After the 2006 World Cup, Sanchez got his wish and was named national team boss. He stuck with his promise not to select naturalized players until earlier this year when he called up one of Lavolpe’s favorites, Antonio Naelson. Sanchez retreated from his previous statements and relied on the same constitutional rationale that Chivas officials recently employed to justify Jesus Padilla’s spot on their team. “The doors are open for all Mexicans, and the constitution says that they are Mexican,” said Sanchez.

Hugo Sanchez has not been as revolutionary as he promised to be (Photo: FMSite.net)

Hugo Sanchez has a completely different set of problems today. As boss of the Olympic team, he recently failed to get out of a qualifying group that also included world heavyweights such as Canada, Guatemala, and Haiti. The cases of Chivas and the Mexican national team indicate that Mexico is a country currently working to define what it means to be Mexican.

Halfway across the globe, Qatar’s oil wealth has, for years, allowed its clubs to bring in talented foreign players (admittedly, slightly past the peaks of their careers). Gabriel Batistuta, Frank Leboeuf, Jay-Jay Okocha, and Romario have all spent at least some time in the Q-League. Despite these big names playing in the domestic league, the Qatari national team has achieved very little.

Recently, Qatar has begun to naturalize foreign players so that they can represent the country’s national team. This might seem to be controversial, but unlike in Mexico, there has been very little criticism of Uruguayan-born boss Jorge Fossati. Why is this the case? Just as in Mexico, political economy largely explains this phenomenon. Critiques of using foreign-born players (of Mexican descent or otherwise) in Mexico are rooted in a conception of Mexican identity originally promoted by Jose Vasconcelos, and shifts in this conception are now occurring largely because of the economic situation that has led to large numbers of Mexicans living outside of the country. In Qatar, foreign workers are an integral part of the country’s development. In a country accustomed to this reality, non-Qatari born soccer players representing the national team may not be such an, um, foreign idea.

Jorge Fossati is named Qatari national team boss in 2007 (Photo: FIFA/AFP/Karim Jaafar)

Like many countries in the Middle East, Qatar has, in recent years, brought in thousands of foreign workers. The US State Department reports that foreign workers are 52% of Qatar’s population and 89% of its labor force. In addition to native Qataris, Indians make up 20%, Filipinos and Nepalis 10% each, Pakistanis 7%, and Sri Lankans 5% of the 900,000 population of the gulf state. Foreign workers are employed in many industries and are the labor engine that is firing Qatar’s economy.

With half of the population made up of foreigners, Jorge Fossati has a limited pool from which to name his squad. He told FIFA last month, “You mustn’t forget that this is a country with a population of only 250,000, which makes it very hard to select a national team using only players born and bred here.” Just as bosses of Qatari industry have done, Fossati has looked for labor abroad. Michael Cockerill wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald last month of this plan:

After a string of frustrating failures at both World Cup and Asian Cup level, it dawned on the Qatari authorities that they were always going to struggle to make a splash in international football unless something radical was done. There are roughly 850,000 people in Qatar. Only one quarter of them are actually Qatari citizens, and only half again are male. To create a competitive national team out of such a limited talent pool was clearly a pipe dream. So Qatar began “buying” players from Africa, South America and other parts of Asia who hadn’t yet played for their own national teams. By accepting the lure of tax-free petro-dollars in the Q-League, they had to also declare their allegiance to the Qatar national team. For most, it was a no-brainer.

Qatar’s earlier attempts to lure relatively high-profile players such as Ailton and Dede to represent their national with promises of cash were shot down by FIFA. Instead of giving up on the idea of naturalizing foreign players to make them eligible for their national team, the Qataris simply looked for lower profile players. In a thread snarkily titled International Gathering of Failed Foreign Players in Qatar aka Qatari National Team, on the aliraqi.org message boards, user Al-Kazwami has detailed the foreigner players (and their country of origin) who have represented the gulf nation recently. They include Lawrence (Ghana), Wissam Rizk (Palestine), Talal Al-Belushi (Kuwait), Mujeeb Hameed (Sudan), Qassim Burhan (Sudan), Ali Mejbel Fartous (Iraq), Majdi Sidiq (Sudan), Ali Nassir (Yemen), Hussein Yasser (Egypt), Majeed Mohammad (Sudan), Sebastian Soria (Uruguay), Abdulah Koni (Senegal), Mohammad Saqr (Senegal), Fabio César Montazine (Brazil), and Marconi Amaral (Uruguay).

