Dual nationals who could suit up for the US.

It's not just their dad's or uncle's or whatever. They themselves love that national team, they themselves grew up watching and loving Liga MX.

I can't really talk about the Mexican American experience, because I'm not one and I have never lived in the US, but I doubt even El Salvadorian/Honduran/etc Americans have that attachment to their leagues and national teams, because, well... they simply don't have such an easy access to it.

Mexican baseball fans down here love their MLB teams yet most can't even find Milwaukee or Atlanta in a map, even in cities with local teams, but nobody show their games on TV, while Mexican tv show MLB games.

That from a purely fan perspective. Then you have the cultural one which is way more complex and obviously I can't really comment much of it, because, well, like I said, I'm not Mexican American.

 

Get used to it. MLS grows its fanbase much more by developing MexNT players than by developing USMNT players.

 

Don't you love it when "Moderators" go full a-hole?

 

To be fair a number of these players were not developed by MLS, though a good chunk definitely were.

 

You’re making an awful lot of assumptions about me for someone who’s supposedly concerned about others’ feelings.

What exactly do you think my opinion is on dual nats like Musah and Dest?

 

But, they mostly play in MLS, right? Or, if not "play", they're in MLS systems? It seems like quibbling over the word "develop." MLS gets more viewers if guys in the league choose MexNT. Like, Araujo choosing Mex .... if he becomes a regular for them, that's better for the league than if he became a regular for the USMNT. They didn't "develop" Julian, but their prolly pretty stoked he chose Mex.

 

Actually, considering he is taking the time to respond to posts that hold opposing viewpoints, that seems pretty fair. I can name you another board on this website that will automatically ban you if you don’t root for… well, I’ll just leave it at that.

 

I got suspended for no reason, so there's that. American fans are about as gentile as they come. I saw multiple people get blocked by USMNT twitter because they responded to Arriola starting. Which was a ********ing joke, and deserves to be called out. We need to stop this mentality of no criticism amongst the USMNT community.

 

Another swing and another miss. You’ve had ample opportunity to engage with my posts, but all you can manage are baseless personal attacks and assumptions about me. The least you could do is point to the posts that make me a hypocrite, but then you’d have to actually dig through my posts on the topic.

 

Still think this is a long shot. We'll keep talking about him until he's tied to Switzerland I guess..........

missed this earlier but 18 yr old Texas-born 🇺🇸🇨🇭 dual nat CB Bryan Okoh made the bench for RB Salzburg's UCL match vs Wolfsburg today pic.twitter.com/WQ5dDOBnIW

— 🇺🇸 ⚽ east (@eastdeflection) October 20, 2021

 

It’s great if he wants to play for us, but he grew up in Switzerland and plays for their youth teams. I don’t know why he would want to switch. Has he ever indicated a desire to play for us?

 

US Soccer has been in touch with him. Okoh talked about it about a year ago when we started opening back up. But of course we haven't had USYNT camps in forever, so there wouldn't even have been an opportunity for him to be involved with us.

But Switzerland has been very aggressive with him. He's been captaining their youth teams when he's involved. He's been referred to as "the future of Swiss soccer." Its a long shot.

We started a Yanks Abroad page for him when he was 15, and we didn't know what his international future would be like. That thread doesn't got much action, because there's a general sense that its a lost cause.
Bryan Okoh in Austria @ RB Salzburg | BigSoccer Forum

But hell, we need him for the Texas national team. He was born in Houston.
[Chris Richards, who Texas claims at times because of his play with the Houston Texans and FCD.................is actually from Alabama. We need Justin Che to develop.]

 

With someone like Okah, if we wanted him, we’d have to be offering him something Switzerland isn’t. Right now he’s getting called up by their youth teams, and I imagine to get him on board you’d have to offer to call him up for the full national team. He is of course not quite at that level yet, and I don’t think anyone thinks we should call him up until he is. The problem by the time he is, that means he’s also going to be good enough for Switzerland’s full national team too. And at that point, it doesn’t seem like a battle we would win.

 

I mean, if he’s talked to us then he’s more connected to us than Musah was when he came out of nowhere haha.

 

I engage with pretty much everybody on this board who wants to discuss things reasonably, and I give reasons for stating my opinions.

you call my point tone deaf, but haven’t provided a single reason why. Plenty of folks who grow up fans of a certain college team have family members who influenced them, and grow up in a culture where watching and pulling for those teams is a big deal. Some even have relatives who went to that school. The comparison to Mexican Americans who grow up in the US isn’t perfect, but there are plenty of similarities in terms of the supposed reasoning of the players.

and as I have clearly stated, I am not talking about guys like Pepi or Munoz who actually spent time in both countries consistently. I’m talking about guys like Alvarez and Araujo who grew up in the Los Angeles area, attending public schools where they learned about events and figures like Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and D-Day. Despite what we see on the news, America is incredibly accepting of immigrants and diverse cultures.

