What does Eddie Lewis' old team have to do with this? Back on thread, this would be a nice move. I think it's always easier with the homesickness if you have someone from your country on the team. I think it decreases the chances the kid will pull a Landon and want to come home. It's also great that a team like HSV has decided to mine our player pool. Hopefully more teams follow suit. Beau, you forgot about this one that Coach K lost before ever playing for the Dookies. http://www.nba.com/playerfile/shaun_livingston/index.html?nav=page Of course, he plays for Duke-west. (along with Brand, Maggette and Ewing).
Not to shed too much light on this topic, because it's for Preston to say. The article link is to my site at washingtonpremiersoccer about his growing up. I do know him personally and have spent time with his family and him. He did recently go over to germany and had a trial there. He spent a week with the U-19 team, and then from my understanding a week with the U-23 or the reserve team...possibly played in a reserve game as well. His family paid for the trip, because they are very serious about their committment to Duke and in no way wanted to lose that thru a rule violation with the NCAA. If he does go and play in germany, then the choice will be made by him and his family. They have really gone thru all of this process with much thought and respect to his future. They understand an education at Duke will give him a very good future, something that soccer would have a difficult time doing money wise. Unless he plays at a very high level or possibly plays in europe for a number of year. It's easy to get short sighted because you love the game of soccer. The Zimmerman family has really taken a larger approach and understand playing at Duke not only gets him a great education and future off the field. If he skips Duke, which may happen. He will at least make sure all of his bases are covered and it will more than likely be worth skipping college. Not to say most players don't make educated choices, but Preston has a great head on his shoulders and he will make the right choice for himself. People hate when I've commented in the past about him not going MLS. My personal opinion from speaking to him and his family is the MLS could not offer him the same extended future in life as an education at Duke. Again...I'm not speaking for Preston or his family. I do however know he will make the best possible choice, with much more thought than most.
Don't you mean, "MLS will not offer him..." MLS has proven that it can offer quite a bit if it wants to. Adu & Szetela come to mind.
Right but I said residency, not citizenship. Any Jew should be able to claim residency and thus a WP in Germany.
Not all Jews, but any Jew who's Jewish parents/grandparents /great grand-etc lived in Germany between 1933 and 1945 is eligible for citizenship. I think it's the same deal in Austria, but that memory. Have to have had a mother/grandmother/ greatgrandmother ... in germany during that time for it to go smoothly.
8 years of uninterrupted residence, plus some other stuff. ONLY Eastern European Jews, so called "jüdische Kontingentflüchtlinge". I'm pretty sure that to American Jews the same rules like to any other American citizen would apply. Only if they had German citizenship. Art 116 (2) Frühere deutsche Staatsangehörige, denen zwischen dem 30. Januar 1933 und dem 8. Mai 1945 die Staatsangehörigkeit aus politischen, rassischen oder religiösen Gründen entzogen worden ist, und ihre Abkömmlinge sind auf Antrag wieder einzubürgern. Sie gelten als nicht ausgebürgert, sofern sie nach dem 8. Mai 1945 ihren Wohnsitz in Deutschland genommen haben und nicht einen entgegengesetzten Willen zum Ausdruck gebracht haben.
Any American can get a work permit in Germany as far as I know. Besides the EU countries, there are a few other countries with a special status. This would be, iirc, the US, Canada, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand and maybe Japan.
IIRC, it's impossible for an American to have dual German/American citizenship, if it's not awarded by birth. I looked into getting my German passport about 8 years ago, and I would have had to give up my US citizenship. It could have changed since then, but I doubt it.
Ah yes, this is among the other stuff I mentioned . You can not get German citizenship without giving up your old one.
I'm not certain how it works for Germany but nobody normally has to give up any of their passports, regardless of what the law states. It is usually an unenforced law.
According to German law you have to give up your old citizenship before you can be given German citizenship. I don't know how it's enforced, but in theory he would have to prove this first before he would get his German passport.
Legally, yes, but in practice this is aimed at Turkish immigrants. American dual citizenship is tolerated/wink-at/ pretty popular. What the law says, basically, is that any Jew whose family was chased out of Germany (now considered an illegal act by the state) by the third reich can reclaim the citizenship that should have been theirs at birth. Alex is correct, it requires citizenship, but there is an appeals process and this is one area German officials do not go strictly by the book (for very understandable reasons). As for residency, what was said about WPs applies, Americans can move in and ask for residency after they arrive and get it within weeks. No hassles whatsoever. That said, I have no idea at all if this applies to Zimmerman, and i can't remember why it matters in this case, so I'll shut up.
Thought about Livingston, but I decided to limit it to just one year. Pressel and Zimmerman would both be freshmen in the fall. K could really use Livingston this year. That team won't be #1 much longer. I graduated from Duke 14 years ago, and I'm still making MLS backup defender money. Of course, I made a poor career choice.
Note quite sure it's that easy. Last time I worked there the company I was working for had to pay for a study showing that there were no Germans within a 50 sq. km. radius that had the same skill set I had. It's not too difficult to prove that since there aren't that many Germans who are native English speakers (one way to get around the rule). Maybe it's changed. Hopefully, since that will make my move there this summer much easier!
Man, I can play for Germany! I need to get my paperwork in before June............ I Wants to be Rossi-like.
This doesn't apply to soccer players who want to play for the German national team or athletes who could win a medal at the Olympics etc., of course. They will get a special treatement because of "national interest" (see: Dundee, Sean). This actually pisses me off though (not that they get German citizenship, but that they can get it much faster than "ordinary" people).
It isn't changed as far as I know, but I don't think that this applies to all jobs though (I might be wrong, but I think it's only for jobs who require some kind of high skilled labour).
I made the mistake of thinking my situation is typical, which I'm guessing it's not. thanks for pointing that out.
Well, isn't getting more Bundesliga teams into the advanced rounds of the various UEFA Cups in national interests? Of course, following the paranoid ranting of Rudi Völler, the Bundesliga chose to go another way, thus getting into bidding wars for the UEFA footballers against the richer leagues.