Player Eligibility and Switching National Teams: Case Studies & General Discussion

Jermaine Jones (Germany, United States)
Thiago Motta (Brazil, Italy)

 

Nacer Chadli (Twente) played a friendly with Morocco before switching to Belgium
Carcela (Anzhi) did the opposite

Belgium has many players with dual citizenship so things like this happen all the time.

 

Aiden McGeady(Scotland-Ireland)
James McCarthy(Scotland-Ireland)

 

Fabian Johnson (Germany - USA)
Danny Williams (Germany - USA)
Edgar Castillo (Mexico - USA)
Joe Corona (Mexico - USA)

 

Fifa really needs to do something about this and make stronger rules and laws to stop other countries poaching players from other nations. If they dont is going to become worst than it is now. A player that moves to another country at a young age with a pro contract shouldnt be able to play for that country. Look at alcantara brothers and rodrigo moreno in spain they are brasilian but are playing for spain. Spain even tried to get messi to play for them, imagine if he wouldve chosen spain instead of argentina.




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That would've been terrible, they could've won the last three tournaments and all that on the back of Argentina, who taught Messi everything he knows in his 11 years there...

 

Messi moved to spain when he was 13 not 11 but good job trying to imply that spain made him the player he is today.


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Are you really going to argue Barcelona didn't make him the player he is today?

 

Messi couldve gone to any club in the world and still turn out the way he did. Barcelona signed him because he was a great player. They didnt sign to do him any favors they just wanted his talents not the other way around. Of course spain didnt make him the player he is today, he was born with talent and by the time barcelona signed him he was already a prodigy. All barcelona did was take care of him until he matured and then threw him out there.

I love how european football fans like to act like they have monopoly in football coaching talent and development. If you europe and barca are so great at developing talent how come the majority of their best players throughout history are imported.


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A large portion of Barcelona's starting 11 was developed by the club not imported. Even prodigies need molding. This sport is filled with can't miss prodigies that never live up to their potential. It is pretty much undisputed by anyone that knows anything about player development that Barcelona's player development is among the best in the world you couldn't just put Messi anywhere and get the same result he plays the Barca way sure he does it at a higher level then anyone else but its beyond clear Barca's coaching plays a big role in his success. You put Messi in a poorly coached team just to pick in example lets say one coached by Maradona and you won't get the same level of play out of him

 

I enjoy players who wish to represent their motherland that needs talent.

 

I am quite suprised that Jorge Sammir Cruz Campos was given the green light by FIFA to play for Croatia, as 7 and 8 years ago he earned caps with the Brazil U-17 and Brazil U-18 national teams. He didn't hold Croatian nationality at the time and doesn't have ancestral ties to Croatia, so unless I am missing something I get the impression that his case violates FIFA's rules that were agreed upon in May 2008 (it was clearly stated at FIFA's Congress that even friendly games are to be taken into account if a footballer is not a dual citizen when he is first called up to a national side).

 

Agree. Unless the player has family lineage to the country.

 

Fast-tracked citizenship.

 

over/under 5.5 Brazilians playing for Qatar in 2022.

 

I would say under, but I believe Brazil will put more players out on that world cup than any other team hahahahaha

 

Coaching helps a lot in the development of every player in any sport. When clubs sign a player they sign him because they feel he is going to be great for them. It happens in baseball, basketball, american football, and even boxing. Of course not all of them make them some dont live up to the hype. To take credit for the ones that make it and forget all the ones that didnt make it shows a bias. To say that barca school made those players is crazy. They scout players and sign them according to their abilities and then help those players fulfill that potential, many clubs do this and any professional club messi wouldve gone to he wouldve still turn out the player he is.

As for the barca team all being from la masia well look song, abidal, adriano, jordia alba, mascherano, jonathan dos santos, alexis sanchez, david villa, daniel alves all came from outside...

pedro, busquets, puyol, arrived at barca when they were 17 so la masia cant take all the credit for their talents.. they helped them like i said fulfill their talents but they didnt make them....

no player joins la masia unless they already have shown a lot of upside... once again la masia didnt make messi they were just smart and lucky enough to see him and sign him before anybody else did


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La Masia has developed a lot of world class players from Catalonia they aren't just scouting the best talent. Academies do scout the best players but it isn't just about scouting they do a lot of work on player development and they do it better then most. England has academies with great scouts yet they don't get anywhere near the same rate of first team players. Soccer development academies are nothing like basketball or American football.

 

Hard to defend what you're saying here when the person above you named the players that came into barca. Plus you're always going to look like a World Class player when you are playing in a squad with 5-6 World class players that where brought into the team.

 

If you are competing for Champions league and domestic trophies of course you won't be able to develop 23 players or more to get you there Barca would be idiots to think they can beat Man U or Real with only homegrown players. Besides some of those names are players like Jonathon Dos Santos that may not have been born in Catalonia but have come up through their system. If you think like he does that players are just born great so the only real thing Barca does better then most is scout and development plays no role then good for you

 

You seem to have missed this point of the reply. Look, Barca has a great team, but as Xavi and Iniesta age, that team goes down with them. You can already see that the defense is not the same because they lost Puyol. Lose Xavi and Iniesta, that teams becomes just another team, far from the Barcelona that won every trophy, kicked everyone's ass on the way to a 4 x 0 CWC against Santos.

You cannot keep up producing players of that quality, it's impossible! that's why Barca now concentrates on bringing in top players, and play their younger players with their top, in order to develop them.