Australian Dual Nationals 🇦🇺🏳️

[Cunningstunt]

Surely one of you nerds watched him for the Italian junior teams one time? Capping him now would be Kewell levels.

 

[Quicky]

Unfortunately I doubt we’d get him if he’s good given he’s lived in England for most of his life, but in this day and age it’s not a sin to try given Morocco do exactly this all the time.

I reckon we should try for Antonio Arena though. He grew up here and grew up in an era where the Socceroos have been better at World Cups than the Azzurri. He won’t start just yet but in the future he will and if we cap-tie him now we don’t have to worry about him playing for Italy in the future.

There is also an argument that Arena deserves it. We aren't blessed with depth at CF.

 

[grazorblade]

Has anyone actually seen this kid play 90 minutes in any type of match? Just want to confirm I am getting worked up because of his age and having scored for Roma.

Not me, just comparing his early performance to other prospects. Im cautious about what to read into that

 

[Cunningstunt]

Not me, just comparing his early performance to other prospects. Im cautious about what to read into that

My guess is people are just excited he scored for Roma. Which is fair enough. But hardly a sufficient argument to cap him this soon.

He has less visibility because he is with Italy under 19s, not our under 20s. Which is unfortunate. Because (very surprisingly) Popa has shown he is happy to bring in guys who have very limited professional experience, if he thinks they are good enough. Even though most people hated the Okon pick.

Funnily enough, after I saw the photo of G Okon in the Aus jersey watching the WC I had the thought. Even though he is playing for Italy, he isn't at an Italian club. Maybe the real worry is a one time switch to Belgium and we are fucked.

 

[grazorblade]

My guess is people are just excited he scored for Roma. Which is fair enough. But hardly a sufficient argument to cap him this soon.

He has less visibility because he is with Italy under 19s, not our under 20s. Which is unfortunate. Because (very surprisingly) Popa has shown he is happy to bring in guys who have very limited professional experience, if he thinks they are good enough. Even though most people hated the Okon pick.

Funnily enough, after I saw the photo of G Okon in the Aus jersey watching the WC I had the thought. Even though he is playing for Italy, he isn't at an Italian club. Maybe the real worry is a one time switch to Belgium and we are fucked.

Yeah i dont read into his senior goal much. The number of youth goals for his age is eye catching and i had trouble finding a player that has done as well at his age in a seri a youth team from the last 10 years. Not sure how significant youth performances are but i would risk losing him

 

[HonestSpursFan]

Has anyone actually seen this kid play 90 minutes in any type of match? Just want to confirm I am getting worked up because of his age and having scored for Roma.

I’ve seen him play for Roma but not 90 minutes.

 

[HonestSpursFan]

My guess is people are just excited he scored for Roma. Which is fair enough. But hardly a sufficient argument to cap him this soon.

Scoring in a league better than almost all of the ones our players play in for a team better than all of the ones our players play in is absolutely enough to cap him.

 

[Toebash]

Scoring in a league better than almost all of the ones our players play in for a team better than all of the ones our players play in is absolutely enough to cap him.

I'm not sure Serie C is better than the Championship or J-League, and maybe not even the SPL! I'm also not sure Pescara is better than Norwich, Machida Zelvia or Dundee United?

 

[Pasquali]

Scoring in a league better than almost all of the ones our players play in for a team better than all of the ones our players play in is absolutely enough to cap him.

It's common to see players reach these heights only to have a journeyman career too

 

[AUFC_Fan]

Scoring in a league better than almost all of the ones our players play in for a team better than all of the ones our players play in is absolutely enough to cap him.

George Timotheou kept a clean sheet on Bundesliga debut and look how his career turned out…

 

[HonestSpursFan]

I'm not sure Serie C is better than the Championship or J-League, and maybe not even the SPL! I'm also not sure Pescara is better than Norwich, Machida Zelvia or Dundee United?

He scored in Serie A. But fuck no, the Championship is better than Serie B let alone Serie C.

 

[HonestSpursFan]

It's common to see players reach these heights only to have a journeyman career too

George Timotheou kept a clean sheet on Bundesliga debut and look how his career turned out…

Valid, but I still think it’s worth letting him come to camp. Weren’t Italy rumoured to be thinking of capping him?

 

[Somebloke]

To me it seems less a case of whether it’s a case of capping these players early ala Kewell, as it is whether they would accept the call up. Apparently FA is pursing Arena hard, but reading between the lines of what Okon and other have said re Volpato and his own son, other forces are often at play. As in the clubs, applying pressure against playing for Oz.

 

[HonestSpursFan]

To me it seems less a case of whether it’s a case of capping these players early ala Kewell, as it is whether they would accept the call up. Apparently FA is pursing Arena hard, but reading between the lines of what Okon and other have said re Volpato and his own son, other forces are often at play. As in the clubs, applying pressure against playing for Oz.

Anyone with the last name Okon should be easy to get with their dad (Paul Okon) being coach. He got Paul Jr in so surely we can get Gianluca.

Antonio Arena is the big one. We need to cap him, get him used to the team and then eventually he’ll be a regular. Even just five minute cameos would be good for his career. It’d be great to have him in our youth teams though, especially at the Olympics.

