Immigration, Dual Citizenship, FIFA passport rules may favor USMNT

Fredy Montero could be among those donning a USA kit, despite having other options.

Jesus, it's been awhile.  I just spent the last hour attempting to write this post, and realized I rambled about nothing the entire time.  Journalism professors taught us in college not to do that, and that only the New York Times could get away with it.  Whatever.  I'm an excitable guy.  Let's start over.

The 2010 World Cup left us an unparalleled sense of national pride.  It also left us scratching our collective spray-dyed heads.  How the hell do we look at it?  We embarrassed the English.  We watched Landon Donovan score the most monumental goal in the team's history.  We also watched the Yanks give up early goal after early goal, and we watched them make an exit that was seemingly... well... early.
What it comes down to now is how we'll fill in the holes that players' aging will leave four years from now.  It's always the first question that comes to mind when a team does "well", but doesn't necessarily achieve at its highest potential levels.  Can the Americans keep it up?

Now, the immigration and dual nationality phenomenon exists everywhere in soccer (and in all sports, for that matter).  FIFA has very forgiving rules regarding international eligibility, and most commonly affects those with extremely diverse populations.  It happens most commonly in Western Europe, Australia, and of course, the United States.

Take the almighty Gods that played on the 1994 World Cup team.  Tab Ramos came to the States from Uruguay as a kid, and received citizenship in time for his debut on the US U-20 squad.  Fernando Clavijo came with his wife in his 20s just to play for a club in New York.  These are merely examples, regardless of the legitimacy.

The rumblings of late are, however, just how legitimate some young and flashy talent could prove to be come 2014.  It just depends on whether or not they choose to join us.

Take Steve Zakuani, for instance.  The 22-year-old Seattle striker has been a favorite at Qwest the last two seasons.  He's a Congo DR native, an English national, and is striving to get American citizenship (which could take awhile).  He apparently has already made his decision regarding which national team for which he'd like to play, but he doesn't feel like telling us just yet.  He wants to wait until after the playoffs, in which his team already shit the bed, again.  I'm excited to see where he goes.  As long as it's not England.

Enter Sounders teammate Fredy Montero, a Colombian native with three years of experience with Los Cafeteros and a shiny new green card.  Although he struggled mightily in the waning months of the season, his 2009 Newcomer of the Year Award and his hot start in 2010 is hopefully a sign of things to come for the 23-year-old and a possible future with the Yanks.

The recently-crowned 2010 Newcomer winner is D.C. winger Andy Najar.  He scored 5 goals for an atrocious United club this season, and recently turned down a call-up from the Honduran national team. Oh, and he's 17.  He's a permanent U.S. resident, but not a citizen.  His agent said he's not necessarily waiting for citizenship to play for the Americans, but that the "timing was bad."  His age works to our advantage, because he could play for Honduras until his citizenship is taken care of, when he could then suit up with us, sort of a la Jermaine Jones (whose dual citizenship allowed him to feature for the US after realizing his playing time with the Germans was going to be rather limited).

A few current examples of young talent that have already made the jump stateside for the South Africa friendly on Wednesday:

• Teal Bunbury (Canada), 20.  The Kansas City forward was raised in Minnesota, has dual citizenship, and apparently has a father who was a Canadian superstar--but he accepted Bradley's call for next week for one reason: he wants to play in a World Cup, and God knows that's not happening anytime soon north of the border.
• Mikkel Diskerud (Norway), 20.  Dual citizenship.  He plays in his native homeland for top-tier Stabæk, but after spending some time in the Norwegian youth system, he joined our youth system in 2008, citing that he "always felt American."  He'll be in South Africa next week.
• Aston Villa defender Eric Lichaj (Poland), 21 and Celtic back-up keeper Dominic Cervi (Italy), 24.  Both have international passports, but have accepted calls, essentially tying them in for good.

If you're among those genuinely worried about the future of the USMNT, relax.  I'm not saying these guys are going to lead us to a gold medal; but as along as the United States continues to be somewhat of a land of opportunity, this trend isn't showing any signs of slowing down.  And, the more Major League Soccer grows, the more international talent will come in, equalling more Steve Zakuanis and Andy Najars.  I'd like to have a few of them on my team, four years down the line.

I'm sorry, was I rambling?