The coming boom in multi-eligible player recruitment

For fun, here's an attempt to collect some names of possible recruiting interest for final-round CONCACAF teams that aren't the U.S. or Mexico, including a name of U.S. interest for each one. I'm not an expert on this stuff and would appreciate better info from people who know more...

Canada
We've talked about Canada a lot and maybe don't need to belabor it. Apart from Tomori (who is also eligible for Nigeria as noted) and Akinola, who might be their main targets, if any? Maybe a guy like part-time St. Pauli player (and Wolfsburg "property") Omar Marmoush, a '99 who would need to switch from Egypt? Dominik Yankov seems to have picked Bulgaria; Daniel Jebbison looks a tad young for 2022, but who knows.

Costa Rica
I don't quickly see many recruitable players that jump off the page as potentially eligible, whether American or otherwise, who aren't already in their pool and might have the chops. Anybody know of some?

I see that there's a Costa Rica-born '00 named Joshua Canales at Queretaro who has represented Honduras, but I have no idea whether either program sees him as a senior candidate. There haven't been many battles for players between the U.S. and CRC.

El Salvador
Brayan Gil is maybe an interesting one. He's an '01 attacker, Colombia-born but naturalized, whose father, Cristian, had a long professional career. Brayan is with first-division Colombian club Alianza Petrolera and, as far as I can see, isn't cap-tied to anyone at any level, though apparently he previously had the eye of Colombia's U20s. De Los Cobos also was reportedly interested. He had a strong season a few years back for FAS that got him a loan to Belgium that, obviously, didn't lead to a permanent move.

Are there any "major" Salvadoran-American guys whose names aren't already in the mix?

Honduras
Honduras seems kind of like Costa Rica -- a lot of its top guys seem to already be in the program. Do they have any guys eligible who might have real shots for 2022? Maybe KHF? What's Danny Acosta up to? I'm probably missing something.

Jamaica
Jamaica is clearly pushing hard with both 2022 and 2026 in mind. One name that has been reported as of interest but not yet called in is Everton's '96 Mason Holgate. Isaac Holden, the '95 at Newcastle, is also apparently in the mix. This is gonna be an interesting program to watch -- and guys with profiles like those may not leave many minutes for US castoffs, although you need depth too...

Would Sean Johnson be Jamaica's #1 if he was still with them? Blake is obviously good, but maybe it would be close or close-ish, and certainly a boost in terms of depth and competition. (Also, Blake is 30? Where does the time go...) They recently picked up an English GK named Barnes who, however, doesn't seem to have done much professionally at high levels yet.

Panama
A program I know little about. There's an '04 in Everton's system named Thierry Small who is apparently English/Jamaican/Panamanian, and an '98 with Anathorsis Famagusta named Pavlos Correa who is apparently Panamaian/Cypriot -- and has represented the latter country at YNT level.

 

Looking at the U.S. GC preliminary roster, the main notes of interest seem to be:

• Several guys with different levels of interest from Mexico (Amaya, Araujo, Gomez, Pepi)
• I don't really know what to make of the Italy and German stuff for Busio and Che, respectively, but anyway here they are
• Flach presumably wasn't a serious German candidate or he wouldn't be in in MLS in the first place, but this obviously shows that he's somewhere in the U.S. pool now -- maybe you put him in the Perea category of guys who just played their cards really well by coming here (though he doesn't have to file a switch like Perea did)
• Moore is obviously fighting for a place in the U.S. depth chart, but he's an example of a guy who T&T may have at least temporarily "lost" because their WC campaign is over (and they may not even make it into the GC proper)
• Steven Goff said today that, according to DCU, Nyeman is not a citizen and may not be one in time for the GC. I can't honestly say I see the point of including him on a list like his if he's not eligible -- if you want to tell a guy you like him, just tell him, tell his agent, tell the press, invite him to train, send him presents ,etc. -- but I guess that's the way the game works these days
• Kevin Paredes is apparently eligible for the DR, which seems to be trying to boost its program through scouting the U.S.
• I sort of guess that Rubin is in the Moore category -- with no World Cup to play for with Guatemala, might as well bet on yourself getting back into the U.S. mix

There are others, but these seem like the most significant storylines, setting aside guys on other teams' lists.

 

Not sure what the source of the confusion was, but anyway...

Clarification: Moses Nyeman is a US citizen. Occurred in past year when his mom was naturalized. Because he was under 18, he's automatically a citizen. He doesn't have a passport yet. That's coming soon, probably in time for Gold Cup eligibility. (He's also eligible for Liberia.)

— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) June 18, 2021

 

Jebbison is on Canada's provisional GC roster. So maybe he's not too young!

Panama's includes Pablo Correa, the "Pavlos" I mentioned in the post above.

Of course, Acosta is back on a Honduras list. Will he ever actually suit up for them?

The Canadian-Mexican at Arsenal mentioned earlier in this thread is on Canada's list.

Zendejas is on Mexico's, along with ... some other guys.

I'm sure there is other stuff worth noting but these jumped out at me.

 

It sounds like there's been some degree of back-and-forth and, at least according to this article, Olympic qualifying threw an at-least temporary monkey wrench in the process.

https://futbolcentroamerica.com/not...esentar-a-la-Azul-y-Blanco-20210503-0008.html

Of course, Guatemala getting knocked out of WCQ by Curacao (on what looks like a single goal scored? But I'm not 100% sure about that) can't have helped. Neither can the fact that Guatemala is still trying to get into that B-team Gold Cup. This is a player who wants to be in a Top 5 league...

 

The other thing that must be going on is that you gotta think every fanbase expects some degree of global recruiting, or at least lip service to it. Are there any that don't? I could see that being the case ("We play our game our way etc.") but surely there won't be many holdouts, if any, before long.

 

Based on some cursory research, it seems like Haiti has some interesting players in Europe that would probably strengthen their program -- but to interest them, they may need to either get some breaks on the field (they really weren't that far from the final round of CONCACAF qualifying this time around and they breezed through the previous stage without giving up a goal) and/or generally pick up some more "gettable" players first.

A guy like Jean-Kévin Duverne, to pick one example at semi-random, might've been tempted if they'd advanced. You could certainly see him being a target ahead of 2026. Or perhaps someone like Delcroix if his Belgium career doesn't progress.