Qatar’s Uruguayan-born forward Sebastian Soria, in white (Photo: FIFA/AFP)

That this gaggle of foreign players representing Qatar has not caused more of an uproar in the gulf nation is not unconnected from the number of foreign workers in the country. Qataris accustomed to foreigners working in industries seem content to let them move into the sporting arena. The contrast with Mexico – a country with little history of immigration– is clear, and it is no surprise that bringing in foreign players for El Tricolor is more controversial. The controversy in Mexico is coming as a result of the high levels of emigration and the increasing number of talented foreign-born Mexicans like Jesus Padilla has forced Chivas to change its “Mexicans born in Mexico only” policy. Indeed, Hugo Sanchez and future Mexican national team bosses may begin to field more and more American-born Mexicans (New Mexico-born Edgar Castillo was part of the unsuccessful U-23 team). The team selections of Chivas, El Tricolor, and the Qatari national team are being drastically affected by global political economics.

Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hashim Thaci plays soccer with ethnic Serb boys (photo: Visar Kryeziu /AP / Christian Science Monitor)

The 1990s were a particularly bloody period in the history of the Balkans, but far from the first time the region has gone through instability. It is perhaps because of this instability that countries in the Balkans have sent so many of their people abroad. Among these Balkans living outside of their ancestral homeland are quite a number of talented soccer players. Some were born in the Balkans, others to parents who have left their homelands.

If Kosovo does become an independent nation, it will have the right to forms its own national team. As Steve Menary writes in his book Outcasts, the unofficial Kosovo FA has been fielding a team for years. One player they would hope to bring in to the team is Crystal Palace striker Shefki Kuqi. Kuqi was born in Kosovo, although he later moved to Finland, a country for which he earned 52 caps. Should the country of his birth be recognized by FIFA, Kuqi would be able to switch his allegiance to Kosovo.

Barcelona’s 17 year-old phenom Bojan Krkic was recently called up to the Spanish national team. Illness prevented him from becoming the youngest ever player to represent la Furia Roja, but it is only a matter of time before he pulls on Spain’s famous red shirt. Bojan, as he is commonly known, was born to a Serbian father, who played for Red Star Belgrade in the 1980s. Though undoubtedly talented (Bojan Jr. is considered one of Barcelona and Spain’s best young players), the call-up was seen as a way to tie the youngster’s loyalty to the country of his birth. Serbia has made inquires to the Barcelona forward, but it seems likely he will snub his father’s country in favor of Spain.

Perhaps the most talented of all players of Balkan descent is Inter’s Swedish forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Zlatan was born in Malmo to a Bosnian father and Croatian mother, who had left their homeland independently and met in Sweden. Zlatan began his career at Malmo FF, a club noted for its many multiethnic players (they currently have Swedish-Ghanian, Swedish-Iranian, Swedish-Greek, and a Swedish-Kosovar player on their books).

Zlatan Ibrahimovic (photo: BBC)

Sweden is a country noted for its welcoming immigration policies. The country has quite a large immigrant population today, including many from the Balkans. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that the country has had several such players represent its national team. These include center back Daniel Majstorovic, midfielder Dusan Duric, and striker Rade Prica, all of whom have families from what is now Serbia.

Australia, as I have written previously, has quite a number of ethnic Croatians in its national team, reflecting the historical connections between the two countries. Aussies of Croatian descent include Mark Viduka, Jason Culina, Tony Popovic, Josip Skoko, Ante Covic, Zeljko Kalac, and Mark Bresciano.

Argentina has traditionally been a country with a large amount of immigration, including many from the Balkans. Some fairly prominent Argentine players of Balkan descent today include Velez Sarsfield defender Mariano Uglessich, Universidad Catolica (of Chile) goalkeeper Jose Maria Buljubasich (try saying that 10 times fast), and San Lorenzo midfielder Daniel Bilos. Bilos was approached by Croatia prior to the 2006 World Cup, but turned down his ancestral homeland, preferring to represent Argentina.

There are several less well-known players internationally, but who have made their name around the world playing in smaller leagues. Former midfielder Dejan Petkovic has played for many years in Brazil and is considered a legend there (quite an achievement for a non-Brazilian). Dragan Stojkovic was revered during his time playing for Japan’s Nagoya Grampus Eight and he is now manager of that team.

