How foreign-born players put the ‘world’ in World Cup

How can that be? A combination of ancestry, immigration, war and some occasional competitive shenanigans tells the tale.

Only citizens of a country are eligible to play for its national team, according to FIFA, international soccer’s governing body.

But because citizenship rules vary — birth, parentage and residency are handled in different ways in different countries — around the globe, many players qualify for more than one national team.

An extreme example is Belgium midfielder Adnan Januzaj, who had his pick of up to seven national teams.

He was born in Belgium shortly after his parents fled war in Kosovo, and he grew up there. But he also could’ve played for — stick with us here — Kosovo, Serbia or possibly Croatia (all from his mother’s ancestry), Albania (his parents’ birthplace), Turkey (the homeland of his father’s parents) or England (where he had played since his teens).

He received death threats from angry fans in 2014 when he picked Belgium rather than choosing — and waiting for FIFA to recognize — the Kosovar team. (Kosovo entered FIFA in 2016.)

The many colors of Les Bleus

Fifty French-born players appear on World Cup rosters, the most of any country. (Brazil is second with 28.)

Having a multicultural team has been a source of pride and controversy.

In 1998, France celebrated the diversity of its “Black-Blanc-Beur” (Black-White-Arab) team, which won the World Cup on home turf led by Zinedine Zidane, a goal-scoring icon of Algerian descent.

But tension lurked below a united exterior.

Earlier that year, 38 percent of people admitted to being racist in a government survey, and racial issues have plagued the team on and off since.

In 2006, the socialist president of the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France declared he was “ashamed” and complained that the team would soon “be 11 black people when it would be normal to have three or four.”

In 2011, officials of the French federation were recorded debating putting limits on black and Arab players in the country’s soccer academies. And player selection, a ruthless and controversial process to begin with, has been complicated by racial undertones.

Some players moved for their parents’ jobs

Most of the players who aren’t representing their birth countries emigrated as children and play for their adopted countries. That is true of Gotoku Sakai, the lone U.S.-born player in the tournament; he was born in New York to a Japanese father and moved to Japan at age 2.

Perhaps the “most American” player in the World Cup this year is Rodney Wallace, a native of Costa Rica who emigrated as a 9-year-old when his mom took a job three blocks from the White House. He went to college at the University of Maryland, played for three Major League Soccer teams and considers home to be Rockville, Md.

Costa Rica’s only non-native player, Oscar Duarte, was born in Catarina, Nicaragua, which is two hours from the Costa Rican border. He moved at age 5 with his mother; Nicaraguans often travel to Costa Rica in search of better jobs. He became a Costa Rican citizen at 13, but he is a hero in his Nicaraguan hometown, where his mother still spends part of the year.

Spanish midfielder Thiago Alcantara has a multinational history that mirrors his father’s career path. Born in Italy, where his dad, Brazilian midfielder Mazinho, played professionally, Alcantara moved to Spain at 3 when his father played in Valencia, then a few years later to Brazil, where Mazinho wanted to retire.

He returned to Spain as a teen to train at a prestigious academy, and he told Sports Illustrated in a 2015 interview that, although he speaks five languages, he thinks in Spanish.

His brother, Rafael Alcantara (aka Rafinha), chose to play for Brazil (where he was born) but did not make the World Cup roster.

Others’ families were uprooted by war

The 1990s were a turbulent time in the Balkans, where the aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia became a free-for-all of ethnic conflict.

Players born during this time are scattered around the globe, playing for countries where their parents fled as refugees.

Australian defender Milos Degenek’s family members, who are ethnic Serbs, fled Croatia to Belgrade when he was a toddler, according to his first-person account. They emigrated to Australia when he was 7, he wrote, and “it was like being born a second time.”

Midfielder Granit Xhaka’s parents left Kosovo for Switzerland, with help from Amnesty International, after his father had been imprisoned for demonstrating against the communist regime. Xhaka plays for Switzerland, where he was born.

Several other Swiss players have roots in the Balkans, such as striker Josip Drmic, whose Croatian parents also fled to Switzerland.

And two Serbian team members, Aleksandar Prijovic and Milos Veljkovic, are ethnic Serbs who were born and raised in Switzerland after their parents emigrated.

Switzerland and Serbia will face each other in Group E play Friday in Kaliningrad.

Some countries serve as Plan B

Players with dual citizenship have a backup plan if their home countries don’t call. This is especially true ahead of the World Cup as less accomplished countries try to beef up their rosters by scouting for talented dual citizens among the world powers. That’s how how a native of Sweden ended up playing for a country he never even visited.

Saman Ghoddos was born and raised in Sweden and played friendlies for the Swedish team in 2017. But when World Cup qualifying came around, Sweden dragged its feet about calling him.

In swooped Iran, his parents’ birth country. Sweden belatedly rang, but Ghoddos rejected the offer. His first trip to Iran came when he joined his new team.

What if Iran and Sweden meet in the World Cup?

“It’s crazy," Ghoddos told CNN, "but I would love to play that game."

FIFA doesn’t want players to switch teams willy-nilly or to repeatedly sell their citizenship to the highest bidder. Therefore, the organization allows a player to change national teams once, and only before he has reached the sport’s highest level.

Once a player plays for a senior national team in a competitive match such as a World Cup qualifier, he is stuck with that team. (Exhibition games don’t count, which is why Ghoddos could switch to Iran even after he scored in a friendly for Sweden.)

It is not unheard of for a team to put a young player with potential on its roster once to secure his services for the rest of his life. And it is not unheard of for a player to decline an invitation from one country in the hopes that he will get a better offer from another.

Sometimes, roots are not relevant

Occasionally the decision has nothing to do with identity and everything to do with opportunity.

Brazil-born striker Diego Costa, who played two friendlies for Brazil in 2013, now plays for Spain — even though he has no Spanish roots.

Costa was raised in Brazil with a soccer-obsessed father who named him after Argentinian icon Diego Maradona. But the notoriously hotheaded striker played mostly for Spanish clubs since he was 19 and, when Brazil’s coach seemed tepid on putting him on the World Cup squad, he switched nationalities in 2013, right before the 2014 tournament.

Russia’s only non-native player, Mario Fernandes, also hails from Brazil but began playing for CSKA Moscow in 2012.

After a troubled history with Brazil, he thought his chances to play in a World Cup would be better with Russia. He was granted citizenship in 2016 by presidential decree from Vladimir Putin and officially joined the team in 2017 after meeting FIFA’s five-year residency requirement.

Even some teams with all native players have roots abroad

Ten World Cup rosters are filled only with players born in those countries, but their international connections are obvious in their names and their stories.

Belgium has many native-born players of African heritage: Dedryck Boyata, Vincent Kompany and Youri Tielemans have parents of Congolese descent; Romelu Lukaku’s father played for Zaire; Nacer Chadli’s family is Moroccan, and he played a friendly for Morocco before choosing Belgium.

John Guidetti of Sweden has Italian roots and grew up playing barefoot on the streets of Nairobi as a child when his father taught in Kenya.

The German team includes players with roots in Turkey, Spain and Sierra Leone. It also has Jerome Boateng, whose half-brother Kevin-Prince plays for Ghana. The brothers met in the 2014 World Cup.

In a small victory for family harmony, the match ended in a 2-2 draw.