Newcastle United midfielder Isaac Hayden, 29, has agreed to represent Jamaica at international level, having previously played for England at every age group up from under-16s to under-21s. (Teamtalk)
As expected. I still have a couple of reservations: 1. Attitude: Some of the comments he has made publicly about representing Jamaica years ago (back when he was playing more and closer to his prime) present a far less committed player than I would consider ideal. It's a bad look having a player who was that publicly non-committal in his prime show up later in his career for us. 2. Fitness - he's not playing football (I'm not counting U21 games). I totally get why - Newcastle gave him too much money in 2020, and since nobody else is going to match those wages today, he won't leave (and Newcastle won't play him since he's now below the standard they've elevated to as a club). We want match sharpness/fitness ideally for all of our guys but Hayden has no clear, consistent path to that for like 20 more months (when his deal finally runs out and he can go be a free agent). All that being said...he's still pretty clearly the best pure #6 in our player pool, and immediately upgrades us by virtue of how rare that skillset currently is in our pool. So, it's still a net win for sure. Somewhat related note: it's interesting to see how rare that skillset is in the England pool as well. Hayden, as out of form as he is, remains one of the 23 most valuable English #6's according to transfermarkt. I didn't think he'd be up that high.
Landon Emenalo - son of former Chelsea technical director Michael - gets his first England U17 call-up. England face a battle with USA for his long-term international future #cfc With @SamWallaceTel https://t.co/MQbf9QitX4— Matt Law (@Matt_Law_DT) October 18, 2024 https://sports.yahoo.com/england-us...ion and,Chelsea director of football, Michael.
Mikel Arteta says he would have played for England: ‘I feel very proud about it’ https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/58...ocial&utm_campaign=twitterfc&source=twitteruk Why did FIFA never allow him to play for England despite the fact he'd been there for five years when he requested to?
It's part of the home agreement between England, Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland and because of the presence of British passports and citizenship. If they get rid of the agreement it could be an absolutel free for all. England could call up Conor Bradley, Scotland could call up Hudson-Odoi, Wales could call up Billy Gilmour etc etc etc
Arteta had underage caps in competitive games for Spain which rendered him ineligible. You can only switch (or could, not sure if its changed now) to nations you were eligible for at the time of receiving the first competitive cap regardless of level. Same reason people who were also often linked to England like N'Zonzi and Cudicini were never actually eligible, even disregarding the Home Nations agreement. I've never really understood why the home nations agreement is set out as it is. Seems simple enough merely to have that you should have lived/played 5 years in the respective country rather than pretty much ruling out all players. I mean, we already allow eligibility along those lines for under 18. For over 18's it could easily be changed to being contracted to a club for 5 years in a respective home nation.
I suspect there's never been anyone good enough for any of the FA's to ever bother with it. Wales I guess probably had some decent motivation with Angel Rangel who would surely have got a good amount of caps for them, but I'm not sure they ever tried. Beyond that hard to see anyone who would have won maybe the odd cap. I guess the issue for England is the premier league is so international that anyone good enough to pick up interest for England is probably going to have been capped by their home nation.
The smaller home nations will veto that because most of the big clubs are in England, and most players within the home nations end up converging on England after age 18 and staying there, instead of moving to Wales or Scotland. So you'd have a situation where a large number of Scottish/Welsh/etc players who might not otherwise be eligible for England under the current arrangement move to England and become eligible after 5 years of residency as adults. England would start to pick off some of the very best at ages 23-25, and you might even see a few of those players who move start holding out on accepting call-ups from Wales/Scotland/NI just to see if they can get an England shot once the 5 year clock ticks. That change would be good for England, but you can see why the smaller home nations wouldn't favor it. They can't compete head-to-head with England consistently for recruiting talent (nobody can, really, bar a handful of the other global superpowers).
That's a fair enough point, although given the home nations agreement is set by the home nations themselves they could also carve out an exemption that one home nations player cannot become eligible for another home nation past 18. Still, I actually think Scotland would benefit far more in this case than England, there's a lot of English players who've played up in Scotland who never played for England but would definitely improve the Scottish team. I'd be surprised if you had many if any home nations players prefer to hold out for England, certainly historically people with English ancestry have not played for England instead (Gareth Bale for example).
