On November 21 2025 05:49 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2025 04:39 aseq wrote:On November 20 2025 23:50 sharkie wrote:
You know the term multi-cultural is not just some buzz-word... Most of us who grew up this way feel strong emotional attachment to multiple countries/places/cultures... Having a double passport is not having a backup option... I'm not denying cultural ties. Myself, I moved to a different country too when I was a teen, and moved back later...doesn't mean I think I should be eligible for that country. I can still support them whenever I like. A travel pass should suffice instead of a second passport, but that's an entire different discussion. It's not really that simple. I was born in South Africa. My father is Dutch and I grew up in the Netherlands. If I had been a football prodigy, what national team would you have locked me in to? If you'd ask me, I self-identify as Dutch. But it wouldn't have been hard at all to self-identify as South African. And now I've lived for years in Spain. I'm close enough to having lived more years in Spain than in the Netherlands. Should I change my nationality? I love Spain, but if anyone asks me where I'm from, I don't say Spain. I say I'm Dutch, living in Spain. And if we really get into the weeds, I consider the entire idea of nations outdated.
If you consider nations outdated, it makes no sense to even have a WC. I already agreed with you that it's not always easy to decide which should be the 'primary' country. But I'm still against you playing in the Dutch national youth squad and then transferring to SA/Spain at a later age. And in the current Curaçao squad, there is ONE player actually born on the island, the rest is just born and raised in NL. Their wiki pages list Curaçao as their 'sports nationality', which is just ridiculous. This is just NL B who made it through the easiest area for qualifying in the world.
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Northern Ireland26088 Posts
On November 21 2025 05:49 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2025 04:39 aseq wrote:On November 20 2025 23:50 sharkie wrote:
You know the term multi-cultural is not just some buzz-word... Most of us who grew up this way feel strong emotional attachment to multiple countries/places/cultures... Having a double passport is not having a backup option... I'm not denying cultural ties. Myself, I moved to a different country too when I was a teen, and moved back later...doesn't mean I think I should be eligible for that country. I can still support them whenever I like. A travel pass should suffice instead of a second passport, but that's an entire different discussion. It's not really that simple. I was born in South Africa. My father is Dutch and I grew up in the Netherlands. If I had been a football prodigy, what national team would you have locked me in to? If you'd ask me, I self-identify as Dutch. But it wouldn't have been hard at all to self-identify as South African. And now I've lived for years in Spain. I'm close enough to having lived more years in Spain than in the Netherlands. Should I change my nationality? I love Spain, but if anyone asks me where I'm from, I don't say Spain. I say I'm Dutch, living in Spain. And if we really get into the weeds, I consider the entire idea of nations outdated.
I swear TL should give some more scope for nationality over location, you could be South Africa/Netherlands/Spain. Getting flashbacks to the time some people thought I was Dutch when I was Wombat_NI haha
Aye I’d broadly agree re nations, if pure cosmopolitanism is a 0 and rabid nationalism is a 10, I’m probably about a 2. I quite enjoy some of our culture and colloquialisms, and international sport but that’s about it.
I mean if we could peer into the souls of people, declaring for a nation you’ve no real emotional connection with kinda sucks, but we can’t do that.
Aside from anything else, if you’re a player plying your trade in a big European league, you’re likely earning at a level you couldn’t in any other profession. You’re one horror injury and failure to recover from losing that gravy train. Hey it’s an experience to play a World Cup, but realistically if you’re turning out for a minnow you’re getting battered, it doesn’t appear a risk worth taking for me unless you actually have some emotional investment.
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EPT
