Reuters Soccer Blog
World Soccer views and news
Is naturalising players for internationals a good idea?
Brazil-born Juventus striker Amauri failed to get an Italian passport in time for Italy’s upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Georgia and Bulgaria but he hopes the documentation will come through soon.Azzurri coach Marcello Lippi has indicated he will then consider Amauri for international duty but said he did not want the situation to be repeated.This seems to have ended any chance of Inter Milan midfielder Thiago Motta following Amauri’s lead. The former Barcelona and Atletico Madrid player could qualify for Italy if FIFA decided his two Brazil appearances in the CONCACAF Gold Cup did not count as full caps because it was a under-23 team.After Diego’s classy brace in his second game for Juventus, many Italians became excited when they realised the playmaker has Italian lineage. However, they forgot the basic rule that Diego had played competitively for Brazil and therefore was not eligible for Italy.Arsenal striker Eduardo da Silva plays for Croatia despite being born in Brazil while the London club’s uncapped Spanish goalkeeper Manuel Almunia has often been talked about as a potential England candidate.Is the situation out of hand? I’m just old enough to remember when domestic clubs had a majority of players from the local town. Now few top sides have players from the same country.Is international football going the same way? Why not have Premier League v Serie A rather than England v Italy?Liverpool’s Alberto Aquilani and Andrea Dossena may feel a bit torn.PHOTO: Juventus forward Amauri warms up during a training session at the Stadio Olimpico in Turin March 9, 2009.REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi
Is Eduardo’s two-match ban too harsh?
UEFA’s decision to hand Arsenal striker Eduardo da Silva a two-match ban for diving has infuriated the Croatian media, many fans and national team coach Slaven Bilic.
“It is a shameful decision, especially in view of the fact that Eduardo personifies everything that’s decent in professional sport,” Bilic told Zagreb daily Vecernji List after learning the verdict.
Fans and media have gone to even greater length in defending the Brazilian-born Croatia striker, who has won the hearts and sympathy of his adopted country after recovering from a horrific leg break he suffered in Arsenal’s Premier League match at Birmingham in February 2008.
The sense of injustice in Croatia wasn’t helped by last weekend’s injury suffered by Tottenham playmaker Luka Modric, who faces up to six weeks on the sidelines after breaking his leg in a league match with Birmingham (again).
Croatia’s leading sports website, www.sportnet.hr, had harsh words.
“Eduardo has been punished in a most detestable manner, supposedly so that justice is done, while justice was deaf, dumb and blind only 18 months earlier when he was in bed with his ankle shattered and his career hanging by a thread,” the website said.
Is Eduardo a victim of double standards, or simply his own ill-judged decision to go down rather easily after minimum or no contact with the goalkeeper?
Edwardo should never have been punished at all because he did not dive. It should be remembered that he just returned from a year-long injury. He appeared to anticipate a tackle and took evasive action. If he had planted his legs on the ground and the Celtic goalie slip against them and injure him, he would be saying sorry, which doesn’t heal anything.Players are humans and can genuinely fall without trying to get a penalty. It should only be call a dive if someone falls without being touched and actually persuades a referee to give a penalty.Players should take evasive action from being injured without the Scots talking down their self-appointed “moral high grounds”.
Dan, are you referring to AS Roma’s Simone Perrotta? I still remembered back in the build-up to the final in Berlin, one of the newspapers in my country mentioned something along the line that technically, there is an Englishman in the final. Anyhow, I remembered once reading somewhere that Perrotta was quite young when his family moved back to Italy.