Mikel arteta for England! Slippery slope!!?

Athletics (miss budd), Cricket (smith,lamb, half the team now), Rugby (Catt), but surely not football? We couldn't get one of the greatest left wingers of all time to defect to English football, but we may end up with a Spanish bloke who can't get in their squad!!

I would say most of the Eng-er-land team wouldn't get into the Spanish side…Arteta is good enough to play for the Eng-er-land.

And add Almunia in goal as well!

Considering we live in such a multi racial, multi ethnic England, we're a bit like the BNP about who can play (and manage). Let anyone who wants play for them…doesn't bother the Germans, and as I remember it, they weren't too bad for a bunch of youngsters.

Bring on the love for engerland!!

Bring on the love for engerland!!

Is someone called "Love" about to qualify to play too? 🙂

Wales and Ireland have long had many players who it appeared had failed to make the English team and then got selected due to some at times rather obscure ancestry, and of course there have been some players have been true to their birth and played for their nations.
European movement and emigration has increased a lot over the past 20 – 30 years, and it will probably become much more common that some players need to make a choice as to which country they play for out of several that they are eligible for.
Football rules seem to be a bit stricter than other sports, and I don't really see it as a problem, just a fact of a modern world. As long as players are never allowed to change elegances once they have already played for a nation.

I saw Giggs play for England school boys around 1989. Captain too, if I remember right.

Weren't Eng-er-land about the only team in the World Cup who didn't have a Brazilian playing for them?

Yup midlife, he did play for school boys, why he made that welsh choice only he knows and I'm sure on current standings doesn't bloody regret!!!

Giggs played for England school boys because he went to school in England. He's Welsh so chose to play for the Welsh national side.
I'd have no problem with a foreign player playing for England if he has some link to England. If he'd lived here for the majority of his life (as is the case with the majority of the German players) or if one of his parents were English like Owen Hargreaves, but to qualify, just because he's not good enough for his national side and lived here for 5 years doesn't cut it for me.

Giggs isn't welsh if I'm right, did he not qualify through his grandfather who was??

Giggs isn't welsh if I'm right, did he not qualify through his grandfather who was??

He was born in cardiff, his dad played rugby for cardiff, before signing for some team in Manchester hence the family moving there and the rest is history.

**** Arteta off, He's 28…

Bring the Kids through now! They are the future!

Hart, Milner, Johnson, Rodwell, Walcott, Gibbs etc

If he's no good we can always farm him out to the Irish with all of the other plastics.

What I found bizarre was the two brothers playing at the world cup against each other…one for Ghana and one for Germany if I remember correctly.

That was Jerome and Kevin Boateng. Both played for German youth/Under 21 teams, but only Jerome made it to full international, so Kevin chose to play for Ghana instead.

Giggs didn't qualify to play for England at full international (he didn't want to either) as he was born in Wales and his parents/grand-parents were all Welsh. He played for England school boys because anyone at school in England can play for England at that level regardless of nationality.

If any good foreign players qualify to play for England, Capello should select em. Gotta be better than most of the lot he took to the World Cup.

one of the greatest left wingers of all time

discuss ?

(he he) 😉

John Barnes
Owen Hargreaves
Michael Owen

I don't see the issue. Every country does it without too much worry.