I’m just not buying that guys who grow up as citizens of one country, who speak the dominant language, and grew up attending public schools feel a greater connection to a country they’ve spent limited time in, and have little desire to actually live in. Even some Mexican stars are choosing to play in MLS because they think it’s a better place for their families.

And I would be interesting in hearing about when the Mexican ties run thin enough for guys to be Americans. Should we just say, “ok cool” if some 6th generation Mexican American whose great great grandparents never set foot in Mexico chooses for represent them just because Spanish is his first language and his dad likes to watch Liga MX? Same for Croatian citizen pulisic or Englishman Reyna not picking the US.

If your belief is that guys should be free to choose whatever country they want, that’s great. I agree. I don’t think there should be any rules against guys playing for countries when they became citizens through normal legal processes. But this board and this thread are specifically designed for discussions like this, and plenty of people are sharing opinions. Why click on the thread and engage in it if that’s where your thoughts on the matter stop? And why single my post out for being hypocritical and tone deaf when people have expressed a ton of ideas and made suggestions like excluding Mexican Americans from the youth national teams if they aren’t fully committed to the US? You keep calling me hypocritical and tone deaf, but can’t give a a single reason why you feel that way. If it’s so obvious, then it shouldn’t be that difficult.

 

Yeah, but is he talking to us?

and I think Musah’s situation was very unique in that he really doesn’t have strong ties to any one country. Parents were from Ghana, but he was born in New York, and spent his early years in Italy, which is notoriously inhospitable to immigrants, especially those from Africa. I get how he could’ve developed some comfort in England, but it’s VERY different when you move somewhere at age 9 as compared to growing up there. I’m sure his transition there had plenty of difficulties. Then he moved to Spain at 16. He was ripe for the picking, and it made sense that he went for the team that offered him early pt and had a bunch of guys his age who he could connect with easily.

from what I know of Okoh, he grew up in Switzerland and was merely born in the US.

 

I suppose he's going to bring up Dest. Would seem that you not being a fan of him representing the US (or at least not understanding his motivation for doing so) would be consistent with your disapproval of Araujo choosing Mexico?

I get that it's your opinion, so I've got no issue either way. Just curious...

 

I’m obviously happy to have him on the team, but I’ve said before that I thought he should’ve chosen the Netherlands.

but even his situation was different from those M-A guys. He was largely ignored by the Dutch youth teams, and his positive experiences with our youth teams and sense of loyalty to the program played a role in his decision. If the Dutch had given him the same opportunities that we gave Alvarez, Araujo, and Ochoa, I think it’s extremely unlikely that he’s playing for us now.

 

Here's one that got away.
Alex Zendejas, former FCD academy player and homegrown signing. One of most capped US U17s in his cycle. Folks will remember that FCD sold him to Chivas. Called up to Mexico's senior national team for a camp and friendly next week. No other formerly US-eligible players in the group (Gonzalez, Araujo, Ochoa, etc.).

I'm not sure Zendejas makes a USMNT midfield made up of only FCD academy products. It continues to surprise me to see him with Mexico teams. I have a sneaking suspicion that Mexico tries to call up an American to every camp, just to grease the skids.

Alex Zendejas Mexico camp. #dtid pic.twitter.com/IwOGdhNHjN

— 3rd Degree (@3rdDegreeNet) October 24, 2021

 

I'm not surprised that Ochoa and Araujo aren't in the camp as it's not during an international window and both LA and RSL have games that day.

 

[emoji599] Malik Sanogo —> US U-20s [emoji599]

Via Instagram: Malik Sanogo accepted a US u20. Gonna be a big player 👀 🇺🇸

(@ChuckMe92Soccer saw it first) pic.twitter.com/3RuorLUGYH

— USMNT Updates (@USMNT_U) October 25, 2021

Hey maybe we should do more of this youth national team stuff

 

This is one to potentially be excited about.
Recently ranked as one of the best U20s in the world.
Prolific goal-scorer at the youth levels with Union Berlin, and has been training with their first team. Perhaps will debut this season. You never know as he's a prospect. Prospect being a latin word for "hasn't done squat yet." Nothing about this camp will be cap-tying, but its good to bring him in. Frankly, this entire U20 roster will be interesting. [Of course, it will be without at least one guy who'll be with the USMNT. Ricardo Pepi is eligible for the U20s. Scally isn't.]

Malick Sanogo: who is the Union Berlin teenager eligible for the USA? | Bundesliga

 

I’m enough of a nerd that I have seen you use that joke before of “hasn’t done squat”, and thought. “What is the actual etymology of the word ‘prospect’?”

Prospect, Latin for “to look forward.” Pro = forward. specere = to view.

Also; starting in the 16th century, it became used for ‘mental landscape’ or an ‘anticipating event’.

...There it is... your unnecessary bit of knowledge for the day lol