Natural Born Talent
British football has long been criticised for being behind the times, be it youth development, players diets, training methods, tactics, sports psychology and now even the naturalisation of foreign born players eligible for their national sides. Even the fact a gentleman’s agreement has been made and stuck to pretty rigidly from the home nations that they would only pick players born with a bloodline to the country seems pretty antiquated in modern football.
While Jack Charlton’s early attempts at getting the most from Fifa’s eligibility criteria were often derided by a British media whose countries were neither going through a successful period nor where they just about too, with only Ireland of the home countries able to claim with any level of truth that they had made great strides from the 90’s onwards.
The recent introduction of the an added thread on the criteria being “having lived on the territory continuously for at least five years after the age of 18” has cerainly brought a fresh look at how National squads are now selected.
Owing much to the globalisation of the wider football community, even the larger countries have now made use of assimilated foreign players, with England (given their British gentlemens agreement) the only big hitter in Euriope not yet to have utilised it. The value of EU citrizensship for players in terms of their club careers cannot be underestimated, amd this can directly be used to beenfit the adopted nations international side.
While it is now generally accepted as ‘part of the game’ often Countrys face fierce opposition when its first raised, though I doubt whether theb portuguse fans who didn’t want Deco, the Spanish supoorters that didn’t want Senna, and even the Turkish patriots that didn’t want Auerlio, would now hold firmon their initial displeasure.
Since Brazil is the greatest producer of football talent in the world it follows that footballers most likely to be naturalised are from Brazil. There are Brazilians playing for Croatia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Azerbaijan, Tunisia, Lebanon, and even Qatar.
With Owen Hargreaves being the closest thing England have to a naturalised foreigner (with Owen’s father and upbringing being that of an Englishman) being born and raised in Canada, he certainly couldn’t claim to have been completely accepted by the English national teams loyal fan base. These supporters’ opinions on the matter read like a BNP manifesto, with even the media accepting that a huge correlation is placed on National identity and the national football team. Skinheads and football hooligans aside, for the average Englishman it is important that players who turn out for England have a strong connection with the country. The fact that a player may to choose to play for England simply because they are not good enough to play for the country of their birth just doesn’t sit well.
Let's face it: amidst the immigration backlash in many parts of Europe - "look what these bloody foreigners are doing to our country" - style scapegoating, it's far from easy to become citizens of any number of Western European states. However, would there be a slight leeway given for those whose skills are very much in demand. Mikel Arteta filling England problem left hand side is probably as comfortable the English public would be in accepting a naturalised player playing for England. It would be a major step for Capello to look to naturalised foreigners and recent British citizens, but as a foreigner himself Capello seems the ideal man to initiate such a call-up and in doing so bring England into the 21st century, Thus far Capello has not discussed the subject of Arteta with his employers, the Football Association, because it does not become a live issue until Arteta obtains British citizenship, and then pressure applied on the agreement betwenn the home countries.
Regardless of how scared England, and the rest of Britain are and would be of immigration and the impact it might well have on the future of our international squad, it will happen.
The new EPL squad systems certainly play in favour of talented players moving to England at a young enough age to gain citizenship while they are young enough to just be starting their club careers. The emphasis on home-grown talent regardless of the country of birth with only the exception of 25 players in each squad will mean clubs not only invest well on the best available talent round the globe, but are likely to be used or at least groomed for first team action.
Not only an increased scouting networked now used by many British clubs to identify untapped foreign talent, but simply increased immigration to our shores will help this happen. Whole families moving to Scotland, with many young boys growing up in this country not only doing so feeling a large part Scottish (spending their formative years here) and having a very strong affinity to Scotland and our culture, they will be involved in youth football set up, playing for clubs, schools and even Scotland Schoolboys and part of the national set up. Celtic's young Islam Feruz will be seen as a trailblazer and certainly shows the potential to have the sheer talent to change opinions, have guys not caring what colour, background or birthplace their Scotland players are, but if they can play like Islam then we’ll take them just fine. No longer is it about naturalising players who aren’t good enough for ‘their own country’, but about embracing talent and changes in society. Join the rest of the more forward thinking football nations, lets benefit from it.
Scotland benefit from Celtic, while Celtic could well benefit from Scotland if our society continues to accept immigrants, and our fans keep away from the extreme opinions shared by many of our English counterparts. Perhaps the difference in ability and expectations in the two countries provide difference enough as I get the impression Scotland would be happy with any good (even decent) players regardless of colour of skin or where he is from. The most abuse our country has produced to the world of football in recent time is in the frequent insults thrown towards Aiden Mcgeady. Regardless of the catholic/protestant issues used to explain it, could it be simplified that Scottish fans are aggravated that ‘one of their own’ is playing for someone else and would happily accept a foreigner McGeady’s ability coming in the opposite direction to play for Scotland.
Certainly how I feel about Celtic, I don’t want players as good as McGeady to play for someone else, its great to see the likes of he, Maloney, and young Forrest breaking through as you can relate to him and like to think there is continued hope for future young Celtic fans to get a chance to represent Celtic – However more important to me is that the players that do represent Celtic are the very best that we can possibly get.
