The official "Some site says this guy is a Yank" detective work thread

A name I haven't been able to find a thread for is Bradley Lucas Falcão Cini. Not sure whether Falcão is American or was just living in the US. Listed as Brazilian / Italian on transfermarkt. Played first at Boca United in Miami and then for a few years in the Timbers academy. Now with Viktoria Berlin in Bundesliga3 where he's had 6 goals and 3 assists over 30 appearances.

 

That SOFIFA link in section 2 is updated by me. There's several players on that list who could very clearly never lace them up for the US, but have ties to the United States. e.g. Mario Gotze lived in Houston for a short period of time in his youth while his father had a research grant at the University. I have a few custom saves in the FIFA video games (as well as Football Manager and eFootball) where all the players are moved to their "homegrown" squad. Here's what the Houston team looks like just as an example: https://sofifa.com/squad/549736. It's more of a what if / fantasy scenario. If there's anyone on the list y'all have questions about, I'm happy to try and pass along what information I've been able to gather.

 

I saw this tweet:

If I were an MLS GM. I'd seriously look into signing @mohamadrashid3 (30 caps/2 goals for 🇵🇸). Only 26, doesn't take up a foreign player slot, no transfer fee! Archetypical #6 you need to be successful in the league- and is great at getting forward, too @MLSTransfers

— Football Palestine (@FutbolPalestine) June 16, 2022

I then spotted this profile at TM:

Mohammed Bassim Ahmed Rashid
Date of birth: Jul 3, 1995
Age: 26
Height:1,83 m
Citizenship: Palästina United States
Position: midfield - Defensive Midfield

Has 18 caps with Palestine and is cap-tied to them.

If the source gets back to me with reasonable info, I'll add a thread.

I found an interview where he's speaking English:

https://www.goal.com/en/news/no-int...inian-footballer-mohammed/blt175fa807c63156ce

His English is pretty good and he doesn't have a super strong accent, so it's possible he has an American parent.

 

Looks like he was born in Palestine and played college soccer at NAIA Saint Francis per Wikipedia.

Assuming that's correct, his college roster listed a hometown as Plainfield, Illinois, and he at least went to high school there.

 

The original source got back to me & it sounds like we don't have a lot more info:

He lived in the US for a while and played college ball at St. Francis (Illinois). Got the call up to the 🇵🇸 U23s. Played professionally in Palestine then spent the last two years in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia (where he was amongst the best players in the league)

— Football Palestine (@FutbolPalestine) June 16, 2022

 

Not sure if he's a brother or relative at all but there's a Malek Rashid who played at the same college last season: https://gofightingsaints.com/sports/mens-soccer/roster/malek-rashid/5593. His facebook features a post referencing Mohammed's unease with the protests against violence against Ukraine since Palestinians weren't afforded the same solidarity. Malek played this year for two professional clubs in the Palestinian Pro League Shabab Beer and Club Qalqilia. He mentions his contract being up on a Facebook post but it's hard to say based on translation whether that's the end of a loan option or being out of contract. I'm not sure he's the same level of talent as Mohammed at this point based on college stats but I figured it was worth mentioning. His JUCO profile (Jolliet Junior College) mentions a hometown of Romeoville, Illinois and his school as the American School of Palestine. So that may be another few breadcrumbs towards establishing whether Mohammed has citizenship or was just a resident through high school / college for anyone that wants to try to dive deeper.

 

W

Worth noting here that the article is talking in part about coach Joe Enochs who is unquestionably American. Could just be a translation issue? Google translate makes Lukas Kruger seems like the American like you say "The American newcomer Lukas Krüger offered up the storm: but another app on my phone says: "In the storm, the American offered newcomer Lukas Krueger" which makes it feel more like the coach is the American in question. Maybe a more fluent German speaker could shed some light?

