Ravel Morrison, formerly one of the great hopes of English football and former U21 international, made his debut for Jamaica on Saturday.
In light of that event I thought it might be interesting to keep track of UK-born players appearing for countries outside the British Isles. With UK academies increasing their output of high quality players we might see a logjam of well-coached players may look elsewhere for international opportunities. There's a story on the BBC this afternoon about Reading's Ovie Ejaria, a winner of the U20 World Cup with England in 2017, seeking to play for Nigeria.
There's also the interesting case of non-league players being called-up by smaller nations. The latest Saint Lucia squad listed on Wikipedia (Nov 2019) contains Kieran Monlouis of Horsham (seventh tier). And the curious cases - yes, Simone Perrotta, Italian World Cup winner in 2006, was born in Ashton-under-Lyne (but returned to Italy when he was five).
For the record, Jamaica also gave a debut in that match to Greg Leigh, born in Manchester and currently at Aberdeen, while Adrian Mariappa, Michael Hector (both London) and Bobby Decordova-Reid (Bristol) were also in the initial squad. Meanwhile Erling Haaland's (b. Leeds - although he left the UK at the age of three) international break was curtailed when Norway's government prevented their squad from travelling to a friendly with Austria.
In light of that event I thought it might be interesting to keep track of UK-born players appearing for countries outside the British Isles. With UK academies increasing their output of high quality players we might see a logjam of well-coached players may look elsewhere for international opportunities. There's a story on the BBC this afternoon about Reading's Ovie Ejaria, a winner of the U20 World Cup with England in 2017, seeking to play for Nigeria.
There's also the interesting case of non-league players being called-up by smaller nations. The latest Saint Lucia squad listed on Wikipedia (Nov 2019) contains Kieran Monlouis of Horsham (seventh tier). And the curious cases - yes, Simone Perrotta, Italian World Cup winner in 2006, was born in Ashton-under-Lyne (but returned to Italy when he was five).
For the record, Jamaica also gave a debut in that match to Greg Leigh, born in Manchester and currently at Aberdeen, while Adrian Mariappa, Michael Hector (both London) and Bobby Decordova-Reid (Bristol) were also in the initial squad. Meanwhile Erling Haaland's (b. Leeds - although he left the UK at the age of three) international break was curtailed when Norway's government prevented their squad from travelling to a friendly with Austria.
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