Jimmy Bullard to play for Germany

That's not all I said in regards to Bullard but if you want to ignore all the other things, fine.

We'll just have to agree to disagree here.

 

Alright, I have the impression that some people don't really understand the demographic situation in Germany.
After the second world war, Germany experienced the economical miracle.
Within 15 years after they had lost the war and millions of their citizens had been killed or crippled, they became the most powerful industrial nation of Europe again (infront of the Uk and France).
From the 60s to the late 80s there were huge waves of imigrants which came to Germany to tackle all the work which had to be done to keep such a gigantic machinery running.

Today, ca. 15% of the whole German population are either foreigners (= people with a citizenship other than German) or people with a foreign background.

Now, football has always been a sport of the poor and not so privileged,
and the poor and not so privileged in Germany are mostly foreigners or people with a foreign background. But Germany does not "steal" talent, Germany evolves talent.

Podolski and Klose are not good players because they were born in Poland, they are good players because they went to German football academies and clubs from infancy on. The same is valid for Kuranyi and Asamoah.
Germany does not take this players into their national team because they don't have "own" talent, they do so because immigrants are a huge part of our population and it is a great thing if these children of immigrant families can give something back to the country that has improved their life quality so much.

Besides, how can you tell wether someone is German or not?
Because, this question is very interesting considering the fact that the number of football players which were born in Germany and play for other nations exceeds the number of players which were born in other countries, but play for Germany, by far.

Alone 5 players of the Turkish national team were born in Germany.
I don't know the exact numbers, but I guess that at least 20 players which were born in Germany, play for other nations now.

Would it make a difference if instead of Asamoah and Kuranyi - which were both not born in Germany- Ivan Klasnic and Halil Altintop would be playing for Germany (both born in Germany, but Klasnic plays for Croatia and Altintop for Turkey)?

This whole argument is pretty senseless and I don't get why some people even debate about it.
Germany has changed and so has it's population, and this will be reflected by the National team too of course. Deal with it.

 

Great post!

The argument we would steal talent expecially from the polish is just rediculous. They claim Klose and Podolski to be their players but they grew up in Germany and people from Schlesien are german citizens by birth. It's also amazing how many people here on these boards have those steriotypes that someone who doesn't have a "german sounding" name isn't german. A guy like Tim Borowski has nothing to do with Poland. still I hear from people that he is polish. There are many people in the eastern part of germany whos last names end with the -ski. If we really stole talent from other countries we would do a pretty good job in it already at the age of 14/15. Just take a look at the roster of the U15 Nationalmannschaft:

Code:

Tor
Emilio Fioranelli (1. FC Kaiserslautern)
Marcel Hölscher (VfL Osnabrück)
Abwehr
Berkan Afsarli (VfB Stuttgart)
Damir Coric (Hertha BSC Berlin)
Manuel Gulde (VfL Neckarau)
Shervin Radjabali Fardi	(Hertha BSC Berlin)
Stefan Schattauer (MSV Duisburg)
Mittelfeld
Danny Blum (1. FC Kaiserslautern)
Florian Brügmann (FC Hansa Rostock)
Cenk Tosun (Eintracht Frankfurt)
Lennart Hartmann (Hertha BSC Berlin)
Patrick Herrmann (1. FC Saarbrücken)
Marc Hornschuh (Borussia Dortmund)
Angriff
Darius Baumgartner (Borussia Mönchengladbach)
Felix Kroos (FC Hansa Rostock)
David Loheider (FC Schalke 04)	

 

skysports reports that Bullard has signed with Fulham FC.

 

Yea I don't get that, Wigan will still be running strong next season and Fulham will be struggling again.

 

maybe it has to do with money, of which there is a whole lot more of in London than Wigan I can imagine. Just a guess.

 

£2.5m-Bullard to join Fulham at end of season

Fulham will sign midfielder Jimmy Bullard from Wigan when the season ends after agreeing a £2.5million fee with the Latics.


The 27-year-old Londoner will join Fulham on a four-year deal on May 8, after the final match of the campaign.

Bullard - who joined Wigan for £275,000 in 2003 - travelled to London on Friday to discuss terms and undergo a medical.

Fulham's bid was enough to trigger an escape clause in Bullard's contract, a situation reminiscent of Nathan Ellington's departure to West Brom last summer when the Baggies were informed of a £3million sale clause in the striker's contract.

'His agent alerted clubs that Jimmy has a clause in his contract that allows him to leave for a certain price,' said Jewell. 'We have to - by law - tell Jimmy if a club comes in for him, and he wanted to speak to Fulham.'

He added: 'If a player decides to leave it is best if he does. I have always said there's no point in keeping unhappy players, or at least players who want to move.

'The timing is not the best but I understand that Fulham wanted to move quickly and not lose their man.'

Having anticipated protracted negotiations between the clubs on how Fulham would pay the transfer fee, Jewell did not expect the deal to go through so quickly.

But, while he was disappointed to see Bullard go, he is adamant his departure does not signal the break up of his current squad - instead, it is merely the start of the club rebuilding and getting stronger.

'There are only three other players I've been gutted to see leave - Arjan de Zeeuw, Nathan Ellington and Jason de Vos,' said Jewell.

'But we got over them, and we became stronger, and we will get over Jimmy as well. Life will go on without Jimmy.

'I just hope the supporters don't think we're starting to sell the family jewels because we will try to improve the team for next season.

'If there are any other departures it will be because a player is unhappy, and none of the other players have intimated that to me.

'If they are, we will find the right club and get the right deal, and then they can go. I'm not going to go down on bended knee begging players to stay.

'If we had decided to match Fulham's wage offer then maybe we could have kept hold of him but I didn't want to set a dangerous precedent and be held to ransom.

'That would be extremely unhealthy.'

Jewell defended the decision to allow the release clause to be included in Bullard's contract as the former Peterborough midfielder was content to leave on a Bosman without it.

The Wigan manager added: 'I don't blame Jimmy for wanting to look after his family because you are only one tackle away from your career being
(Robbed from ESPN Soccernet)
I think Bullard is one of Wigan's best players, they will miss his pace and playmaking. He is part of the reason of Wigans success. I think it is a dumb move for Wigan.

 

We'll bring in somone better than Bullard - hopefully.

Bullard doesnt posess that little *something* which requires a player to thrive at this level. Yes he'll run for 90mins but in doing that he's just making up for the fact that he's a very avearge player when it comes to crossing, corners, free kicks and defence splitting passes.

He had a clause in his contract to let him move for £2.5m so it isnt really "dumb" to sell him. We were left with no option but to accept the bid. He went to Fulham, got offered more £££££ than we could offer and accepted that offer.

 

this just proves that bullard has been amazing this season. when someone signs for fulham you know they've made it.

 

Conversely, a couple of years ago we had a player named Patrick Kohlmann from Borussia Dortmund in our underage teams - can you think of a more stereotypical Irish/German mix? What ever happened to him?

 

Wodan id est Furor!

He plays for Dortmund's reserve side.

 

You do realise that this Bullard fellow can't even speak German right? Therefore I don't care how good he is, he don't play for the National Team.

 

Great to see you back!

 

O-M-F-G!

How could I miss this post until today?



Strange thread for a comeback though.