Arsenal's Almunia, Chelsea' Cudicini - Why do England never exploit the International loopholes?

J11 Fanzine — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:56:55 +0000

Football FanCast columnist Matt Williams wonders why England is the only nation who fails to stretch the boundaries when it comes to selecting its football team.

Let me start off by posing you a question. What do the athletes Lennox Lewis, Greg Rusedski, Kevin Pietersen, Lesley Vainikolo and Alan Lamb all have in common? That's right; they've all represented England in their respective sports, despite being born elsewhere.

Another question. What's the connection between Patrick Vieira, Lukas Podolski, Marcos Senna, Deco, Mehmet Aurelio and Miroslav Klose? Again, the answer is quite similar; they are all footballers who are representing a country that they weren't born in. They are international football's ‘ringers' if you will.

You may have noticed from that second list that not one of those players mentioned are playing for England. And despite the fact that, as proved in question one, England teams in other sports are happy to play the ‘citizenship' card, English football has always tended to avoid the idea.

Yet with the foreign legion marching into the Premiership game at an uncontrollable rate, it's not as if Fabio Capello does not have the opportunity to ‘bend the rules'. Just one phone call and that problematic left side position could be sorted, with the call-up of Steed Malbranque. Gael Clichy, Arsenal left-back and included in the PFA's Team of the Season, will also be eligible to wear the Three Lions shirt by the end of the year. Maybe we wouldn't have had to put up with Paul Robinson in goal for such a long time if someone had just turned up with an England shirt and begging letter at Carlo Cudicini's or Manuel Almunia's house.

This issue has been brought back into the public eye during the Euro 2008 tournament, not just because of the players listed above, but because of a certain Colin Kazim-Richards, the part-English, part-Turkish forward. Now known as ‘Kazim Kazim', Richards will be representing Turkey in tonight's semi-final against Germany.

"I would have been happy to play for England or Turkey, but the call never came for the [England] under-21s." Richards recently told The Times. "Turkey knew my background and really made me feel welcome, even though I could barely speak a word of the language."

If Richards scores for the Turks tonight to put ‘his' country into the final of Europe's biggest international tournament, there will be no muted celebrations from Turkish fans. Richards has committed to their nation, and they'll happily accept him for it.

So why does it seem that England are the only country who aren't keen to do the same? Of course we do have Owen Hargreaves, but when he first joined the squad, people seemed so embarrassed that they had no clue who he was, that he was almost given the benefit of the doubt. It still also took a ‘player of the tournament' 2006 World Cup performance for the English public to fully accept him.

And that seems to be the problem for England in this area. Pride. We like our footballers to be pure British beef, with blood on their shirt, going out there to fight for Queen and country. We still want them to have names like Gary and David, who would happily go for a post-match lager and packet of pork scratchings if they weren't paid so much to keep their bodies in shape.

We don't want no namby-pamby foreigner on our left-side, no matter how much he'll improve the team and no matter how much he loves this country. We'd rather fail with Englishman than win with players named Carlo and Jeremie in our team.

Of course this is an over-exagerrated way of putting things. But there is something admirable about players like George Weah and Ryan Giggs, players who knew they would never play in an international tournament by sticking with their home countries, but whose national pride meant they did so anyway.

We also wonder whether Polish-born forwards Podolski and Klose's celebrations will be tinged with a hint of guilt if they win tonight, considering they contributed so effectively to thwart their country of origin in the group stages of the Euros. And we certainly don't care about Kazim-Richards now he's turned his back on Leytonstone for Istanbul.

The irony of it all is that realistically, Kazim-Richards would probably never be considered good enough to get in the England squad anyway. This was a player outshone by Rob Hulse and Adi Akinbyi during his spell at Sheffield United, for goodness sake.

But Kazim-Richards has been in Swizerland, playing in the Euro 2008 semis. Maybe if Carlo Cudicini was picked to play in goal against Croatia on that wet November night last year instead of Scott Carson, then England would be there too.

Semi Final Spain vs. Russia. 19.45

Why the uproar about Madrid and Ronaldo - Aston Villa and Liverpool are proof it happens freely in England

J11 Fanzine — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:56:15 +0000

New Football FanCast columnist Matt Williams looks at the ever changing ways that transfers are seemingly conducted in this country.

‘JULY 7TH!' That was the headline screaming from the Daily Mirror yesterday, stating the apparent date that Cristiano Ronaldo will sign for Real Madrid. It's been a long and drawn-out transfer saga, with each newspaper scraping for any scraps of new information that they can sensationalise.

And of course, Real Madrid are always happy to give it to them. The Spanish club have provided quote after quote, appearing to unsettle Ronaldo in such a way that United boss Alex Ferguson threatened with legal action.

But what has been so different here to the other thousand transfer rumours going on in what is affectionately known as ‘the silly season'? Sure, this transfer debacle was always going to be on a more high-profile scale, due to the sheer importance of the clubs and players involved. But read quotes from any manager commenting on their latest transfer targets and its hard not to jump to the same conclusions.

Now it's assumed that during pre-season each manager compiles a transfer list, and will then proceed to make faxes to the owners of those targeted players privately. (Incidentally, why is it that no-one ever uses fax machines anymore, except for when football clubs make transfer offers?)

For example, you imagine Portsmouth did exactly this in order to pursue Peter Crouch, but Liverpool rejected the bid and that would be that. Pompey boss Harry Redknapp would then have to ponder whether to increase his bid to something Liverpool would deem more acceptable, or move on to another transfer target.

But this is Harry Redknapp we're talking about. Instead of respecting Liverpool's wishes, a story is conveniently put out to the media with Redknapp stating that Liverpool's valuation of the striker is "far too high".

He then proceeded to tell the Telegraph: "Crouchie is a player who is on our list, but if nothing can be done then we will just move on to the next player". Funny how Portsmouth decided to speak to the press first before taking their own advice.

But they know that a cleverly placed quote here and there may just press Liverpool to force their hand, to react to the fact that no-one will pay the £15million they're asking and take whatever Redknapp will give them. Like in the Ronaldo case, Crouch may also decide that enough is enough and start campaigning for the move himself.

You cannot blame Harry Redknapp for doing what he is doing though. It is simply the way that transfers seem to be done these days. The victims of the Crouch scenario - Liverpool - can be fingered as doing the exact same thing in their pursuit of Gareth Barry. The Barry saga has been running on for so long now that it's almost being talked about as a done deal, with Liverpool even using the club captain Steven Gerrard to do their dirty work. Don't be surprised to hear the Anfield tea lady speaking to The Sun in the not too distant future urging Barry to make his ‘dream move' a reality.

The ever growing influence of the media in today's game means that it's becoming ever harder for transfer dealings to be conducted in private. ‘Inside sources' seem to pop up from everywhere, and even though hundreds of the rumours are blatant lies, the law of averages means one or two will have some substance.

The clubs and managers themselves are not making much effort to keep dealings under wraps though either, and why would they, when they know that a leaked quote or two can sometimes make all the difference?

So before Ferguson and the rest of the Premiership gets up in arms about the cheeky Spaniards playing games in order to get their man, they might want to look at the way they all conduct their own transfer dealings first.

Semi Final Spain vs. Russia. 19.45

J11 Fanzine's Recent Posts

Arsenal's Almunia, Chelsea' Cudicini - Why do England never exploit the International loopholes?

Why the uproar about Madrid and Ronaldo - Aston Villa and Liverpool are proof it happens freely in England