Stojkovic is far from the only manager from the Balkans playing his trade outside of his homeland. Vladimir Petrovic is currently in charge of China’s national team, a position previously held by one of the most famous Balkan managers of all time, Bora Milutinovic. Bora holds the distinction of being the only coach ever to be in charge of five different teams at the World Cup (Mexico in 1986, Costa Rica in 1990, the United States in 1994, Nigeria in 1998, and China in 2002).

The latest stop on Bora’s coaching tour of the world is Jamaica (photo: TheReggaeBoyz.com)

Know other famous soccer exports from the Balkans? Post them in the comments below.

Hilarious parody from Oz City Soccer

While Fulham’s expats are relatively high profile, there are many Americans playing abroad who are anything but. It’s a truly dedicated fan who knows Eric Lichaj of Aston Villa, Michael Enfield of Sydney FC in Australia or Tighe Dombrowski of IK Sirius in Sweden.

But while teams abroad are snapping up American players (among other reasons, the falling value of the dollar makes them a good bargain), they appear reluctant to look at American coaches. Only one native-born American coach has held a major job abroad (Steve Sampson, who was in charge of Costa Rica’s national team from 2002 – 2004). Scouring the depths of my brain and the Internet for examples of American coaches who have worked abroad was only able to come up with three, all of whom are naturalized Americans born in other countries.

Last week, Martin Vasquez’s career got a bit of a jump. Until then, the 44 year-old was an assistant coach for MLS’s Chivas USA. But then, Jürgen Klinsmann, who will take over from Ottmar Hitzfeld as Bayern Munich manager next season, announced that he will bring Vasquez across the Atlantic with him as his number two man. It will be quite a responsibility for Vasquez, especially if Klinsmann takes the type of hands-off approach he did during his time with the German national team, when many credited his assistant (and now head coach) Joachim Löw with being the driving force behind the country’s resurgence.

Martin Vasquez (photo: Juan Miranda/Chivas USA/Soccer America)

Klinsmann knows Vasquez from his time in Southern California. In a statement, the German legend said, “I’ve known Martin since 2003 when he was training at an elite football camp in the United States. I was impressed by his positive leadership style and I recommended him to LA Galaxy.” Vasquez was a Galaxy assistant for one season before moving to LA rivals Chivas USA. That move was nowhere near as big as his upcoming switch to Munich.Vasquez does not lack experience crossing borders. Born in Mexico, he moved to LA at age 12. Vasquez played college soccer at UCLA before returning to Mexico to begin his pro career. He played for several teams in Mexico and even earned a spot on the Mexican national team, playing for El Tri several times in the early 1990s. Vasquez returned to the US in 1996 to join the fledgling MLS. His play for the now-defunct Tampa Bay Mutiny and the soon-to-be revived San Jose Clash (known today as the Earthquakes) earned him a call-up from then US national team boss Steve Sampson (he was eligible having only played in friendlies for Mexico), where Vasquez eventually earned 7 caps.

Another coach making his name abroad is Iranian-American Afshin Ghotbi. Born in the Iranian city of Jahrom, Ghotbi remained in his homeland until just prior to the Iranian revolution, when his familiy left for the Los Angeles area, home to a large Iranian expat community. He continued to play soccer and like Martin Vasquez was a member of UCLA’s college team (in fact, given their similar ages, they would likely have been teammates there).

Afshin Ghotbi during his time with the Korean national team (photo: Soccerphile)

After his college career, Ghotbi was involved with youth soccer in Southern California. He coached several professional players in their formative years, including John O’Brien, who went to Ajax in part on Ghotbi’s recommendation. Ghotbi worked as a coach for the US national team, then spent time with the LA Galaxy before using his connections to Holland to get a job as an assistant to Guus Hiddink during his time coaching Korea at the 2002 World Cup.

Ghotbi’s biggest move, though, came last year when he returned to his homeland to take over Tehran giants Persepolis. Given the state of relations between his homeland and adopted country, Ghotbi was worried what reaction his return might bring, but he was welcomed with open arms. He has had tremendous success with his club team and has been talked up as a future Iranian national team manager.

