The Multi-Eligible Player Recruitment Thread (2026 WC Cycle Edition)

Whatever is going on here, I guess I'm just choosing to pay attention to what actually happens and take from that what I can -- at least until there's a clearer explanation or whatever somewhere.

I'm not 100% sure of this, but I think that if Hamdaoui plays for Morocco at the U17s it would be the first example of a guy playing for one country in qualifying for an official FIFA YNT competition, and then playing for another in the Finals of that competition in the same cycle, WHEN his first country is also in the Finals, that I know of under the current set of rules. (If there's been another, tell me!)

And even then it's (maybe) funky because the matches Hamdaoui played in for Belgium were not the final round of qualifying; they were a prequalifying round.

Does any of this matter? I have no idea.

 

Croatia picked up an '06 GK at Bayern Munich who was cap-tied to Australia at U17 level and didn't play for them at U20 qualifying -- not that it matters much, since neither Croatia nor Australia made the FIFA U20 finals. He's also age-eligible for the upcoming UEFA U19s, but Croatia didn't qualify for that either. (They lost to Luxembourg along the way.)

And by the way... I realize I do occasionally post things that have nothing to do either with the US programs or FIFA rules broadly. My general thing is basically that it's interesting to have some global context regarding the kind of guys who switch and when and so on. Obviously I think the main focus of this thread will and should remain US stuff; hopefully folks don't mind the occasional post about other things.

 

DeCorte:

“I haven’t yet made up my mind but at the moment I’ve been playing with the Belgian U-19s. I haven’t made a decision yet.”

Asked if he has heard from the USA for a call up, he replied, “Recently, no. But I’m open to hearing from either side. I spent my whole life in America. I’m American. As a child, I would come to Belgium on vacation with my family.”
​

https://yanks-abroad.co/2025/04/21/devon-de-corte-on-his-anderlecht-adventure/

 

Dante Sealy's on T&T's Gold Cup preliminary roster. Off the top of my head, he doesn't need to file a switch, though he has a bunch of USYNT appearances to his name.

 

Arman Durmiši did in fact make Albania's UEFA U17 roster. I don't know what it says about The Rules, but it did happen! (To recap, my understanding here, and take that for what it's worth, is that he was provisionally cap-tied to Slovenia while playing up in the previous UEFA U17 cycle, and was permitted to switch to participate in the current one. This is probably not something that happens and/or is gonna happen a lot, but I found it interesting.)

https://fshf.org/sq/shqiperia-shpal...0-lojtare-per-kampionatin-europian-u-17-2025/

 

I don't think being on a provisional Gold Cup roster (necessarily) means anything more than they put him on there -- Canada was putting Jebbison on theirs for years before he switched. Of course, Sealy doesn't need to switch. But until he shows up there or says something straightforward about the change, I wouldn't assume "it's happened."

With that said, this seems like a textbook case of when you'd expect a guy to jump. He's not in the USMNT pool ahead of 2026. T&T isn't the longest possible longshot out there -- looking at the rest of their current WCQ group, they should, on paper, probably advance to the next stage, and he'd presumably help. (I feel obligated to point out that they dropped points to Grenada at home, long live CONCACAF.)

 

Also -- not gonna get into them in detail here in an attempt to occasionally stay semi-on-topic, but FIFA has approved switches for Yang Mingyang (Switzerland > China) and Diego Moreira (Portugal > Belgium). Neither case says much about FIFA rules or anything else we tend to discuss here that I could easily see, but they're both worth looking up for the sake of general interest!

 

Saw some tweets talking about Panama recruiting a Kuranyi and absent-mindedly thought "Huh, guess Kevin has a brother or something." Then I looked into it a bit more (it's his son Karlo, for the U20s) and was reminded that our hearts, while stout and brave, still, like muffled drums, are beating funeral marches to the grave.

 

FIFA recently confirmed the switch of Netherlands-born former Dutch youth (and cuppa coffee MNT) international Pablo Rosario, a '97, to the DR.

 

Another Dutch player moves to CONCACAF -- this time, a '94 named Jean-Paul Boëtius, whose last meaningful cap for the Netherlands was apparently at the UEFA U21 level, who will now represent Suriname, and whose surname recalls a philosopher known for his thoughts on the rise and fall of men -- fitting for an athlete, to be sure.

 

Suriname also got an '02 named Yannick Leliendal at Volendam who evidently played unofficially for Belgian YNTs and then was cap-tied by the Netherlands at U17 level. He was already on their Gold Cup roster, which was released before FIFA's "decision date," maybe raising a technical question, maybe not, about the timing of switches relative to competitions. With that said, I'm letting it go. Only so far down the rabbit hole I'm willing to go, at least for today!

 

What do people think are the odds that Nene Brown has a shot with Germany's MNT for 2026 specifically? The U21s are in the UEFA finals; he seems well-situated for lots of pro minutes this coming season; all of Germany's defenders at the Leagues Cup finals were closer to 30 than 25. I don't have a deep understanding of their pool at his position.

 

I'll always be a Rubio Rubin fan. He's a "happy" downstream recruiting story, I'd say.

Start the play at around 7:55 or so here:

 

Sharing mostly 'cause it's interesting that an '05 has switched, per FIFA, from American Samoa to New Zealand. (When a bartender told him that he doesn't get many guys who switch from American Samoa to New Zealand in his joint, the player replied "At these prices, you won't get many more!") It looks like he was cap-tied at U20 level in qualifying for the 2025 FIFA tournament, so it may be worth watching whether he's eligible to play in the finals this year.