 

Younger brother has signed with PEC Zwolle:

🚨 18 year old defender Philippe Markvoort Beke 🇺🇸🇳🇱 has signed with PEC Zwolle 🇳🇱 of the Eerste Divisie

He signs with the club from AFC Amsterdam 🇳🇱

His brother, Julian, recently made his first team debut with ADO Den Haag 🇳🇱, also of the Eerste Divisie 🤝#USMNT pic.twitter.com/0fI9yCZdot

— USMNT burner (@burnerusmnt) June 24, 2022

 

The “American” refers to Enochs, not Krüger. Krüger also doesn’t have any obvious American links that I can find.

 

One of the boys' agent posted congrats to Margo Markvoort, who I assume is the boy's mother. She's been running a tourist business in Orlando for the last 30 years, so I think there's a good chance the boys were born & raised in the US.

 

I booted up the latest edition of Football Manager after buying it on steam sale. Here are some names that I couldn't immediately find a thread or mention for on here. These aren't strictly yanks abroad. A few of them are playing in the US, but anyone with dual nationality that I didn't see a thread for is getting mentioned just for tracking purposes. The search function leaves a lot to be desired on this site, so it's also possible some of these names are already familiar, but they were new to me.

Varuzhan Hovhanesian / Fuenlabrada C
This San Diego born Armenian goalkeeper has bounced around the lower tiers of Spanish football playing for Leganes, Rayo, and now Fuenlabrada youth squads. Still young in goalkeeping terms. Is being tracked but the Armenia federation according to reports.

Nico Corti / Free Agent
Belgian born keeper played for Real So Cal in his youth then Stanford University. Played in USL for RGV Toros after his college career ended. Currently without a team. Possible with a Stanford degree that he's retired.

Adolfo Ovalle / Tacoma Defiance
Adolfo Ovalle is a 25 year old CM playing for Tacoma Defiance. Born in Chile he grew up in Salt Lake City where his father ended his own playing career with the Utah Blitzz (yes that was an actual USL team name in the early 2000s). Capped four times for the Chilean U20 team.

Jake Daniels / Blackpool
A 17 year old winger / striker who has one nine minute appearance for the Blackpool first team in the Championship. Scored one goal in his two appearances in the FA youth cup. He's most famous at this point for being one of the only openly gay active professional UK footballers.

Shae Cahill / Everton
The son of Australian national team footballer Tim Cahill. Shae is a tri-nat. Currently with the Everton U18s where he had three appearances last season.

Joshua Emmanuel / Hull City
The Hull city right back is also eligible for Nigeria and England. Despite still being only 24, he has already bounced around the lower tiers of English football quite a bit picking up 20+ appearances for Ipswich, Rotherham, Bolton and Hull City. I've never been able to source where his American heritage might come from but he's been consistently listed as American in Football Manager games for five years running.

Damon Bansais / Quevilly-Rouen
A right back who helped Pau FC achieve promotion to Ligue 2 in France. Currently playing for another Ligue 2 team Quevilly-Rouen. I'm having trouble re-sourcing it at the moment but I want to say I found something at one point mentioning that he had relatives somewhere in northern New England. Maybe Vermont or New Hampshire?

Marck Cruz / Chivas
Currently playing for Tapatio in the Liga de Expansion, the speedy California born winger was registered with the first team in hopes that his play might justify moving up. Obviously given Chivas status, the 18 year old probably won't be playing for USYNT but maybe one for down the line.

Ryan Doghman / Asane
A left back / winger from Norway who has worked his way up three tiers of football and currently plays in the second division. Had two goals and an assist over nine appearances so far this season. American connection unknown.

Also, as I was working through the database there were a ton of unfamiliar names that I searched only to find a thread had been started with a few comments in it. It's wild how y'all track down these guys. Kudos!

 

Turned up a few more names when I added additional leagues to the database. These are all a bit on the speculative side as information becomes more scare the lower the levels of competition obviously.

Tyler Pasnik / Rangers
A well-regarded attacking mid prospect currently playing for the Rangers 18U/B squads. At first I thought maybe he was just part of the Orange County loan swap program or something and that's why he was tagged as American but that doesn't appear to be the case. There's a photo of his (dad?) with him at his contract signing wearing a New York Yankees ball cap. Can't really find any additional information to confirm or deny eligibility, but his contract has been extended several times already by the club and what I can see of his youth level stats look impressive.