It's not the creed or nationality that counts, it's the man himself
While Jack Charlton’s early attempts at getting the most from Fifa’s eligibility criteria were often derided by a British media whose countries were neither going through a successful period nor where they just about too, with only Ireland of the home countries able to claim with any level of truth that they had made great strides from the 90’s onwards.
The recent introduction of the an added thread on the criteria being “having lived on the territory continuously for at least five years after the age of 18” has cerainly brought a fresh look at how National squads are now selected.
Owing much to the globalisation of the wider football community, even the larger countries have now made use of assimilated foreign players, with England (given their British gentlemens agreement) the only big hitter in Euriope not yet to have utilised it. The value of EU citrizensship for players in terms of their club careers cannot be underestimated, amd this can directly be used to beenfit the adopted nations international side.
While it is now generally accepted as ‘part of the game’ often Countrys face fierce opposition when its first raised, though I doubt whether theb portuguse fans who didn’t want Deco, the Spanish supoorters that didn’t want Senna, and even the Turkish patriots that didn’t want Auerlio, would now hold firmon their initial displeasure.
Since Brazil is the greatest producer of football talent in the world it follows that footballers most likely to be naturalised are from Brazil. There are Brazilians playing for Croatia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Azerbaijan, Tunisia, Lebanon, and even Qatar.
With Owen Hargreaves being the closest thing England have to a naturalised foreigner (with Owen’s father and upbringing being that of an Englishman) being born and raised in Canada, he certainly couldn’t claim to have been completely accepted by the English national teams loyal fan base. These supporters’ opinions on the matter read like a BNP manifesto, with even the media accepting that a huge correlation is placed on National identity and the national football team. Skinheads and football hooligans aside, for the average Englishman it is important that players who turn out for England have a strong connection with the country. The fact that a player may to choose to play for England simply because they are not good enough to play for the country of their birth just doesn’t sit well.
Let's face it: amidst the immigration backlash in many parts of Europe - "look what these bloody foreigners are doing to our country" - style scapegoating, it's far from easy to become citizens of any number of Western European states. However, would there be a slight leeway given for those whose skills are very much in demand. Mikel Arteta filling England problem left hand side is probably as comfortable the English public would be in accepting a naturalised player playing for England. It would be a major step for Capello to look to naturalised foreigners and recent British citizens, but as a foreigner himself Capello seems the ideal man to initiate such a call-up and in doing so bring England into the 21st century, Thus far Capello has not discussed the subject of Arteta with his employers, the Football Association, because it does not become a live issue until Arteta obtains British citizenship, and then pressure applied on the agreement betwenn the home countries.
Regardless of how scared England, and the rest of Britain are and would be of immigration and the impact it might well have on the future of our international squad, it will happen.
The new EPL squad systems certainly play in favour of talented players moving to England at a young enough age to gain citizenship while they are young enough to just be starting their club careers. The emphasis on home-grown talent regardless of the country of birth with only the exception of 25 players in each squad will mean clubs not only invest well on the best available talent round the globe, but are likely to be used or at least groomed for first team action.
Not only an increased scouting networked now used by many British clubs to identify untapped foreign talent, but simply increased immigration to our shores will help this happen. Whole families moving to Scotland, with many young boys growing up in this country not only doing so feeling a large part Scottish (spending their formative years here) and having a very strong affinity to Scotland and our culture, they will be involved in youth football set up, playing for clubs, schools and even Scotland Schoolboys and part of the national set up. Celtic's young Islam Feruz will be seen as a trailblazer and certainly shows the potential to have the sheer talent to change opinions, have guys not caring what colour, background or birthplace their Scotland players are, but if they can play like Islam then we’ll take them just fine. No longer is it about naturalising players who aren’t good enough for ‘their own country’, but about embracing talent and changes in society. Join the rest of the more forward thinking football nations, lets benefit from it.
Scotland benefit from Celtic, while Celtic could well benefit from Scotland if our society continues to accept immigrants, and our fans keep away from the extreme opinions shared by many of our English counterparts. Perhaps the difference in ability and expectations in the two countries provide difference enough as I get the impression Scotland would be happy with any good (even decent) players regardless of colour of skin or where he is from. The most abuse our country has produced to the world of football in recent time is in the frequent insults thrown towards Aiden Mcgeady. Regardless of the catholic/protestant issues used to explain it, could it be simplified that Scottish fans are aggravated that ‘one of their own’ is playing for someone else and would happily accept a foreigner McGeady’s ability coming in the opposite direction to play for Scotland.
Certainly how I feel about Celtic, I don’t want players as good as McGeady to play for someone else, its great to see the likes of he, Maloney, and young Forrest breaking through as you can relate to him and like to think there is continued hope for future young Celtic fans to get a chance to represent Celtic – However more important to me is that the players that do represent Celtic are the very best that we can possibly get.
It's not the creed or nationality that counts, it's the man himself
posted by Michael__67 at 4:27 PM
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