015
    Tom Collingsworth and BostonRed repped this.
  4. Dave Marino-Nachison

    Jun 9, 1999
  5. nycfc919

    nycfc919 Member+

    Aug 17, 2015
    I would imagine that he has aspirations to play in the Prem and would guess that (assuming he continues to play like this) he will get an offer to move back across the pond in the next year or two. That said - him and his family have proven to think 'outside of the box' so I wouldn't feel comfortable ruling anything out.
     
  6. C-Rob

    C-Rob Member

    May 31, 2000
    Not entirely sure where to put this, but I figure this is as good a place as any:

    Stumptown Footy is reporting (well down in the article) that the Timbers academy just enticed some allegedly renowned Brazilian kid, Lucas Cini, a '99, to join the Timbers academy. I know absolutely nothing about him.
     
  7. Dave Marino-Nachison

    Jun 9, 1999
    Koffi is listed as a sophomore on U-Va.'s roster for the fall. Played in a bunch of games last season.

    http://www.virginiasports.com/sports/m-soccer/mtt/va-m-soccer-mtt.html

    His father does indeed seem to be a Ivorian diplomat working in a financial capacity, while his mother is listed online as an attache.

    http://ambaciusa.org/Article/?id=260
     
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  8. Dave Marino-Nachison

    Jun 9, 1999
    Fits as well here as anywhere else I guess:

    Idi Diallo started playing soccer when he was 5, living in a small Ivory Coast village, kicking a ball on his family farm through two rocks that served as the goal. Even as he played, he could see troops fighting in the distance and hear gunfire ringing out in the civil wars that raged through his childhood.

    He practiced every day, dreaming of playing in professional European soccer leagues. He had never seen a soccer game on television — played on pristine fields with roaring fans — but at 11, he left his family for Abidjan, the country’s largest city, to play for a local team for the next three years. He also joined the Ivory Coast national team and traveled to Ghana, where the team made the semifinals in a tournament of African nations.

    In 2010, he got a chance to play in Italy for the AC Milan Football Academy Camp, a youth program sponsored by the elite Italian football league. But when a relative in Milan was unable to house him, he decided to pursue his dream in the United States.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/25/nyregion/neediest-cases-fund-soccer-dream.html?_r=0

    Worth a read.
     
  9. ttrevett

    ttrevett Member+

    Apr 2, 2002
    Atlanta, GA
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Amazing what one kid will do to play the game when most American kids, mine included won't play soccer if it is too hot or too cold outside.
     
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  10. Dave Marino-Nachison

    Jun 9, 1999
    I guess this goes here -- Mass. player heading to Qatar after a couple of years in the States.

    WORCESTER - Two local soccer players, Leominster's Diego Fagundez and Worcester's Mawolo "Gabe" Gissie, have gone on to play high-level professional soccer in the past five years, and there might soon be a third if Doherty High senior Matheus Barbosa fulfills his wish of playing abroad in the country of Qatar.

    Barbosa moved to Worcester two years ago from Vitória, Brazil - a coastal city about 300 miles north of Rio de Janeiro - and after leading the Highlanders soccer team to one of its best seasons ever, he'll be moving to the Middle East in mid-January to choose between two offers to play in the Qatar Stars League.
    http://www.telegram.com/sports/2017...-barbosa-to-realize-pro-soccer-dream-in-qatar
     
  11. EricSunRa

    EricSunRa Member

    FC Dallas
    United States
    Sep 29, 2007
    Los Angeles
    Club:
    FC Dallas
  12. Rahbiefowlah

    Rahbiefowlah Member+

    Oct 22, 2001
    Las Vegas
  13. Dave Marino-Nachison

    Jun 9, 1999
  14. Rahbiefowlah

    Rahbiefowlah Member+

    Oct 22, 2001
    Las Vegas
    So five years on Harrison ~ March 2022?
     
  15. BostonRed

    BostonRed Member+

    Oct 9, 2011
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Not quite on topic, but an important process that needs to be documented:

    https://www.socceramerica.com/article/72935/how-fifa-rules-hurt-immigrant-children-in-the-usa.html

    FIFA's rules for preventing trafficking seem to be limiting the ability of players who come as refugees (or possibly undocumented) to register with USSF-affiliated clubs. It also includes some of those "bring African players to the US for education" programs, which always existed in kind of a FIFA-legal grey area.
     
