Football (Soccer) Thread

[The Larch]

Interesting - that all seems pretty reasonable to me.

It doesn't ask for anything unreasonable on a quick glance, but it doesn't take long to imagine the strange situations it might produce. Say, a 14 year old kid from England who moves to, say, Wales, with his whole family being English. He'll never ever qualify to play for Wales, even if he stays there his whole life, because he has no blood relation to Wales or has been able to fulfill the 5 years education criteria. He could be a 35 year old playing for Cardiff for decades who feels Welsher than the dragon on the flag and is married to a Welsh, with Welsh kids, but will never qualify to play for the Welsh national team because of this and will forever be, in football terms, an Englishman.

[Sheilbh]

I imagine it's more flexible and those are guidelines not rules so if that kid comes in and says "I feel really Welsh" etc they'd work around that. But I could be wrong.

Also I feel it'd be more likely to produce multiple options given how young academies start. So it's as easy to imagine a kid with Irish and Scottish grandparents, born in England and then going to, say, the Swansea Academy

[Josquius]

Really the whole system of internationals just wasn't setup for the modern world. It's solidly a relic of a bygone less serous era of football where leagues broadly consisted of players from the country of the league and there was no real incentive to try and fiddle things with the likes of the Quatari Brazilian D team.
As time goes on we are going to see more and more kids eligible for multiple countries. I really hate the whole locking in system where you have to choose one and stick with it - this can lead to some pretty good players never playing professionally despite being good enough as they hold out for England over Scotland or wherever or may be.

[The Larch]

I imagine it's more flexible and those are guidelines not rules so if that kid comes in and says "I feel really Welsh" etc they'd work around that. But I could be wrong.

It doesn't seem to be a flexible set of guidelines but a hard agreement, all references I've seen to it were about players being prevented to play for one of the Home Nations because of it. It does get reviewed from time to time, the original agreement was from 1993, and it has been amended in 2006 and 2009 (apparently FIFA has to sign up to it as well). The last clause allowing players to play for a Home Nation if they spent 5 years there before turning 18 was only added in 2009. Two examples of players affected are given:

- Andrew Driver. Born in England in 1987, his family moved to Scotland in 1998 when he was 11. He started his football career in Scotland, where he played for most of it, excepting a couple of spells in the Netherlands and in the US. He played as a schoolboy for Scotland (apparently there are no restrictions for that category), but he could not progress to the proper Scotland U-18 or U-21 teams because he was inelligible for Scotland at the time (no education clause yet). He is eventually called up to the England U-21 team, for which he plays only once in 2009. In 2010, seeing that his chances with England are rather slim, he announces that, under the new elegibility agreement's education clause, he commits to play for the Scottish national team instead (although he does not get called up for it either). Without it he would remain unelegible for Scotland.

- Andy Dorman. Born in England in 1982, he grew up in Wales, where he lived and played for Wales at schoolboy level, but again could not play for other youth teams like U-18 due to not being elegible). At 18 he moved to the US, where he lived and played for a few years and later made his career playing in Scotland and England. Upon the introduction of the education clause in 2009, he became eligible for Wales (he was unelegible before that, even after having been brought up in Wales, as his family had no Welsh background), and played 3 games for the Welsh senior team afterwards.

Also I feel it'd be more likely to produce multiple options given how young academies start. So it's as easy to imagine a kid with Irish and Scottish grandparents, born in England and then going to, say, the Swansea Academy

When the players have a familial link to the countries there's no problem at all, those players were always elegible. The ones prevented to play for the national teams were the ones without a blood relation to the country that arrived there as adults. Two examples are given of Spanish players that were interested to get British citizenship and play for one of the Home Countries that were prevented by the agreement, Nacho Novo, who played in Scotland for 10 years, got married to a local and considered getting British citizenship if it allowed him to play for Scotland, but was informed by the Scottish FA that he would remain unelegible because of the agreement, and Ángel Rangel, who played in Wales for 11 years and also married a local, and considered to get British citizenship to qualify to play for Wales, but was also told by the Welsh FA the same thing, that even after becoming a British citizen he would remain unelegible for Wales because of the agreement.

