| FootballFan said: A spaniard scored there first and a Turk scored there second. They really need to sort the system out. They need to do the play for where your born rule. Or the current live in the country for 3 years and then you are that nationality, they shouldnt do both. I guess i shouldnt complain as Nedum onuah and Gabriel Agbonlahor are Nigerian but there you go. |
Well, this is actually a quite serious topic. It was really hard to get a german passport until 10 years ago, so we just started to integrate the immigrants into our national teams. Still there are 7,3 million foreigners living in Germany. Most of them were even born here. Out of the 23 players in the U-21 ten have more or less foreign roots.
But all but four of them were born in Germany. The "Spanish" Gonzalo and the "Turkish" Özil were both born here and lived their whole life in Germany. The four exceptions to the born in Germany rule:
Marko Marin (born in Bosnia and came to Germany when he was 2 years old)
Sebastian Boenisch ( born in Poland, known that he already lived in Germany, when he started to play football at the age of 5, his surname clearly shows German roots)
Andreas Beck (born in Russia, moved to Germany, when he was 3 years old, being a Spätaussiedler (German living in Russia and moving back after the iron curtain fell)).
Ashkan Dejagah (born in Iran, moved to Germany, when he was 1 year old)
Some of the "immigrants" are even half or more German. Jerome Boateng i.e. is the grand-nephew of the German football idol and World Champion of 1954, Helmut Rahn.
So the complain, that foreigners scored or played for Germany doesn't count.
If the born rule would be introduced, some other nations would struggle. From the actual Turkish national team four players where born in Germany: The Altintop-twins, Hakan Balta and Nuri Sahin. The croatian team would've missed the Kovac-brothers, who were born in Berlin etc.