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  16. blacksun

    blacksun Member+

    Mar 30, 2006
    Seoul, Korea
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I notice a conspicuous lack of solutions in that article (other than a bullshit "FIFA has lots of money so they should be able to do something"). And any solution needs to not be easily circumventable by agents and teams (mostly in Europe), which is damn hard without just saying "The US is special and shouldn't have to follow the same rules as everyone else." Incidentally, that was basically Barcelona's response when they broke these rules, and FIFA rightly rejected that claim.

    I also feel like they are overstating the scope of the issue. Unless an immigrant child is a refugee (or the child of an illegal immigrant, but that is a different issue) their parents will have visas which are either work visas (in which case they will have documentation of their job) or non-working visas (which are themselves documentation of why the holder doesn't have a job). And it is likely that a child's birth certificate will have been translated to English as part of the immigration process.

    I feel bad for the kids who can't play soccer, but if that is the price to cut down on the trafficking of African children, which can completely ruin both their lives and their parents, so be it. FIFA gets a lot of deserved criticism, but I think their rules on international transfers of children, while imperfect, are one of the best things they have done (and they were done despite being contrary to monied interests in Europe).
     
  17. BostonRed

    BostonRed Member+

    Oct 9, 2011
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I believe the bigger issue is those kids whose parents are here illegally. There are at least a couple of players in MLS who were in the US without documentation at one point.

    I think most of the soccer exchange programs will use academic rather than club soccer as their outlets. Those programs brought Manneh and Ema Boateng to the US.

    FIFA does ask for a lot of paperwork for an 11-year old, but the US does have non-USSF outlets.
     
  18. Pegasus

    Pegasus Member+

    Apr 20, 1999
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Winoman repped this.
  19. Dave Marino-Nachison

    Jun 9, 1999
    The NYT recently did an update on Diallo, who will get some kind of training/tryout opportunity with Sounders U23s next month.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/nyregion/neediest-cases-readers-help-soccer-player.html?_r=0
     
  20. EricSunRa

    EricSunRa Member

    FC Dallas
    United States
    Sep 29, 2007
    Los Angeles
    Club:
    FC Dallas
  21. ussoccer97531

    ussoccer97531 Member+

    Oct 12, 2012
    Club:
    --other--
  22. Dave Marino-Nachison

    Jun 9, 1999
    He is just one guy, so I'm not suggesting that the fellow described in this article should be a stand-in for all relatively undiscovered Latino players in the U.S., but I'm always interested in following players like this -- born in El Salvador, looks like he played mostly high school soccer, in Arkansas, and is headed to JuCo at Yavapai, which has a history of moving players up the ladder. (Hot Springs is an hour west of Little Rock.) For a guy with a profile like this, I would certainly call what he's getting a shot:

    Soccer is as much a pastime in El Salvador as baseball is in the United States, so when a 4-year-old boy began kicking around the pellet, no one could have imagined that he would lead an Arkansas high school soccer team to back-to-back state titles.

    Fast-forward 15 years and more than 1,500 miles, and Hot Springs senior Erick Guadron held aloft his second consecutive MVP plaque after leading the Trojans to a 3-1 victory over the De Queen Leopards in the Class 5A finals May 20 in Fayetteville.
    http://www.hotsr.com/news/2017/may/28/troy-s-super-scorer-puts-team-first-201/
     
  23. Dave Marino-Nachison

    Jun 9, 1999
  24. soccersubjectively

    soccersubjectively BigSoccer Supporter

    Jan 17, 2012
    Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    As someone who was living an hour away from Hot Springs last year, HS ball in Arkansas is so weird. You think you've seen the worst team ever and they'll go roll another team 7-0 somewhere else in the state. So scoring records there are really hard to gauge.

    Hope Yavapai works out for him. Would be awesome for the state to have a kid go play for El Salvador down the line. A couple years ago I counted only four D1 players (men's side) in the entire country from Arkansas : /
     
    Dave Marino-Nachison repped this.
  25. Dave Marino-Nachison

    Jun 9, 1999
    Peretz48 repped this.

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