Four young Canadians

This is a tale of four talented young men all of whom were born in Canada and all of whom are blessed with tremendous football talent.

Player A was born to a family which had recently emigrated from the United Kingdom. He tries out for the Canadian U16 team, but is cut for being "too small". His play for the local youth teams caught the eye of a man with contacts into one of the largest football teams in the world. At the age of 16 he made the jump into the youth program for this large European team. Several years pass and his star continues to rise. At this point he has four options open to him for international football: he can play in the country of his birth (Canada), the country of either parent or he can wait to obtain a passport for his new home country based on residency. Despite claiming on Canadian TV that he would play for Canada, Player A opts to play for his father's country, one with an illustrious history of international football and in doing so becomes the only player in that nations history to play for the team without ever living or playing football in the country.

Player B moves from Canada to a European club around the age of 12. He gets released from several clubs in this European country, but sticks around long enough to get a passport before moving on to other European nations. During this time he spends some time in the Canadian U20 program, has a disagreement with the manager and never plays a single minute. Eventually he cracks the starting eleven for a team in one of the lesser football leagues in Europe (first division, but not a major league). When the European country that he was developed in pursues him, he commits to their team by playing in a UEFA U21 qualifying game. He has since been linked with a move to the richest club in football.

Player C is born in Ontario to European parents. He moves to his parent’s homeland at a very young age (4 or 5) and is developed in that nation's football system. He plays for the Canadian U20 team at the World Youth Cup, but has not yet committed to Canada for his international career. Seeing a weakness at his position in the country of his parents he is considering playing for that team in the future as it offers a high probability of World Cup play.

Player D is born in Toronto and moves to the youth program of a large European team at the age of 12. He plays in the team’s youth program until he turns 18 and becomes eligible to play with the first team. He is considered one of the greatest young talents in football (he has been compared to Zidane for what that’s worth). To date he has refused to commit to Canada internationally, claiming that he wants to focus on establishing himself with his club team. It is expected that he will receive citizenship in his new country shortly and would likely be strongly pursued by that national team. Speculation has his father urging him to play for the European team and his brother (a Canadian national team member) supporting Canada.

A couple of questions:

1) Should any/all of these players play for Canada instead of the European nation they are eligible for?

2) What would prevent an exodus of football talent such as this in the future?

3) How many of these players can you identify?

My take:

It is very difficult to blame any player for choosing to commit his international career to a team with provides the possibility of success. Given the choice between Canada (which has played in exactly one World Cup) and a nation that expects to be in that tournament every time, it is easy to see why the players make the choice that they do. This is even truer when you consider that the player has left Canada at a young age and spent a large portion of their life outside of the country. If you have gone to school, trained, perhaps married in Europe, why would you not feel loyalty to that country?

While I would love to believe that a sense of national pride and blind patriotism ties these young men to the country of their birth it is usually not in their individual interests to play football for the national team. This of course is somewhat of a dilemma: players won't play for a third-rate national football team if they have another choice. And the football team will remain uncompetitive as long as its star players are moving to Europe at an early age to further their careers and then not returning to play for the national team. I have a little hope that Toronto FC will help the situation by providing another option for the training and development of young Canadian players. If the player is being trained in Canada I suspect they would be more likely to play for the national team. However, this is unlikely to help for the truly elite talents that require an elite academy to make the most of their professional career.

What are your thoughts?