All Whites Uncover Missing Kiwi

Wow, don’t often get national team news about one of our boys at FC Midtjylland.

He is rather talented, he’s currently playing for the U-21 Danish team, has been the heart of our central defense for several years now and seems to show loyalty to his club team. He’s dual-nationality and prone to the split loyalties that can cause.

But yeah, it’d definitely be a bit of what you said if he accepted. He played with the U-21 squad up to and including the last international break (for his 15th U/21 cap) and he reported to the danish press a week ago that he was planning to stay and continue trying to break into the danish team and he was hoping to play for the U/21 squad for next year’s U/21 Euro Championship in Denmark.

If he does play for the all-whites, I’ll be proud to see him and cheer him on, though. He really is a wonderful talent.

It’s a similar problem to that Jamaica had in 1998 – they called up many English-born and bred players who had Jamaican parents. These guys had spent all their lives in England, and obviously learnt their football there, and when so many joined the Jamaican team it caused a bit of a split.

At least in this case it is just one guy, but will he still want to play for New Zealand after the World Cup when they have to play a qualifier against Vanuatu or New Caledonia?? Or will he just want to be involved for the World Cup and Confederations Cup? Only then will you know if he’s actually committed to the cause or not.

Also, if I was the guy who missed a place in the World Cup squad because of Reid, having helped NZ get there, I’d be mightily p*ssed off.

Oh wow, he’s a real person then!? I’m actually surprised.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out. NZ Journalists are notoriously lazy, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they got this whole story wrong. However, on the news last night they showed Ricki Herbert talking to him on the phone and Ricki said he was keen to play.

@ Aidan: He’s not the only one, there’s Rory Fallon and Michael McGlinchey who both played age group football for England and Scotland respectively and then came into the squad in time for the matches against Bahrain.

As for the matches against Vanuatu etc… none of our European based players really bother to come back for those. Such is life in the Oceania Confederation

@ Craig

Very real, unless the player I’ve cheered at SAS Arena was secretly a hologram…hmm, maybe.

It could very well be true, certainly I wouldn’t rule it out, but there’s been no news yet on FC Midtjylland’s website and there was the recent interview in the other direction in the danish press.

So if it is true, they must have served damn fine sandwiches at his meeting with the NZ gaffers.

I can keep my eyes peeled on the fcm.dk site to see if there’s any announcements there. Otherwise, I suppose we’ll both find out come May 24th.

Hang on a second – I know we’d all like to see a home bred, proud to be kiwi team doing their thing, but the fact is that without dual-nationality kiwis who play overseas we wouldn’t be going to the World Cup. Like it or lump it I’m afraid.
And for what it’s worth, considering the increasing trends of a smaller world with ever cheaper travel costs, you can expect this situation to become more the norm than the exception in years to come unless NZ Fottball significantly raises it’s profile and pay packets!

Nate – I don’t have a problem with Kiwis who play in foreign leagues, where I have an issues is when people represent one country, like England, Scotland or Denmark at an age group level, with full intention and desire to go on and represent that country at senior level, quickly re-aligning with the All Whites in a world cup year AFTER we have qualified.

Look at Ryan Nelsen: He plays in England and that is awesome, he captains a Premier League side – fantastic. He is now and always has been a New Zealander – genuinely proud to play for NZ.

Like I said in the post, this isn’t club football, we shouldn’t be trying to lure fringe foreign players with distant kiwi connections to bolster our squad.

We should be assisting young Kiwi players to play in the glamour leagues around the world and keeping in touch with them through-out their careers, having them play for NZ U-19/U-21 and onto seniors.

Confirmed.

He’s a kiwi now.

Now he claims that the World Cup wasn’t central to his decision and to be fair to him he didn’t jump on the Kiwi bandwagon the second they qualified and he also claims the decision was difficult to him (as I imagine it is to every dual nationality athlete.

His quotes, translated:

“The last couple of weeks hasn’t been easy. It’s maybe the most difficult decision I have made in my career. But I am happy that I have made this choice. I was born in New Zealand, lived there for 10 years and am at home almost every year. I like the country very much and it’s very natural to return home and represent them.”

“I talked with the coach of the national team and he wished that I return and play for New Zealand. It was delicious (telling you, great sandwiches) to hear he can use me and I look forward to meeting the other lads there are in the national team.”

“I look forward to being part of a troupe that gets to go to South Africa next summer. But it isn’t because of the World Cup that I switched-that has simply sped up my decision. I have great affiliation to the country, thus for me it is the most important thing to get permission to pull the national jumper over my head.”

So blinded by South African lights or genuine change of heart, I suppose time will tell, but he’s a great talent and will bring pace, passion, and determination to your back line. I look forward to cheering him along though I’ll of course be more focused on the Danish national team.

He’s also 21. He has a very long time to build the sort of bonds you want him to and become genuinely worthy of the All-whites jersey. I hope he does so, because frankly, my team benefits as well if he’s not an opportunistic wanker and it’d also suck losing out on a decent national team prospect if he made this decision haphazardly and for self-serving reasons.

Perhaps the makings of a decent defensive pairing with Nelsen?

@Craig – I hadn’t realised that Rory Fallon had only just joined the NZ team at that late stage. Over here it just got reported as “NZ have qualified with a goal from some bloke who plays for Plymouth!.

Oh, well that is good news I guess. He says all the right things and what more can you ask than that? Now he has joined the All Whites it will be much harder to go back so you can’t undervalue the size of the decision he had to make – NZ has no where near the level of competitions to compete in as Denmark, so for now at least, I’ll retract my cynacisim and welcome with open arms our latest All White to play in Europe.

Now all Kiwis have a side to support in the Danish first division!

Dude we need the guy don’t criticize. It probably was a hard decision man!

Beats starting Sigmund he was exposed against Mexico! Defense is our key to doing well at the WC

I don’t know about this player but the way you tell the story it remembers me the story of a “mexican player” Nery Castillo, he was born in Mexico out of uruguayan fathers and he moved out of the country at a very young age, around five years ago a tv reporter discover he was playing at Olympiakos and that he was eligible, and soon he was being called to the olympic team.

At the same time Uruguay and even Greece also decided he was talented and call him too, the result was that Castillo rejected the call to the olympic team saying he would only play for the major team and then waited to see wich of the three countries gave him a better deal (just what you need to play in a national team, proud for your country)

Unfortunately that best deal came from Mexico and Castillo got to play, after a couple of good games his talent vanished and you only saw him failing shots or fighting with players from the rival team. His club career also sunked, and after he was signed by Manchester City he just stopped playing and he was not even called to the bench, the same thing happened when he was signed by Shaktar Donetsk, and currently he represent Dnpro Dnpropstevek also in Ukraine, and he has played no more then five minutes in all the season.

The most incredible thing is that he is still under consideration to join the team in South Africa, I don’t know about this kiwi, but I certainly hope for the sake of New Zealand that he does not repeat the story of Castillo in Mexico.