hi, after big nations like italy, netherlands and chile missing out, i wonder if it might be interesting to give the finalists the possibility to recruit from the nonfinalists for a specific world cup. this can be limited to a max of 3 players by team with the worst ranked team to chose first, in this case the host russia. players on the list for this world cup could be: bale, buffon, alexis sanchez, wijnaldum etc.
Uuuuh.... no. It would most definitely NOT be interesting. Your working under the assumption that players would be willing to represent another country just to play in a World Cup. You may find a few, mainly those who have never appeared in a World Cup. But imagine the repercussions when they returned to their home countries. They would be labeled as traitors and pushes would be made for them to never be selected again. Imagine Buffon, who won with Italy in 2006, playing for, say, Japan? Ridiculous. And you have to consider that those foreigners would be taking the place of players who likely helped their countries qualify. From a 2001 interview with George Best by FourFourTwo magazine where the questions were submitted by readers of the magazine. These were two of them: What is the story behind Billy Bingham asking you to play in the 1982 World Cup finals? I was really fit at the time, playing weekly for an American team while also playing racquet ball for up to three hours a day. The problem was my American team were really awful, and Billy Bingham came to watch me in a tour game at Hibs and we got slaughtered. He was under a bit of pressure to pick me and I suppose he could justify leaving me out as what he had seen wasn’t very impressive. I wouldn’t have expected to play every game, but I wished he had just taken me as a member of the squad and thrown me on for 15 minutes, only so I could have played in the World Cup. Do you wish you had been born an Englishman? [Laughs] No, of course not! I would have loved to have played in the World Cup, but only for a Northern Ireland or even a Great Britain side.
Bad idea, in my opinion. A rest of the world XI might be more interesting, although I'm not sure that would work either.
lol what? Russia? I'd say they have a better than 50% chance of advancing to the knockout stage. I think we can find worse teams in the tournament. Anyway, bad idea.