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Yeah I don't know why I phrased it like that. Basically, the FA instructed Stuart Pearce not to select SFA and IFA players for their team, under pressure from those associations, but issued no such edict to Hope Powell presumably they weren't under the same pressure to do so. Go figure why.
According to the BBC, Powell selected NI goalkeeper Emma Higgins as one of four reserves, although she has since been injured.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19019557
There are two Scottish players in the squad as well. So the message is that nobody's too bothered about the wimmin's?...Quote:
Originally Posted by Gather round
Just came across this piece on Canada-born players who opt to represent other countries and thought some of the issues raised might have been pertinent: http://backpagefootball.com/the-stat...fectors/45688/
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The most popular players to be on the end of Canadian finger pointing are Owen Hargreaves: born and raised in Calgary, Alberta but to British parents, he chose to play for England and was voted English player of the year in 2006. Until injuries took their toll, he was arguably one of the best in the world in his position making him the highest profile of Canadian defectors. Teal Bunbury of Hamilton, Ontario is the other who receives the most scorn because not only is he born and raised in Canada but his father Alex Bunbury not only played for Canada but is one of the all time leading scorers for the national side. His desertion of Canada for arch-rivals the United States has left Canadians fuming. Lesser-mentioned defectors include Alain Rochat of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec who decided to represent Switzerland where his club teams at the time were based. He only made one appearance for the Swiss and has never returned to the national set up, but that one appearance means he can never represent Canada. A terribly poor decision, as one would imagine that the current Vancouver Whitecaps left back would be a regular with the Canadian set up. Jacob Lensky, a native of Vancouver, British Columbia made a similar decision, making one appearance for the Czech Republic before retiring in 2011 due to depression. Outstanding goalkeeper Asmir Begovic grew up in Edmonton, Alberta and represented Canada at the under-20 level but at the senior level decided to represent Bosnia & Herzegovina. These players hardly get mentioned when the list of shame is read out by die hard Canadian fans, but their decisions to leave the national side are all for the same reasons as Hargreaves and Bunbury.
The latest reason this topic has arisen amongst Canadian soccer aficionados is because of the possibility of losing two young and talented players playing in top European leagues, and who have yet to commit to the Canadian national team. The first is David “Junior” Hoilett, born in Brampton, Ontario of Jamaican heritage, who is also looking into the possibility of playing for England after his time with Blackburn Rovers. He has rejected a number of call-ups from both Canada and Jamaica and remains in international wilderness, but could be the greatest player to come out of Canada since Hargreaves. The other is Jonathan De Guzman of Scarborough, Ontario who unlike Hoilett and others, never represented Canada at the junior level as he chose to play for the Netherlands youth sides as he plied his trade with Feyenoord of the Eredivisie before moving to Mallorca and Villareal of Spain and now Swansea City of the English Premier League. A sticking point for De Guzman is that his older brother Julian De Guzman has been playing for the Canadian national team for over a decade and has apparently beckoned his brother to join him in the red and white rather than the Oranje of the Dutch but has yet to convince the younger De Guzman who has yet to feature in any Dutch managers’ plans. Canada has decent goaltenders, an average defense, and a solid midfield, but has always lacked goal-scorers and if both Junior Hoilett and Jonathan De Guzman were to join up with Canada for the current campaign to qualify for the 2014 World Cup, there is little doubt in Canuck minds that these two attacking midfielders could get Canada back to the show. Last time Canada qualified for the World Cup in 1986, they set a FIFA record as the only nation to do so with no domestic league after the collapse of the NASL in 1984 and with the Canadian Soccer League not launching until 1987. This time around Canada has three MLS teams and soon to be two second-division teams in Ottawa and Edmonton in the new lower tiered NASL with talent being groomed from a young age. But can the program keep this talent? Is the national game going in the same direction as clubs, where the top teams can lure top players from less desirable markets?
