For the first time in history, a World Cup Semifinal will be between African nations.
(media.kotakuinaction2.win)
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They need to be able to obtain a passport for that country, so in other words, they have to citizen either by birth, parents, naturalized, etc.
So if France really want a non-French born player, the government just stamps some papers, do some ceremony, and there you - you are French now. Of course they have to convince the player first, but having an EU citizen ship makes it easy to play in any of the top soccer leagues in Europe, so is a very big perk, since most soccer club can only a limited number of non-euro players.
The only "restriction" is that once you play an official match with that countries National team (senior NT, i believe you can play on different youth NTs freely) you are locked for life to that country.
You can definitely rep a different Yourh national team, at least. I know that much.
Most of the Moroccan players did. Martin Boyle and Harry Souttar for Australia did, too, I believe (for Scotland)…
Embolo, who I think is “naturalized” Swiss, bizarrely went back to Cameroon to play, while his brother stayed there (I think. Something like that anyway), and plays for La Suisse…
It’s all rather weird. And stupid, frankly…
Notably, this isn’t just Soccer/Football, either…
My chosen sport is Field Hockey. If I had been better at it, and was ever good enough to make that level, I might perhaps have considered going to play in/for NZ (lol, dreaming), as many, many Australians do, because the competition to get in the national team over there is apparently slightly less fierce than over here…
Particularly for goalkeepers, apparently…
But hey, that was not something I ever had the opportunity to consider, lol. Though I know others who did.
A few games, I think, before you can switch. Two/three, maybe more.