There's been a lot of negativity and
bad blood brewed over the past few days after Jack Wilshere stated
that, in reference to the thought of Adnan Januzaj getting called up
for England, “The only people who should play for England are
English people,” after a training session this past week. Many seem
to agree with him in believing that people not born in England should
not play for the national team.
That argument can be made and have
quite a strong backing, but times are changing and Wilshere needs to
recognize and accept that. It's not a secret the England squad is
lacking in, well, something. The young talent in England just isn't
up to par with what we see coming through the ranks of other big name
countries and that is widely recognized. With the proposed pursuit of
Januzaj, it shows that England are ready to follow in the footsteps
of other countries that are making the most of out of finding ways to
get players that qualify to play for their country to do exactly
that.
A prime example is the United States.
Jürgen Klinsmann had been criticized early
on for using many players that qualified to play for both Germany and
America and persuading them to play for his United States squad. Many
thought he was overlooking some of the young prospects that were born
and raised in the United States, but now he has silenced those
critics by qualifying the USA for the World Cup in Brazil. He also
has kept the core of the team (at least for now) American.
So where is the harm in being open to
letting naturalized citizens play for your country? It shows
diversity, willingness to accept change, and if it doesn't work out
you drop them from them team. Seems an easy enough solution. Look at
all the players that could have played for other nations but chose to
play for the one they do now, many of them are excelling. Lukas
Podolski, Mario Balotelli, Danny Welbeck, etc. all of these players
could have picked another country to play for yet didn't.
If Janujaz gets called up to England
when the time is appropriate and chooses to play for them then his
peers need to accept it and welcome him into the team with open arms.
The idea that a player must be born in the country to play in the
country is a dying one. Times are changing, it's about time we all
accept that.