The key question is what will keep Canadian players playing for Canada? Is it patriotism? Because it is “the right thing to do? Or does the Canadian Soccer Association need to have better incentives to keep such players from moving to a more advanced national team program? Since players are not paid to play for their country, one must assume that there has to be something in their minds connecting soccer to national pride but that thing runs deep in the culture of Canada. How does the country prevent its inhabitants from supporting their countries of heritage rather than of birth? Canada struggles with national identity outside of soccer and this is a likely cause for the lack of recognition for the national team. Hockey does not suffer from this problem as to like hockey is to be inherently Canadian.
The opposite end of the spectrum is how Brazilians have been popping up in other national teams like Poland, Portugal, and Croatia and any number of other small European nations in a bid to break into a national team program. This has not been met with derision from the Brazilian public for obvious reasons. Brazil has such a wealth of players in their talent pool that these athletes are simply competing for other countries because they can’t break into their own national team and everyone accepts this and moves on. There is a long way to go before Canada can complain of such a problem.
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As things stand, international soccer is starting to resemble club soccer more-and-more as countries with the best training infrastructure and the most prestigious programs and money will aggressively recruit top talent from other countries by means of finding them passports or citizenship. FIFA could step in with some hard-handed regulations like you must represent the country that issued your birth certificate, or perhaps where you were raised could be another option that would please more Canadians. A large number of Canadians within the national team and in day-to-day life were born outside the country but moved to Canada at a very early age. It is obviously a decision that FIFA is not keen to make, nor is it necessarily a good decision and until a better plan arises, things will remain as they are.
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Some of the remainder:
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Sport is an interesting arena for the debate of citizenship, as many immigrants who arrive in Canada as children would be offended if they were not considered Canadian and rightly so. If someone was moved to Canada as an infant and raised in a city like Toronto then they shouldn’t be told they are not Canadian even though they hold a passport and a childhood belonging to that country. But when it comes to representing a country in soccer or at the Olympics, people are very quick to decide who is really from where and where do these people belong? In Canada this does not register in most peoples’ minds as it plays out under the radar of world sport, but in a country like France with a strong soccer pedigree and immigrants from other soccer mad countries, people get fixated on how it should play out and what is an acceptable solution to the whole notion of defectors. The most popular answer is a return to the “loyalty test” given to teenagers before they enter elite training programs but it does not seem like an acceptable solution to force kids into such a situation. If the birth certificate notion were to pass, Canada would lose even more players to that ruling then it would to “defectors” who feel they are more likely to play in a World Cup if they change nationalities. Here is a list of Canadian national team players who were raised in Canada and are citizens but were born outside of the country:
First of all there is the manager Stephen Hart who originates from Trinidad & Tobago but now hails from Halifax, Nova Scotia. In goal, Haidar Al-Shaibani was born in Setif, Algeria but is now from London, Ontario; Milan Borjan was born in Knin, Serbia and is now listed as from Hamilton, Ontario; and Kyriakos “Kenny” Stamatopoulos was born in Kalamata, Greece but now calls Markham, Ontario home. In the outfield there is Dejan Jakovic from Karlovac, Croatia and now from Toronto, Ontario; Ali Gerba from Yaounde, Cameroon now from Montreal, Quebec; Iain Hume from Edinburgh, Scotland now from Brampton, Ontario; Simeon Jackson born in Kingston, Jamaica and now from Missassauga, Ontario, and I’m sure the list goes on. As one can see, southern Ontario receives the most immigrants in Canada and does a decent job of “converting” them to the Canadian national program. That could be considered a point for the Gerry Dobson argument. What works against it is that both Junior Hoillett, Jonathan De Guzman, and Teal Bunbury, the current crop of young Canadian talent who are leaving for other countries, also hail from the same region of Ontario surrounding Toronto. Also a number of star players for Canada who were both born and raised in Canada are from other provinces with many coming from Alberta and Quebec, and yes also Ontario. These players include: Patrice Bernier, David Edgar, Josh Simpson, Andre Hainault, Kevin McKenna, Ashtone Morgan, Paul Stalteri, Julian De Guzman, Will Johnson, Olivier Occean, and the two marquee players: Dwayne De Rosario and Atiba Hutchinson.
