CHANGING NATIONS
CHRIS DUN LAVY LOOKS AT PLAYERS WHO HAVE SWITCHED ALLEGIANCE OR MADE UNLIKELY APPEARANCES ...
Players face tricky decisions
WEST HAM starlet Declan Rice caused major controversy recently when he turned his back on the Republic of Ireland to publicly declare for England.
The 20-year-old, whose grandparents are from Cork, came through the Irish youth set-up and even made three senior appearances for the Boys in Green - though all in friendlies.
Now he has exploited FIFA rules on non-competitive games to change his allegiance, which hasn’t gone down well on the Emerald Isle.
“I do understand that playing for England would be more significant to him than playing for Ireland but I think once you have made the decision to play for a team, that should be it and you should get on with it,” said former Ireland midfielder Any Townsend. “It’s such a shame.”
Still, he isn’t the first player to court controversy with his choice of international team - nor the most dubious... 1. Tony Cascarino PERHAPS the most famous ‘plastic’ player of all time, Cascarino was about as Irish as jellied eels and Yorkshire pudding.
Not that he let it stop him enjoying a 14-year career for the Republic during which he won 88 caps and played in two World Cups.
When manager Jack Charlton learned that Cas had an Irish Grandad, neither he nor the FAI were particularly inclined to do any background research. The mid80s were fallow times for the Irish, who needed all the ringers they could get.
Had they done so, they would have discovered that Cascarino’s mother, Theresa, was actually adopted, something she revealed to her son in 1996 - nine years after his first cap. “I was a fraud, a fake Irishman,” he said in his 2000 autobiography. “I didn’t qualify.”
Yet the story had a bizarre postscript when it emerged that Theresa - without her knowledge or consent - had been registered as an Irish citizen just weeks before Cascarino’s first game for Ireland. Who’d have thought it? 2. Ruy Ramos A flamboyant midfielder from Rio de Janeiro, Ramos became the first foreigner ever to play in Japan when he signed for Yomiuri in 1977, aged just 20.
“There was hardly anything back then, just an amateur league and earth pitches,” he recalled in 2011. “That was Japanese football.”
Yet he would eventually play in Japan for 20 years, outlasting the likes of Zico, Gary Lineker and other more high-profile imports.
Ramos embraced life across the Pacific, turning up on humiliating game shows, commentating on matches and even having a video game named in his honour.
“I’ve sweated, cried and bled for this country and I consider myself Japanese through and through,” said the man with a rising sun tattooed on his shoulder.
Nationalised in 1989, Ramos made his international debut aged 33 and was part of the side agonisingly beaten in a play-off by Iraq for the 1994 World Cup. Today, he is coach of Japan’s beach volleyball team. 3. Chris Birchall A skinny kid from Stoke who played for Port Vale and lived with his parents, Birchall became an unlikely star of the 2006 World Cup when he was bizarrely called up by Trinidad & Tobago.
It all started several months earlier, when Birchall was accosted mid-game by Wrexham’s fearsome centre-back Dennis Lawrence. “I hear you got some Trini blood in you,” he said to the startled midfielder.
This was stretching it. Though Birchall’s mum was born on the Caribbean island, her parents were both British expats. As far as he knew, they were Stokies through and through.
But no. After inquiries to FIFA came up trumps, Birchall was on a plane to Port of Spain and set for his debut with a country he’d never actually set foot in.
Next thing you know he’s become the first white man to play for the Soca Warriors in 60 years, scored in a crunch playoff versus Bahrain, risen to the status of national hero and, in June 2006, faced off against England in a World Cup.
4. Jonathan de Guzman Former Swansea player De Guzman had no lack of options when it came to playing international football.
Born in Canada, he had a Filipino mother and a Jamaican father. Apparently, though, three wasn’t the magic number.
Having joined Feyenoord’s academy at the age of 12, the midfielder was granted Dutch citizenship in 2008. By then, older brother Julian was Canada’s record appearance maker and fans were worried he would shun the chance to follow suit.
“Don’t worry,” he told a Canadian sports show. “I am not thinking about that yet. I am concentrating on playing for Feyenoord.”
A week later, to widespread outrage, he declared for the Dutch. But that wasn’t quite the end of the story.
In 2011 Julian appeared on TV, stating that his brother was “keen” to reverse his decision and play for Canada. A year later, Jonathan turned up on the Score TV programme wearing a Canada jersey - and professed his desire to represent Holland.
So it went until, in 2014, De Guzman finally turned out for the Netherlands and the whole sorry saga reached its conclusion. 5. Stuart McCall Born in Bradford to Scottish parents, McCall’s heart and soul always lay north of the border.
So when he was called up by the Under-21s of England and Scotland on the exact same day, the tough-tackling midfielder was in a quandary.
He chose England – and immediately regretted it. So much, in fact, that when he was named on the bench for England, McCall spent the game lethargically warming up and trying to hide from gaffer Dave Sexton. At one stage, he even pretended he’d lost his shinpads.
“I knew deep down that I’d made the wrong decision,” he says. “Scotland was what I’d been brought up to love. Fortunately I managed to stay off the park and change it round.” He would eventually win 40 caps for Scotland.