Gomis and Guerreiro: Two Stories of Dual Nationality in Euro 2008

Bafetimbi Gomis was born in France, but because of his parents’ heritage he would have been eligible to play for Senegal. Instead he played forty-five minutes for France on Tuesday and from now on will be eligible only for the French team. Roger Guerreiro was born and raised in Brazil, but he’s been granted Polish citizenship after two years of playing in the country, so he’ll be playing in Euro 2008 for Poland.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a discussion over on The Offside about what happens when players are eligible to play for more than one country. That discussion was specifically about FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s proposal that players with no family connections to a country must live in that country for at least five years before becoming eligible to play for a national team they don’t have family or birth connections to.

But I always think it’s interesting to move beyond the academic and look at how decisions affect real-life situations. And as we head into Euros, Gomis and Gueirreiro are cases in point.

Bafetimbi Gomis is French, but could have played for Senegal if France hadn’t been interested. France coach Raymond Domenech was aware of this, of course, and the speculation in the French press is that he called up Gomis before Euros to tie him to France and keep him from playing for Senegal. And the Senegalese coach, Lamine Ndiaye, was not happy about this. He believes that Domenech

“called up Bafetimbi Bomis only to keep him from playing for the Senegalese team.” He also said, “I know Domenech well, and I’m very afraid that he will play him only five minutes before putting him back in the garage.”

It’s a valid fear. There are any number of players in the world with dual nationality who have been called up for only a couple of games for a larger country and then been ineligible to play for a smaller country where they could have made a difference. And almost nobody expected Gomis to make Domenech’s final Euros roster with his first call-up.

But Gomis had other plans, and if he continues to play as he did in his debut yesterday, Ndiaye’s fears will be unfounded. He came on at the start of the second half in a scoreless game against Ecuador and scored two brilliant goals. The last person to do that was named Zidane. With luck he’ll be able to keep this up and make a difference for France in the longterm. If not, there’s a chance he could regret the choice.

On another side of the equation, we have Roger Guerreiro, who is probably the poster boy for Sepp’s concerns about all national teams being made up of Brazilians. Guerreiro was born in Brazil, and he’s a quality player. But he’s not quite good enough for the Brazilian team, which is packed with talent. He moved to Poland two years ago to play club football for Legia Warsaw, and was noticed by the good folks with the Poland National Team. These people then put the wheels in motion to get Guerreiro Polish citizenship before Euros.

It worked. He was granted citizenship in April and was formally welcomed by the Polish President himself. (The photo is of the citizenship ceremony.) He responded to the President’s welcome in Portuguese, but ended with the Polish word for “Thank you.”

FIFA approval followed. And now he’ll be in the Poland squad in SwissAustria.

The most interesting response I’ve seen came from Tomasz at our Poland blog. (I’ve had to cut some of it for brevity’s sake, so be sure to stop by and read the entire post, especially what he has to say about how this will affect the chemistry of the team.)

To be honest, I’ve got mixed feelings about it. Don’t get me wrong, I view Roger as one of the best (certainly the most creative) players in the Polish league. He can play both as a centre attacking midfielder and left winger, he is a born playmaker. He is elegant on the ball and has this Latin ability to play a surprising ball. His dribbling skills are also above average in the Polish league’s terms. In short, as a footballer, he is good enough to play for the Eagles. On the other hand, as a supporter, I can’t identify with him 100%. I could identify with Emmanuel Olisadebe (the first foreigner to play for Poland) as he had a Polish wife and came to Warsaw as a young lad to make his name in international football. He could even speak some Polish. … Roger has played in Poland just for 2 years and has no other connection with the country. He can’t speak a word in Polish. … [But] As for myself, I’ll probably fall in love with the player the first time he plays an opening ball for our strikers. That’s how true fans react, right?

I think I’d feel the same way.