Patriotism/Nationalism and sports like soccer

let's just cut to the chase, Italy/Croatia/Poland or wherever you're a fan of, they suck

 

Croatia
UAE
Qatar
France

 

Honourable mention goes to Canada obviously.

They not only do not draw on the youth pools of other countries,their own youngsters choose not to play for their country.

Oh,on top of that,their own people do not cheer for their NT either.

 

Davis You´re welcome to chime in now

 

okay, I'd take france off the list.

Because france is an immigrant nation and alot of their players moved here from former france colonies etc.

France has a very loose idea of who it considers her citizens.

 

Exactly. Rep when I get back around to you.

 

Croatia is pretty bad. They go out of their way to poach Australians, it's pathetic.

 

Croatia, who else apart from Eduardo who moved to Croatia when he was still a good and not even playing pro football?

And take France of the list, just because they are black does not mean they cannot be French.

 

Then they are waaaaay ahead of Croatia. We have only one naturalized player. All those players who were born outside of Croatia already had Croatian citizenships through their parents. Yes, they weren't raised by Croatian football academies but they sure as hell weren't naturalized.

 

Pretty crappy research. Naturalized players on national teams don't bother me at all. But this is just silly:

"Germany have looked much further afield to fill the attacking void created by the retirements of Klinsmann, Bierhoff and Kirsten. The list includes the Bobic (Slovenia), Rink (Brazil), Dundee (South Africa), Neuville (French Swiss), Asamoah (Ghana), Kurany (Hungary/Brazil) and the Klose and Podolski (both Polish)."

Kuranyi's father is German, so he was a German citizen by birth. Bobic, Klose, Podolski and Asamoah all got their German citizenship before becoming pros, as all of them have lived in Germany since their (mostly early) childhood. Dundee never played for the German national team. And when they start to mention players like Littbarski, Nowotny or the 1938 World Cup team it becomes completely ridiculous. And if Scholl makes the list, Felix Magath could as well...

 

Interesting...

The Canadian hasn't showed up.

Bet the mother********er knows he'd be eaten alive in this thread.

 

It depends: if it's purely a mercanary move, I don't know about 'lack of patritoism', but it does seem not very sporting. On the other hand people may geniunely be naturalized and there have been some pretty nasty suggestions on this board that you can't be black and French/English.

I've do objection to players like Viera, John Barnes, Polodloski, Asamoah, etc. Clearly they have very strong links with the country they play/played for which go beyond the purely footballing. If a player has no great links to a country other than he plays in the league of that country after coming from their original country as a pro-footballer that arouses my suspicion.

 

World is globolized!!! People even don't know which country to accept their motherland.

 

You play for the country you are a citizen of. Naturalized citizens are still citizens(DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHH).

NUFF SAID.

 

I don't know who 'The' Canadian is, but I am 'a' Canadian. The only players in the current NT set-up I can think of that are 'naturalized' are Iain Hume and he's Canadian by blood and therefore birthright and Issey Nakajima-Farran who was born in Japan, he's also a British citizen by birthright. They have Canadian parents, so I'm not even sure that counts as 'naturalizing'. Marc Bircham used to play for Canada, he was born and raised in England, but once again he was Canadian by birthright. Tony Menezes was a Brazilian that used to play for Canada, but I can't think of any others off the top of my head. To be honest we tend to lose players to other countries (Owen Hargreaves to England, Daniel Fernandes to Portugal, Steven Vitoria to Portugal, Blerim Rrusterim to Albania, it's looking more and more likely that Jon de Guzman will play for Holland, I think Jacob Lensky is holding out hope of eventually playing for Czech Republic, Marcel de Jong is trying to play for Holland, and I recall a Canadian playing for the Bosnian U-20 team not too long ago.)

I think you may see names that are neither English or French and assume those players are naturalized, but Canada is a country that lets in half a million immigrants per year, and those immigrants eventually have children in Canada that is why you see names like Djenkovic, Hirschfeld, de Guzman, de Rosario, de Vos, Wagenaar, Klukowski, Gerba, Jazic, Stalteri, Lombardo, Radzinski, Imhof and Begovic wear the Canadian colours, and why in the future you may see players with names like Gomez, Giacomi, Vukovic, D'Agostino, Sylla, Bonsu, Rosario, Gyaki, Owusu-Ansah, Nsaliwa, Uccello, Sanchez Macip, Lam, Ademolu, Abusabal, Isidro, and Kekic.

Not because we naturalize players, but because we naturalize people who eventually have families.

 

umm....

I was refering to THE character known as "Davies123"

He is Canadian, but he is ashamed of it and decided to claim he is Italian, and even changed his username to look more Italian. After this last world cup he has gone on a Rampage and tries to get as Italian as Possible.

It's pretty sad actually. Poor guy.

Ps. I know Canada well and its statistics on population. Before writing an essay, make sure you know exactly what the topic is.

 

My bad, I seen your location and assumed you'd be another Central American ripping on Canada. Plus after so many Canadians betraying their country to play for their parents and grandparents homelands I get a little defensive if it is even possibly alluded to that we naturalize players to play for our team.

Athletic prowess isn't a means to get to the head of the queue with our immigration system. Having a university education or skilled trade in a high-demand field is the only way to jump to the front of the line. Athletes have to sit in line, that is why Simeon Jackson almost didn't get his citizenship until shortly before the U-20 World Cup or why Samuel Dalembert almost didn't get citizenship in time to play for Canada at the FIBAmerica Tournament of the Americas in July.

 

Just for argument's case...What if he was?

What are you, you Canuk-Cock-Sucker, gonna do about it?

 

Yeah.

What if I was some Central American critizing Canada?

I mean, I'm not. I am from Mexico, as my info clearly states, which is anyway in North America.

Looks like you ain't got much respect for our bros, the Central Americans, eh?

 

Well, if ripping on Canada for being worse than you in Men's soccer makes you feel better rip away.

How did your women's teams do at the World Cup? How did your team's do at FIBAmerica's Tournament of the America's in July? How did your rugby team's do at the World Cup?, or your Cricket teams? What about your Baseball team's at the last Olympics?

If this seems combative, you brought it on yourselves. The point of this post is that while Canada underperforms in Men's soccer, we are competitive in virtually every team sport that is played internationally. We don't put all our eggs in one basket. Hell, we even thoroughly dominate in a number of sports (Hockey, Lacrosse, Curling).

But if being good at one sport is enough for you, stay happy.