"I'd die for... erm, who am I playing for?"

Francileudo Silva dos Santos Lima is not a common name in Tunisia. After the striker's performances in the African Nations Cup, there might well be a few new Francileudos kicking around in a few months, but the man himself won't be. A Brazilian, he lives in France, plays for Sochaux and has no connection with Tunisia apart from his two-year spell at Etoile du Sahel. Oh, and that he's the national team's best player.
In recent years, nationality tourism has crept into football. We cannot sneer -- it's common in cricket, where our own national side has relied on players who are only English by a huge stretch of the imagination: Tony Greig (Saffa, legendary in Australia for his hatred of things English), Robin Smith (Saffa), Graeme Hick (Zimbabwean), Andy Caddick (Kiwi), the Hollioake brothers (Aussies), and a motley crew of Caribbeans not good enough to play for the West Indies (in the days when the West Indies had a seemingly inexhaustible pool of good players). Nor are we averse to buying them. The RFU bought Henry Paul, who I think played league for NZ. Certainly his brother does!
However, we've always thought those guys were somehow connected with the UK. They were born here and emigrated as kids, or held British passports, or at least were citizens of places that felt British in some way. Besides, we understood that the Saffas were using the back door to international sport, because their homeland was banned. (I note the curious case of Roy Wegerle, who played football for the USA, whose connection to that nation was that he had married a citizen. I wonder how he felt about it. How would I feel if I were to represent Australia?)
But Francileudo is part of a new wave of players who appear for other countries because their own do not pick them. (He's a good player but he's no Ronaldo.) He freely admits that he just wanted to play international football. There's an Angolan guy who represented Rwanda before he had even visited that country! He can't understand the shouts of his teammates.
Some players are aghast at the idea that they might have to perform alongside ring-ins. Christian Dailly -- lumpen Scottish defender -- was quoted saying that he couldn't understand why people who didn't feel Scottish would want to represent the country. He said he felt uncomfortable with the idea and would rather lose alongside Scots than win alongside tourists. A cynic might be wondering whether he's worried Lorenzo Amoruso (tipped for selection) might replace him. That same cynic might wonder what Dailly's views on "Scots" such as Matt Elliot are.
Is a nationality tourist any worse than the cockney Irish players? At one stage, practically none of the Irish team was actually Irish, but were largely Londoners with Irish grannies. We laughed, but somehow that was seen as fair enough.
I think Francileudo is a step too far. He hasn't come to a place, fallen in love with it, and now represents it because it is his home. Far from it. I think his inclusion has tainted Tunisia's win. These days, sport is win at all costs, and we forget that it is also supposed to bring beauty into our lives.

posted by Dr Zen @ 9:38 pm