Mikel Arteta for England!!

mike65

Bit like Big Cass eh?

mormank

Wow you people do realise that this kind of thing happens all the time right!!! How italian is the italian world cup winner mauro camoranesi? i could name plenty more but i reckon he is the most prominent example. if it meant winning the world cup would ye try it??

A couple of years ago there was a huge brazilian population in gort. My younger bro used to play against gort in football and said they had a class team. now if some of those lads wanted to play for ireland when they got older and were good enough to, who are to say they have no right??? Compared to someone like kevin nolan, who is for all intents and purposes english, who is allowed play for us.

This whole thread reeks of hypocrisy!!

Warper

mormank wrote: »

Wow you people do realise that this kind of thing happens all the time right!!! How italian is the italian world cup winner mauro camoranesi? i could name plenty more but i reckon he is the most prominent example. if it meant winning the world cup would ye try it??

A couple of years ago there was a huge brazilian population in gort. My younger bro used to play against gort in football and said they had a class team. now if some of those lads wanted to play for ireland when they got older and were good enough to, who are to say they have no right??? Compared to someone like kevin nolan, who is for all intents and purposes english, who is allowed play for us.

This whole thread reeks of hypocrisy!!

True, its a form of rascism really.

carlop

Sir Gallagher wrote: »

What would motivate Arteta to play for England though? Yeah sure he's a citizen but i'm sure he still classes himself as Spanish, doesn't sit right with me at all.

Arteta is from the Basque country, so it's possible that playing for England or Spain would be pretty much the exact same for him.

Orizio

DOC09UNAM wrote: »

Sound fairly bitter to me tbh.

Agreed. We don't need such nationalist pettiness in soccer. This whole 'playing for your 'own' country' thing should be dropped, its backwards, barely concealed bigotry, and breeds parochialism and a 'us versus them' mentality.

rossie1977

john barnes played 79 times for england despite not moving to england till his mid teens

owen hargreaves had multiple caps for england before ever even living in the country

Sir Gallagher

Orizio wrote: »

Agreed. We don't need such nationalist pettiness in soccer. This whole 'playing for your 'own' country' thing should be dropped, its backwards, barely concealed bigotry, and breeds parochialism and a 'us versus them' mentality.

Eh.. isn't that not the whole point of international football?

Orizio

Sir Gallagher wrote: »

Eh.. isn't that not the whole point of international football?

The whole concept of nationhood is backwards, and at odds with the fluent world we live in.

My own opinion is that national teams should be gotten rid of completely, because of the parochialism and petty rivalries they breed. Soccer can lead the way here, the way it always has done.

JPA

Orizio wrote: »

The whole concept of nationhood is backwards, and at odds with the fluent world we live in.

My own opinion is that national teams should be gotten rid of completely, because of the parochialism and petty rivalries they breed. Soccer can lead the way here, the way it always has done.

You think petty rivalries only exist in international football? :pac:

SantryRed

rossie1977 wrote: »

john barnes played 79 times for england despite not moving to england till his mid teens

owen hargreaves had multiple caps for england before ever even living in the country

I don't mean this in a bad way but what is your point?

8-10

DOC09UNAM wrote: »

I'm sure if Rooney was eligible to play for Ireland people would bite his hand off for him to play.

He was eligible.

peejay1986

If a player is eligable to play for a country and shows genuine passion to join up with the national team then I don't see any problem with this. I don't see why the English people have a problem either. I'm living in Chester and some of the people here (many Everton fans) are outraged about it, despite them being great fans of the English cricket team who were captained until recently by a South African. The world is full of hypocrites. It's effectively discrimination. Football is his profession so he shouldn't be discriminated against because of his place of birth. If he's a British citizen then that should be argument over.

Mezcita

SantryRed wrote: »

I don't mean this in a bad way but what is your point?

Not answering for Rossie but it's a good point. Barnes and Hargreaves were not born in England but nobody seemed to mind about them representing them at an international level. Lukas Podolski is another example as he was born in Poland.

More I think about it, there are loads of players who have played for countries they were not born in.

8-10

DOC09UNAM wrote: »

Paul McGrath, David O' Leary, Mark Lawrenson, John Aldridge, Tony Cascarino, Andy Townsend, Gary Breen.

You saying you didn't support any one of them?

scudzilla wrote: »

Not one of them, hand on heart

Ronan O'Gara should be playing rugby for USA? Jamie Heaslip should be Israel's number 8?

Sean Óg Ó hAilpín playing hurling for Fiji, Aisake Ó hAilpín for Australia?

Ridiculous no?

x in the city

Mikel is a class player and for a player of his caliber not to be playing international football is a joke tbh.