Stefan Wutte / Inter Leipzeg
Oregon raised Austrian left back bouncing around the lower divisions in that country now.

Jhonatan Carmona / Ateltico Huila
19 year old Colombian winger with twelve appearances for Huila who are currently back in Primera B after a recent relegation from the top league. They won the Clausura in 2021 but have been a bit of a shambles ever since. He's a decent talent from what I can tell (e.g. 64 rated in PES / 40/70 in FM) but hard to say. I don't easily find anything that points to why he's listed as American.

Nicolas Rodriguez / Fortaleza C.E.I.F
Another Colombian prospect. The winger has two senior team appearances on his career for a total of 32 minutes for Fortaleza who finished second in the Primera B Apertura this season.

Kevin Andrews / University of Central Florida
Minnesota raised Franco-American CM who made one appearance in the Portugese cup competition last season for 3rd Division Sintrense. Appears to be playing college soccer now for UCF.

Muhamet Ajvazi / Free Agent
North Macedonia footballer born in Oregon. Probably Retired.

Thomas Skiba / Tarnovia Tarnowo
20 year old Polish-American left back who has just been loaned to the third division in search of playing time. There's a Tom Skiba (possibly related? coaching soccer in Massachusetts). He has a high rating potential in FM (60), so he appears to be considered a decent prospect despite not having any senior team appearances so far.

 

Ha. Not surprised several of these guys already had threads. Joshua John the Aruban national team member and longtime Eredivisie winger is another multi-year Football Manager American that I've never been able to figure out the reason for.

I did just notice that Nicolas Rodriguez was born in San Jose, Colombia. There's a non-zero chance that he was misidentified based on that city name.

Not really sure on Cahill. His dad didn't play for Red Bulls until 2012 and would have been at Everton at the time of his birth. No continental tournament in the US at that time or any real reason to think Tim was there in 2005. I hesitated to include him but when the official team site is saying it you feel pretty confident: https://www.evertonfc.com/players/115435/shae-cahill

 

It's a great resource, I wish they had a better way to handle green cards though. The pre-game editor has put me onto a few players personally. I also bought it recently although the day before it went on sale So far I've only turned up Ken Aboh who already has a post in this thread and some guys in South America who you can't really find info online about. Beat me to Pasnik so nice job

 

I understand for game play why they need to have the green card players listed as American but I ran into so many dudes who played two years of MLS a long time ago that I had to look into their playing career history to realize that I was wasting my time. The thing that does turn up some guys that don't necessarily have USA nationality listed is to search by state on the pre-game editor. I've found several off the radar names that way in the past.

 

I was poking around this thread tonight and realized that I'm not sure y'all have covered the Strain brothers. Tom Strain was formerly with the Aston Villa academy team and still plays for MetroStars of the second division in Australia where he was born. His brother Ryan Strain has had the more successful professional career so far playing with Adelaide United, Maccabi Haifa, and recently transferring to St. Mirren in the Scottish Premiership.

Their grandfather was the New York born USMNT international Gerry Baker who managed 7 caps and 2 goals between 1968-1969. Baker had a lengthy and successful career playing in Europe for Man City, Ipswich Town, and Coventry City (as well as a stint with his grandsons new team St. Mirren). Gerry's brother Joe Baker was also a heralded footballer gaining eight caps for England and narrowly missing out on the roster for the 1966 World Cup winning squad. Gerry's daughter Lorraine (the mother of Tom and Ryan) was also an athlete. She ran the 800 meter and was a two-time Olympian for England. Whether either of the Strain brothers have US passports is an open question, but it's just a really interesting family story so I figured I'd share.

 

Looking at their histories, it's extremely unlikely that US citizenship passed down to Lorraine as Baker was only in the US for a short time (1938 to 1939 according to Wikipedia). It doesn't look like he ever moved back. At the time, you would have needed to live at least 10 years in the US (5 after turning 14) to pass along US citizenship. The only way to use grandparent's US citizenship would be if the grandparent were eligible to pass along US citizenship (which he probably isn't) and it has to be done by age 18.