 

[jimshady]

This has probably been said a million times in here. But we play some pretty crap teams in qualifying. Chucking in 1-2 undercooked dual nationals doesn’t seem like the silliest thing to do to try and lock them in. Or we could see if Caceres still has something to add

 

[riquelmes_laces]

To me it seems less a case of whether it’s a case of capping these players early ala Kewell, as it is whether they would accept the call up. Apparently FA is pursing Arena hard, but reading between the lines of what Okon and other have said re Volpato and his own son, other forces are often at play. As in the clubs, applying pressure against playing for Oz.

I think it's a bit more nuanced than simply capping players earlier or clubs pressuring them not to play for Australia.

Clubs can certainly influence players, particularly younger ones who are still establishing themselves, but I don't think that fully explains what's happening. If it did, then why wasn't it a major issue for the Kewell/Viduka generation when Soccer Australia was a mess administratively?

Likewise, if the issue was simply the travel from Europe, we'd expect Japanese and South Korean players to face exactly the same resistance. They regularly fly similar distances for international windows, yet we rarely hear the same narrative. That suggests distance alone isn't the deciding factor.

 

[Alex M]

I think it's a bit more nuanced than simply capping players earlier or clubs pressuring them not to play for Australia.

Clubs can certainly influence players, particularly younger ones who are still establishing themselves, but I don't think that fully explains what's happening. If it did, then why wasn't it a major issue for the Kewell/Viduka generation when Soccer Australia was a mess administratively?

Likewise, if the issue was simply the travel from Europe, we'd expect Japanese and South Korean players to face exactly the same resistance. They regularly fly similar distances for international windows, yet we rarely hear the same narrative. That suggests distance alone isn't the deciding factor.

Playing in junior competitions cap tied you for life in those days so players like Viduka were tied in that manner. The restrictions eased in the 2000's allowing Tim Cahill to represent us. Clubs in those days put a lot of pressure on players not to play in friendlies, and also not to travel to Australia for official games against island nations. FIFA even introduced rules that meant if players were unavailable for internationals then they got suspended from club duties as well. The formulation of the international calendar helped ease that. It wasn't even travel that put clubs off. When we beat England in that friendly we could only use Harry for half a game after an agreement with Leeds.

 

[riquelmes_laces]

Playing in junior competitions cap tied you for life in those days so players like Viduka were tied in that manner. The restrictions eased in the 2000's allowing Tim Cahill to represent us. Clubs in those days put a lot of pressure on players not to play in friendlies, and also not to travel to Australia for official games against island nations. FIFA even introduced rules that meant if players were unavailable for internationals then they got suspended from club duties as well. The formulation of the international calendar helped ease that. It wasn't even travel that put clubs off. When we beat England in that friendly we could only use Harry for half a game after an agreement with Leeds.

Good points Alex, I forgot about a lot of that.

Football Australia also needs to stop treating dual-national recruitment as something that starts when a player is 18. Croatia, Italy and England are often tracking eligibility from U14–U16.

Do we have a dedicated diaspora recruitment unit with staff based in Europe whose sole job is maintaining relationships with players?

Australia can't stop Italy or Croatia recruiting eligible players. What it can do is make sure that by the time those federations make contact, the player and his family already have a strong, trusted relationship with Football Australia and a clear understanding of what representing the Socceroos looks like over the next five to ten years.

 

[BA81]

This has probably been said a million times in here. But we play some pretty crap teams in qualifying. Chucking in 1-2 undercooked dual nationals doesn’t seem like the silliest thing to do to try and lock them in. Or we could see if Caceres still has something to add

This. Heck, even capping 3-4 of them at once vs. Pakistan/Brunei/East Timor etc. in an Asian/World Cup-qualifier would be more prudent than our usual approach to these situations.

That Mahdi Nicoll-Jazuli kid at Chelsea’s youth-setup has to be a top priority, IMHO

 

[BA81]

Football Australia needs to stop treating dual-national recruitment as something that starts when a player is 18. Croatia, Italy and England are often tracking eligibility from U14–U16.

%

Do we have a dedicated diaspora recruitment unit with staff based in Europe whose sole job is maintaining relationships with players?

I think it’s safe to assume we don’t

Australia can't stop Italy or Croatia recruiting eligible players. What it can do is make sure that by the time those federations make contact, the player and his family already have a strong, trusted relationship with Football Australia and a clear understanding of what representing the Socceroos looks like over the next five to ten years.

The FA of my heritage-country El Salvador has recently started conducting triallist-camps for NT-eligible youth players in the US; mainly from the local diaspora but also from elsewhere. And given that historically the Salvadorean FA’s maladministration has almost put even ours to shame, this is a significant step-up for them in terms of initiative.

Hence the begging question: why isn’t the FFA doing something similar, let alone hasn’t done so in the past? In a parallel-universe we could’ve identified if not locked-in Boyle, Cummings and Souttar years before we eventually did - think of all the -eligible kids throughout and the wider that we’ve and continue to miss out on, never mind those on the continental mainland, because of all this..