England are all talk and no show, players like steven g, lamps and co don't wanna know when the big international games come a calling.

couldn't care less if he plays for England or not but for anyone to suggest he wouldn't be a useful player for them needs their head examined, especially when you think of how crap England perform.

~Rebel~

At the end of the day, there are going to be cases of every type of nationalisation that can be explained rationally whereby it looks right to swap countries. A lot of nationalism comes down to 'feeling'. If you 'feel' part of a country, and are entitled to play for them, then I say go for it.

In this case though, i would have to question whether Arteta "Feels" very English. But, again, we don't know.

What I don't like however, is the idea of playing for any country that'll have you just to be playing internationally, despite not having any affinity or feeling for that country at all, save opportunism.

Fr Tod Umptious

~Rebel~ wrote: »

What I don't like however, is the idea of playing for any country that'll have you just to be playing internationally, despite not having any affinity or feeling for that country at all, save opportunism.

Like Alan Kernaghan

Neil3030

Where do you draw the line on genetic lineage? Should we all be playing for Africa?

Sir Gallagher

So if Arteta actually got picked for England he'd be taking an English players place, hardly fair is it. I'd agree with England fans who are against it also i'm sure they want to cheer on English players, to say that's discrimination is stupid thats just how international football should work. We have club football for players who can play for any club freely whats the point of blurring the lines between the two.

Sir Gallagher

Neil3030 wrote: »

Where do you draw the line on genetic lineage? Should we all be playing for Africa?

I'm sure Cascarino could have got away with that. Its an interest question i reckon it should stop at having a parent or parents of said nationality.

OPENROAD

~Rebel~ wrote: »

What I don't like however, is the idea of playing for any country that'll have you just to be playing internationally, despite not having any affinity or feeling for that country at all, save opportunism.

But you would still cheer that player and celebrate when he scores, would you not?

Columbia

I genetics debate is a good one, where does it end? Perhaps on signing their first professional forms, it should be standard practise for players to declare for a particular country. They should be eligible for their country of birth (or that of their parents), or else any country they have trained in for over a certain length of time, arbitrary example: two years.

population

If he qualifies and he wants to play then let him play.

An Irish mate of mine has been in Oz for a fair few years now and his son is an excellent junior boxer. Born in Ireland but has an Ozzie citizenship as he has moved there since he was 3. The Ozzie junior boxing federation have taken an interest in him, but the kid is undecided as to whether or not he would rather represent Aus or Ireland should the opportunity ever arise in competition.

IMHO he has a right to box for whichever nation feels right to him.

Third_Echelon

The stink of hypocrisy in this thread is quite pungent....

After 5 years at Everton and 2 years at Rangers, he has lived in the UK for 7 years! That is a quarter of his life....

Ireland over the years, as many have pointed out, have had players via the granny rule and have never lived in the country! Yet, we accepted them as they wanted to play for us. Surely Arteta has more of a claim to play for England?

With the English national team though, they have this idiotic patriotism which leads them to believe that only 'English' players should play for their team... and of course we have seen a good few examples of players down the years that were born outside of the country that have played for them. Barnes and Hargreaves though probably didn't cause as much drama as they 'speak English'

English fans see Arteta as Spanish... and to their team's detriment this will probably stop him playing for England (if he wishes to do so)..

Other international teams have had no issues. Portugal have brazilians playing for them. Germany have turkish and polish playing for them... France have players from all over africa playing for them (even though these were mostly previously french colonies etc)...

DOC09UNAM

8-10 wrote: »

He was eligible.

Part of my point tbh.

Funny thing is, his brother is also eligible, and has came out and said before that he'd like to play for ROI internationally, if he was half as good as wayne, would anyone deny the chance to let him play for us, doubtful.

OPENROAD

DOC09UNAM wrote: »

Part of my point tbh.

Funny thing is, his brother is also eligible, and has came out and said before that he'd like to play for ROI internationally, if he was half as good as wayne, would anyone deny the chance to let him play for us, doubtful.

Nobody would but I do believe if the situation was reversed, many would have issues i.e. someone born and bred here but deciding to represent the country of their parents/grand parents.

DOC09UNAM

OPENROAD wrote: »

Nobody would but I do believe if the situation was reversed, many would have issues i.e. someone born and bred here but deciding to represent the country of their parents/grand parents.

I wouldn't mind, personally it's up to the player to decide where he wants to play, and where he feels at home more.

dsmythy

OPENROAD wrote: »

Nobody would but I do believe if the situation was reversed, many would have issues i.e. someone born and bred here but deciding to represent the country of their parents/grand parents.

Not an unlikely possibility in the coming years either.

OPENROAD

dsmythy wrote: »

Not an unlikely possibility in the coming years either.

Very possible all right.