Seongnam just announced his plans to be naturalized by the end of this month. He's been in Korea longer than Mota (4.5yrs), and he can understand 80% of Korean. However, I'm not sure if he's NT material just yet but I'm happy that Seongnam is helping him and it's a win win really, we will have another free quota for another foreign signing http://www.sportsseoul.com/news2/soccer/pro/2009/0216/20090216101020100000000_6600361018.html Profile DOB: 1983 August 2 Height/Weight: 192cm/89kgs Ethnicity: Serbian Career 2000-2002 FK Gusinje 43(22) 2002-2003 Rudar Pljevlja 18(9) 2003-2004 Partizan Belgrade 4(0) 2004-2008 Incheon Utd 90(23) 2009 - Seongnam 0 Here's him formally announing it when he was at Incheon speaking his desire to be naturalized in Korean. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwclqB44lXI"]YouTube - Radoncic declare his interest to naturalize[/ame]
although I have nothing against him for his desire to help and play for our NT this is great news. Mota hurry up and get naturalized!
lol, that first pic is kind of gay... But yeah, it's good news. I don't think he'll be a regular for the KNT though. He's just another big tall striker, and we haven't had any luck with that with the lack of production from Cho Jae-Jin, Ko Ki-Gu, Jung Sung-Hoon, etc. I hope he gets some caps though. He's only about 25, so he still has time to improve, but ultimately Mota is the one who has a better chance of being a legitimate player for the KNT.
I heard he doesn't even like to stay in Korea? Personally, Mota would be a much greater asset, but then again they're all mercs...
The source is Sportsseoul but I have my fingers crossed. But why does he have to Koreanify his name? He should just be Radoncic.
if you're nigerian, play for nigeria. if you're serbian, play for serbia. if you're korean, play for korea. if one of our koreans in europe decided to play for england or germany or where ever, then he'd be a douche to us. same applies for other countries.
he's going to be a naturalized Korean, thus making him Korean. why discriminate against someone who is willing to become a citizen to play for our country? we aren't like qatar where we actually assemble a whole team of non-koreans. its just one non-ethnic korean, if he's not good enough to play for Korea then thats that, but if he's good enough, lets not deny him the right. btw. hows the situation with Mota? i remember hearing a while back that Mota can't play for Korea cause of his loan spell in Brazil?
ah give me a break. you immigrate to a country, you have every right to play for their national team (if you're good enough of course). fuk, owen hargreaves IS canadian and only holds a UK passport but for some reason is eligible for the England squad. he's not even a citizen. AND if u were to take your stance serious, then all those africans on the france team should stay and play for african countries. once your naturalized you should be able to choose to represent your new country.
I don't really mind Radoncic or Mota naturalizing, but I definitely agree with you about how mad a lot of people would be if a good Korean player abroad naturalized. I mean would we hold Cha Bum-Kun in the same regard as we do now if he naturalized as a German citizen? I'm not too crazy about mercenaries either, but having to be a resident of Korea for 5 years is a good test of commitment, so as long as there are reasonable requirements like that, I think it's fair.
By looking at your post, I think you have failed to acknowledge the current situation where Korea's fast becoming a multi-cultural society. Out of 3 marriages, one marriage is between a different nationality. This was mostly due to Korean farmers not being able to marry Korean females so they resort to marrying females from Uzbekistan, Russia, Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines and others. Also, due to Korea's industry heavily concentrated in manufacturing + relatively high salary (Korea's average salary is the second highest in Asia, only about 8% lower than Japan's), this made a lot of people from neighboring countries come to Korea and work here. Lastly, cities like Seoul, Incheon and Busan are aiming to become global cities and so they give a lot of incentives to foreigners who can speak English. This had made a lot of foreigners from English speaking countries (US, Canada, UK, Australia and so on) come to Korea. And you and I both know, there are tens of thousand ESL colleagues in Korea and not to mention most public schools now have at least 1 ESL teacher who is a native English speaker, so if you add these number all together, it's just massive. Taking into all this, Korea has now about 1 million foreigners living in Korea. According to this report (http://news.mk.co.kr/outside/view.php?year=2008&no=68102), it is projected that within 10 years, foreigners in Korea will number at 2.53 million which will account approximately 5% of Korea's total population. This rate is almost equivalent to Western Europe. Having said this, If Radoncic ever gets to play for Korea NT, I think this will give a great opportunity for today's mixed-Korean & naturalized Korean to raise their voice and profile in Korea.
Its a sign of the times... and Korea is behind. Podolski (Polish) plays for Germany, Rossi (US) chose Italy, and Adu (Ghana) is one of many Africans going elsewhere so they can consistantly play in WCs. Heck... there's even that Korean kid playing for Japan (although I'm hypocritical since its a Korean playing elsewhere... and of all places... Japan). Would it have been great to win a WC with a pure blooded Korean squad some day? Of course... but its a small world these days. Rad might not be the savior for a WC title... but its a step in the right direction. I was hoping Hines 형 setting up that program for mixed blood Korean kids in Korea would increase the pool size to get KNT players from... and this piece of news just takes it a step further.
Yep. Lee Choong-seong and Jeong Dae-sae were once Korean passport holders that decided to call it quits.
Little chance they had to break into the Korean squad, anyway - quality aside, the coaches and selection panel would never have chosen any 'outsiders' for the NT.
think about it like this, if Radoncic happens to play for Korea, itll be one of the if not few, the only Montenegros playing in the World Cup which could attract Montenegro soccer fans to look at K-League or even ACL
asian to european, european to asian to me are two totally different ideas. if a european player becomes an asian citizen (example: serbian/yugo to korean), he would be coming from a stronger country to a weaker one. Radoncic will probably never rise in ranks with the serbian national team so it will hardly raise controversy in serbia if he gains a korean passport and plays for our side. a korean gaining citizenship in europe (as ubsurd as that sounds) would create huge controversy in korea because he would be moving from a country still developing their legacy in football (korea) and would be seen as abandoning his duty to help improve our squad. i would welcome radoncic and mota with open arms. they've played in the k-league for almost 5 years, and have cemented their loyalties with their respective clubs. everyone else should also welcome two well-rounded strikers seeing as we hardly have a solid selection of forwards at the moment. the only strikers i see fit to play in the world cup matches are lee keun-ho (if he continues developing) and park chu-young. adding mota and radoncic will add competition and force them to work to earn their positions in the starting 11, thus improving their quality.
Yeah well said peoples, S.Korea could do with his height and physical presence. I welcome him with open arms..
no if u dont got Korea blood u aint korea, just citzen. only differ on qatar is 5 year, that aint big differ here's problem on your vue. lets say 20 good brasil kid become Korea citzens their good but aint gonna maked Brasil team. Do we gotta put 11 on KNT becase their better? this Mexican girl i bang told me Mexico got 5 brasils on thier NT now, i told her Mexico NT as sluty as u. she dont care soccer but her bros dont give taco on Mexico win or lost now.