Forcing kids to sign loyalty agreements to Canada is not the way to go and neither is playing for your birth certificate as players like Simeon Jackson who were raised in Canada from a very young age would only be able to represent Jamaica. What should be done is cultivating the Canadian set up so that players will want to represent Canada and will stay to train in the top programs available. This will in turn keep more talent, make the team better, and with a higher chance of qualifying for major tournaments more players will be encouraged to stay. We live in a very multicultural world and this does not exclude soccer, so the “problem with defectors” will not go away for countries like Canada, France, or the United States (where Andy Najar recently chose to represent Honduras). A very strong case can be made that such countries gain as many defectors as they lose, but where the beef lies in Canada is that the ones who leave are by far the most talented. Media however, needs to start promoting soccer to the public so that kids don’t just play soccer then go home and watch hockey, they also watch soccer on TV and have heroes and dream of lifting cups not named Stanley for their country. This reality is not too far away as although it is still more common for the average fan in Canada to support a national team from Europe, attendances at Major League Soccer games are skyrocketing and are rather frequently higher than teams south of the border. Last year a record five-and-a-half million soccer fans poured through the turnstiles to witness MLS games in person, and even more watched it on television. Montreal Impact and Toronto FC games being held at the Olympic Stadium and Rogers Center have drawn between 40,000 and 50,000 fans for a single match. The all-time Canadian record is still held by soccer crazy Vancouver who had 60,342 fans attend a Whitecaps game at BC Place back in 1983. More Canadians are signing up for youth soccer programs than any other sport including hockey, so the player depth must grow and these players must become fans and believe that playing for Canada in soccer is a viable option. A four point plan was created by former national team captain Jason de Vos to help nurture these young Canadians’ talent in soccer.
1) A head coach with a minimum of a national “A” license.
2) Regional teams for both boys and girls at the U-10, U-12, U-14, U-16 and U-18 age categories.
3) Coaches for each of these teams with a minimum of a provincial “B” license.
4) A harmonized training schedule, whereby there are no conflicts between club team and regional team. The regional team would be the equivalent of a triple “A ” hockey team, and it should be an honour for a club to have a player selected to play for the regional team, not an inconvenience.
If these steps are followed then there should be no need for the search of birth certificates or loyalty contracts. Hopefully players with talent will want to represent Canada more so than adoptive or ancestral nations and this problem can be laid to rest. But until Canada makes some real strong moves towards player development in a sport not called hockey, soccer fans will continue to grumble about players like Hargreaves and Bunbury. We’ll see how far they make it in qualifying for the 2014 World Cup and if that has any bearing on the next generation of players.
Ireland under-age internationals, David McDaid and Shane McEleney, both of Derry City, have been called up to the NI under-21 squad.
McEleney states he was "tortured" by Michael O'Neill to join up with NI: http://www.londonderrysentinel.co.uk...l-up-1-4148466
(Not literally, of course, but amusing all the same given the stink some NI fans kick up about the FAI allegedly trying to win players over.)
The threat of waterboarding seems to be O'Neill's main torture of choice! Seems to be working well with McLaughlin and McEleney seemingly willingly to play for NI. A good start for the newish manager.Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyInvincible
Just thought that required clearing up; sure, we all know what sort of nasty pro-FAI elements are engaged in twisting the ears of young northern Catholic boys...Quote:
Originally Posted by gastric
McEleney speaks about keeping his options open and is essentially testing the waters with the NI set-up, with the possibility of sticking with the FAI still very much a reality. It's not a strong show of allegiance at all. What do NI fans make of this? I'm still not sure whether he'll slot into NB's "OK camp" or whether he'll be deemed fit for shunning along with the likes of Al*x Br*ce. The lines of separation in that area are very murky.
I also meant to ask you, NB, what you made of discussion in this thread a few pages back in relation to Jimmy McGeough being told by Harry Cavan that he wasn't eligible to play for the FAI and what it meant for the notion of a gentleman's agreement having existed. If memory serves me right, you've been sympathetic in the past to the argument (mistaken, to my mind) that CAS didn't discount the possibility of an agreement or accord existing, but does Jimmy McGeogh's case force you to rethink things in any way?
It's clear that McEleney does not see himself breaking into the Ireland squad any time soon, even though he expressed hope at being called up by King. He mentions that it's just an international friendly so he's not committing to either side, but have we established that this is the case?
