Foreign Lions: A look into converted nationalities

Januzaj takes on a player

“If you live in England for five years it doesn’t make you English.”

That is what England and Arsenal midfielder Jack Wilshere said this week after Roy Hodgson admitted that he and the FA were ‘monitoring’ Adnan Januzaj and his eligibility to play for England.

Wilshere is wrong, at least to an extent. Many people have moved abroad even as adults (unlike Januzaj, who arrived in the UK at the age of 16), fallen in love with their new nation and adopted it as their own, fully immersing themselves in the culture and traditions of their new homeland. He cannot possibly comment on the opinions and feelings of a person and how they feel toward a respective nation.

However, his comments add fuel to the fire that is the current debate: ‘Should foreigners be able to represent the Three Lions?’

It is not a foreign concept (excuse the pun) for players to represent a nation they were not born in. Even excluding the days in which Alfredo Di Stefano represented three countries in his career, there are many examples of a player changing allegiances from their homeland to an adopted country.

Marcos Senna may be the most high profile example. The superb holding midfielder is from Brazil but gained Spanish citizenship after playing for Villarreal. If he had not played for Spain, would they have had all their recent success? Probably, but there is no denying he was integral in their Euro 2008 victory.

Deco was another from Brazil who represented another nation, playing for Porto long enough to play for Portugal, while Southampton new boy Dani Osvaldo represents Italy, despite being born in Buenos Aries and not moving to Europe until the age of 20. And back in the nineties, drinking a pint of Guinness would get you a game for Ireland.

England are not exempt from this notion, however their foreign call ups have come in the form of players who were born abroad but moved to England at a young age with family for a variety of reasons.

John Barnes, whose father played for Jamaica, moved to England at 13 and earned 79 caps for the Three Lions while Luther Blissett was also born on the Caribbean island, moving to Watford as a teenager and played 14 times for England.

John Salako, Owen Hargreaves, Fabrice Muamba, Victor Moses (although now a full Nigeria international) and Tony Dorigo all played for England at various levels despite not being born on these shores, and in the current set up Raheem Sterling and Wilfried Zaha have earned full caps despite being born in Jamaica and Ivory Coast respectively.

The issue appears to be then not with people who have English parentage or grandparentage, or those that grew up in the nation since childhood, but with those you might deem an ‘adult’. Someone who came to England at an older age and those that appear (I say appear going back to my comment on Wilshere’s quote) to have no connection with the country. It seems strange that people would have an issue with this, as many football fans are fans of other sports and many of England’s various teams and sports have a foreigner representing them.

For example, England’s cricket team currently has Matt Prior, Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen, all South African born. Manu Tuilagi plays for England’s rugby union side despite being born in Samoa, while Greg Rusedski represented Great Britain despite being Canadian. Even Olympic hero Mo Farah was born in Somalia but won gold for Team GB.

So it seems even more strange that England football fans remain, by and large, so staunchly opposed to the notion.

Obviously, having a starting eleven full of foreign nationals makes a mockery of the England team and international football as a whole, but surely there cannot be a problem with putting one or two players in if they would improve the team and the players around them.

However, it all seems to be a bit of a moot point. Januzaj is very young, has started one Premier League match and while it was an excellent performance, Federico Macheda did something similar once and look where he is now. The hyperbole around the lad is very premature. In addition, he has already rejected the advances of Belgium, currently a better footballing nation than England, as he is determined to represent a nation closer to him, Albania, or Kosovo if they ever gain FIFA status.

On the other hand, the only foreign national who has been arguably good enough and eligible to play for England is Mikel Arteta (if we ignore the Home Nations agreement), while in a couple of years, if the unlikely happens and he does not get a competitive cap for Spain, David De Gea will be able to challenge Joe Hart for the number one spot.

Either way, it is not a situation the FA have had to or are likely to come across much any time soon but if the situation does arise, providing it is only a minority of the squad, they should join the rest of the footballing and sporting world into welcoming these players into playing for their adopted nation.