I mean, in basically every other country in the world those two players would have qualified to play for those national teams had they become citizens, it was only because of that Home Nations agreement that they were prevented from doing that. And we're talking about players with a commitment to those nations, not random guys who popped up for a couple of years and then buggered off, but players who spent decades there, got married to locals and made long careers there. To my eyes it seems highly unfair for players like them.

[Grey Fox]

Isn't the issue is that Great Britain doesn't have a team. To me, that's the fix to all those issues.

[The Larch]

Isn't the issue is that Great Britain doesn't have a team. To me, that's the fix to all those issues.

Yes, it's due to that. FIFA makes teams whose players share a common passport reach an agreement on how players become eligible to play for each of them.

[Sheilbh]

When the players have a familial link to the countries there's no problem at all, those players were always elegible. The ones prevented to play for the national teams were the ones without a blood relation to the country that arrived there as adults. Two examples are given of Spanish players that were interested to get British citizenship and play for one of the Home Countries that were prevented by the agreement, Nacho Novo, who played in Scotland for 10 years, got married to a local and considered getting British citizenship if it allowed him to play for Scotland, but was informed by the Scottish FA that he would remain unelegible because of the agreement, and Ángel Rangel, who played in Wales for 11 years and also married a local, and considered to get British citizenship to qualify to play for Wales, but was also told by the Welsh FA the same thing, that even after becoming a British citizen he would remain unelegible for Wales because of the agreement.

I mean, in basically every other country in the world those two players would have qualified to play for those national teams had they become citizens, it was only because of that Home Nations agreement that they were prevented from doing that. And we're talking about players with a commitment to those nations, not random guys who popped up for a couple of years and then buggered off, but players who spent decades there, got married to locals and made long careers there. To my eyes it seems highly unfair for players like them.

Interesting and I take your points. I have a soft spot for Roberto Martinez who had a similar career of being a journeyman footballer in England and Wales before becoming a manager here too. I'd consider him basically a domestic appointment if he became England manager at some point

I assume the issue they're trying to address is the risk of England and Scotland basically hoovering up all home nation talent because there's relatively few Welsh teams in the league system, good Northern Irish players will most likely move to the English or Scottish leagues. So living in a country, settling down etc is a category lots of domestic players would meet just through the course of their career and because the Premier League has most money it's likely the best players will end up playing there and possibly exposed to the risk of transferring their allegiance to England. I think they probably underestimate the extent to which no-one in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland likes England

In slightly related news I saw Che Adams has declared for Scotland rather than holding out for England.

[Admiral Yi]

Chelsea 2, Atletico 0.  Announcer says 3-0 *on aggregate*.  What does that mean?

[Jacob]

Chelsea 2, Atletico 0.  Announcer says 3-0 *on aggregate*.  What does that mean?

Chelsea and Atletico played two matches, one each home and away. "On aggregate" is the score of both matches combined. So Chelsea won the previous match 0-1.

[Admiral Yi]

grazie

[Jacob]

grazie

np

[The Larch]

And if you heard in the same context about "away goals" it means that, when two teams draw on aggregate, the team that scored more goals when playing away from their home field wins the tie.

[Duque de Bragança]

And if you heard in the same context about "away goals" it means that, when two teams draw on aggregate, the team that scored more goals when playing away from their home field wins the tie.

Practical example in this round of 16, the Porto-Juventus Turin aggregate was 4-4

Since Porto won 2-1 at home and lost by 3 goals to 2 in Turin, Porto qualified.

[FunkMonk]

Away goal rule is horrible but at the same time it brings a weird angst to the game that if it were done away with I feel like we'd lose something a little special about European ties. 

[celedhring]

I kinda wish the yanks had gone mad and we had 7-game series in the MLS playoffs  Instead of going with the sensible option of single-elimination games.