Yeah, I actually think it would end up benefitting the other home nations more than us anyway. Most Scottish and Welsh born would never pull on an England shirt but it would give them access to a lot of our fringe talent.
Could they? I'd have thought Article 7 of the Regulations would prevent that on its own, all Antonee Robinsons aside. (p.33 here)
■ 'Couldn't imagine' playing for another country■ Idolising Fernando Torres as a youngster■ 'I don't have to be in a hurry'Mateo Joseph is making a name for himself at Leeds after switching allegiances from England to Spain.He speaks exclusively to @GuillermoRai_ ⬇️— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) October 18, 2024 If he couldn’t imagine playing for another Country then why even accept and play for England in the first place? Seems just a waste of a spot that could have been taken by someone who was desperate to play for us. Off course players switch who are genuinely torn between two Countries but this seems one way thinking.
It's always going to be an occupational hazard that a player who was born and raised elsewhere would probably prefer to play for their home country. Still with Joseph who's to say where the truth actually lies. He did similar interviews for england around the world cup for the under 20s. When he changed nations he went from being kept in our under 20s to spains starting under 21 striker so who knows, maybe he'd have kept with us if he'd been promoted to the under 21s.
I think people are usually referring to the "gentlemen's agreement" that the home nations can't call up British nationals based on adult residency alone. If you're talking about Article 7 itself - which applies to half a dozen nationalities including British nationality - then obviously it isn't in our gift to do away with it, and it wouldn't be the relevant rule for someone like Arteta anyway.
James Tavernier is just one recent example that Scotland would've loved to get in their system. I think it would encourage some English players to stay in Scotland which would help their league. Some background and some quotes: Joseph was born and raised in Spain but has an English father and would visit Walthamstow and Chelsea regularly to visit his grandmother, auntie and cousins at every spare opportunity. Growing up in Spain and with a Spanish mother, when major tournaments came around, Joseph’s family would have both England and Spain flags hanging from their balcony, with the young striker dreaming of emulating his dad’s cousin Emile Heskey in representing the Three Lions at a major tournament. "Being at the U-20 World Cup is really exciting. It's like a dream come true. These are things you dream of since you were young, since you started to play football. "It is an honour to represent England, my country. I can't wait to give everything for the shirt in the games. “I'm really excited and looking forward to the first game. Let's see if we can start well with a win.” I mean he doesn't have to imagine playing for another country because he literally did. He wasn't really favoured in our system though and was underwhelming when he did play. https://www.englandfootball.com/art...ph-darko-gyabi-u20-world-cup-preview-20230520
If Leeds come up they probably going to have matches with No English starters. They only had two last night in the Championship.
What the logic behind your presumption, that they get promoted and demote their English starters and don't recruit any? What's the basis for this? They could equally get promoted, retain their English players and recruit 4 or 5 more.
I was thinking about this yesterday. In an ideal world no, but would it be any worse than Owen Hargreaves playing for England? If we accept that the essence of international football should be a test of each nation's system from the bottom up, then Arteta is more of a reflection of our system than Owen Hargreaves ever was. I think you can tell by his managerial style how much English football shaped him. If a player comes to a country at a young age and plays there for a long time, they're going to be more a product of that country's system than a play who possesses a passport from birth but has never lived there for any meaningful time. Nationality as a concept is so abstract and so variable by different laws of different countries that I don't think it holds as much weight as whether or not a player is a product of that country's system, which is a much more concrete and much more universally applicable criteria when measuring merit in international football.
Owen Hargreaves has two English parents and was the only one of his siblings not born in England. Personally I had no issue with him playing for England but Arteta simply isn't English in any way.
It's all just personal preference I guess. If Arteta wanted to call himself English I'd have no problem with it. I think international football is a contest of infrastructures and developmental processes more than anything. Also, other big nations (particularly Portugal and Italy) have really utilised the residency rule.