But more to the point, Oi! IFA, stop interfering with our kids!
For anyone interested this is a good read, quotes from players etc.. It's a bit highbrow in parts but found the player interviews interesting.
http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/sage/tran...ern-P8TbIHpuFM
basic account Costs 2 dollars to access article.
Cheers for that; an insightful read.
Interesting comments from Eugene Ferry from an interview with the authors in June of 2009:
"It's not right to say it but it was always the Protestants that were favoured over the Catholics. It was just a sense you got with the managers always talking to them much more than they did to us... Even with the Belfast lads, they would always take an interest in how they were doing at school but would never ask me, or the other Catholic lad."
"... I usually always bless myself before matches but up there I was sort of afraid that they [loyalist supporters] would be watching me... You are always aware of it when you are playing... [T]hey are just waiting for me to make a mistake before they will rip into me for it. You just know that it would be the Catholic that isn't trying."
Ferry also articulates what the authors describe as "a clear contrast between the politically-charged atmosphere within the Northern Ireland side and the comparatively apolitical environment 'down south'":
"I did feel so much more at home with the Republic of Ireland as when you are with Northern Ireland, you can't be fully comfortable. Like when we were having dinner one evening and one of the Protestant boys got a text message. It was the 'sash' that rang on his phone... That really does influence you to go down south as there is none of that political kind of thing."
The sense of marginalisation expressed by Ferry was backed up around the same time by Shane McEleney, who stated he "felt a bit left out as [the coaching staff] just didn't speak to you". In fact, he went as far as saying:
"I definitely would not consider going back to Northern Ireland because of their treatment of me and that basically. Protestants will always be selected over Catholics if at all possible."
Michael O'Neill must have done quite a bit of torturing in order to convince him to accept a call-up to their under-21s the other week.
Some other comments on the 'God Save the Queen' issue:
"Before I played for Northern Ireland, I knew that I would have to go through 'God Save the Queen' and all that. But before my first game, one of the coaches went around each of us, warning us that we better have our heads held high during the anthem. I remember him saying that we better be proud to represent our country." - Shane McEleney.
"Just put your head down and try to get through it ... Just keep it down. I mean you have boys like Michael O'Connor and Sammy Clingan who are Catholic boys from Belfast and they just keep their heads really low so as not to make a scene but also to show that as Catholics they must be respected." - Niall McGinn.
On the apparent contradiction in his national and sporting allegiances upon representing NI, Ferry said:
"It would always have been the Republic as I supported them as a boy. But then when I got called up to the Northern Ireland team, I didn't care so much about that. I would say, 'I don't care that my pride is with the Republic; I'm only playing football for them [Northern Ireland]'."
Likewise, Niall McGinn, Paddy McCourt and Michael Gault all revealed their decisions to play for NI as being based in superficial sporting pragmatism and the idea of career enhancement rather than being rooted in some emergent sense of nationalist Northern Irish identity. Thought this comment from McGinn was also intriguing:
"I get the odd joke when I'm home about me playing for them, but it was just a matter of making sure the boys know that I'm only there to play football and that's the only thing."
I knew Danny would pay the fee.
I funded the study! :pQuote:
Originally Posted by The Fly
Interesting comment from Ferry that there's nothing political in the Republic team. Does anyone know what religion, for instance, Keiren Westwood is? Does anyone care?
Be amazed if anyone was. Though Alan Maybury I'm sure, was the last self-proclaimed 'Protestant' to play for us?
Ironically, he's just signed a contract with Hibs...
Reclaimed on Expenses no doubt!Quote:
Originally Posted by The Fly
Haha!Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
Started and scored for the North's U21s last night. :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyInvincible
Religion just isn't a matter of public note south of the border in the same way it permeates life north of the border. Some NI fans' obsessions with issues of religion are reflected in their odd and misplaced accusations of FAI sectarianism.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
By the way, you can actually register for a bronze account on that site and you'll get a free 14-day trial, under which you can use one of your tokens to rent the article for free. Cancel your subscription once you've rented the piece (just make sure it's also before the 14-day trial period has ceased) and you won't pay a thing.