I often frequent soccer boards and quite often have come across the issue of what constitutes "True American" players in regards to our men's national team. I thought I might ask the brain trust here at the 8th about this issue. In essence, and those who follow USA Soccer know this very well, we have a number of players on our national team who have connections to the US, but aren't what you might call primarily America. There's Aron Johannson, who is on the national team because he was born in Alabama to an Icelandic family working here for a few years, but grew up in Iceland. Then, of course, there is the whole plethora of guys who grew up in Germany, most with their single, German, moms and are on the team due to their fathers being American military servicemen. The most recent is Julian Green, a kid who also grew up in Germany, but was born in Tampa and actually still remains close to his American dad (and has a brother who goes to school in Tampa). There's also cases like Gedion Zelalem, a 17 year old kid who just signed a big contract with Arsenal (BIG club), who could be in line for American citizenship and the US team at a future date. The obvious question that has arisen is; How "American" should you be to play for the national team? A decent amount of American soccer fans have bemoaned the lack of born and bred Americans like Clint Dempsey or Landon Donovan, including some fringe American players. How much of an issue, though, is this? How "American" should our national teams be?
As long as it's not counterproductive (causing problems in the locker room or the like), I'm good with anybody who's eligible.
Seems a little xenophobic doesn't it? To me it appears that the USMNT can use all the help it can get.
I think the main issue is that there should be some kind of patriotic zeal in your national team and the accusation is that these are hired guns or using the national team to play in the World Cup or make personal advancement. Soccer teams, especially, are often thought to reflect their national identity in the way they play (i.e. the "samba" style of Brazil, the technical organization of Germany, etc.).
Just curious, but where is this coming from? I haven't really heard much about this, and I follow international soccer very closely.
I've seen it on the message boards and heard it from fringe players (a notable example was Preston Zimmerman who ranted about "fake Americans" on the national team), plus I've heard Alexi Lalas sort of allude to it, among others.
Are they US citizens? Is one of their parents a US citizen? Is an American who has two American parents but grows up in Germany because mom or dad is in the military, are they a fake American? The US is unique in that it is comprised not of one nationality, but 100+ nationalities call it home. We are absolutely a melting pot. It is all good, especially if it gets us to the knock out round in our group.
Xenophobia. Brant is spot on. I've been told I'm not "as American" because of my mother, despite my family on my father's side having been here for 250 years, being born here, and only having lived here. It is BS.
I'm not as shocked to hear that coming from fringe players. I'm surprised to hear Lalas said something like that. I mean come on, we have a German coach.
And a naturalized citizen. Our whole country is such, as we are sure as hell not all Cherokees, Creeks, Apaches or Sioux. Just the nature of our country. And Mario Balotelli. Funny, he doesn't LOOK Italian.
I feel comfortable saying that there's no way this is going to be a problem for US soccer. I have to think all these players grew up playing with a lot of minorities, and it's not like Mississippi is the epicenter of soccer in the United States.
Oh, man. Talk about a shit storm, Balotelli and him being Italian or not. I also think the whole thing is ridiculous. The only sketchy one, to me, was David Regis, a French dude who got citizenship through his wife about 2 months before the '98 World Cup.