The third and final American manager to have worked abroad is Alketas Panagoulias. Born in Thessaloniki, Greece, Panagoulias moved to the US to do university studies. While in New York, he became involved with the Greek American Atlas Soccer Club, serving as the team’s coach. At a time of little professional soccer in the US, Pangoulias’ amateur team won three consecutive US Open Cup (the American version of the FA Cup) titles from 1967-1969.

Panagoulias returned to Greece in 1972 to serve as an assistant coach for the national team. He was promoted to the head coaching position in 1973, and remained in that job until 1981. He took over Greek giants Olympiakos and led the team to the Greek title in 1982 and 1983. In 1984, he returned to the US to coach the Olympic team in the Los Angeles games. From there, he became the senior national team manager.

Panagoulias returned to his homeland in the late 1980s, coaching Olympiakos again and Aris FC. In 1992, he was appointed to a second spell as national team boss. Panagoulias led the team to its one of its greatest ever moments, qualifying for the 1994 World Cup in the USA.

Alketas Panagoulias (photo: View Images)

Why have there been so few American coaches abroad? My guess is that there remains a stigma against them, left over from the decades in which American soccer was a laughing stock. Although American players have become desirable for teams abroad, American coaches have not found work abroad easy to come by at all. Bruce Arena, the most successful American coach of all time whose greatest accomplishment was guiding the US national team to the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup, desperately tried to throw his hat into the ring for the Scotland job recently, but to no avail.

This is perhaps not surprising, as many more European coaches have gone to traditionally less powerful countries to play their trade than vice versa (of the 16 teams in African Cup of Nations, only four are African, though the World Cup Blog expresses some hope that this may change in the future). Even South American countries, who, given the players they produce, know a thing or two about their job, have found it tough to break into Europe (the most notable failure of recent times being Wanderlei Luxemburgo at Real Madrid).

For now, it seems, the only Americans able to break into the coaching ranks overseas are those whose foreign birth gives them a degree of street-cred that native-born coaches lack. Only time will tell if American coaches can become as desirable as the players they are increasingly producing.

Peter Lupson’s book Thank God for Football! explores the religious backgrounds of many top English club teams (of the 38 teams that have played in the Premier League since its inception in 1992, 12 have their origins in churches). Churches that founded teams often did so for reasons other than pure love of soccer. David Goldblatt, in his history of world soccer called The Ball is Round, has written of the importance of so-called muscular Christianity in shaping early English football. He writes that “the Victorians were quite convinced of the relationship between physical, mental, and moral health” (27).

Drawings of the first international between England and Scotland in 1872 show some of the virtues of the burgeoning British style (photo: Wikipedia)

Lupson told the EPL Talk podcast last year that churches sought to instill 4 elements of character into their football-playing parishioners: courage, fair play, team spirit, and self-control (20:50). Such qualities are still seen today in the English game. Post-game press conferences with English managers almost always focus on at least one of these elements (Stuart Pearce is my personal favorite, rattling on and on about team spirit but with seemingly little concern for tactics and the like).

As soccer spread around the world, diverse styles of play developed that barely resembled the game played in England. In South America, short passing replaced the long ball made popular in England. In Argentina, this style was offered referred to as criollo. David Goldblatt writes that “criollo football and masculinity came to be defined in opposition to the English” who had brought the game to Argentina, and whose economic system was fundamental in shaping the country’s style of play.

The English were focused and disciplined, combining collective organization and physical force – the prerequisites of an industrial labour force turning out an industrial product. On the Rio de la Plata where industrialization had yet to completely stamp its imprint on the economy, landscape or rhythms of life, masculinity was more restless, impetuous and individualistic, spurning crude force in favor of virtuoso agility (204).

This “virtuoso agility” is still seen today in Argentine soccer. Marcela Mora y Araujo has written of the gambeta, which 1986 World Cup winner Jorge Valdano told her has two elements: “The first is ability: to show that I, with my foot, have the skill to do anything; the second is feinting, I have to deceive my opponent, make him believe exactly the opposite of what I’m going to do. This is also very Argentinian, the taste for deceit.”

Maradona gets his gambeta on in 1986 against England (photo: Telegraph)

Not surprisingly, given its proximity, Brazil developed a style in many ways similar to that of the Argentines, complete with intricate short passing and elaborate dribbling. Tim Vickery, South American correspondent for BBC, The World Game, Sports Illustrated, and World Soccer magazine, told me that “[soccer] was reinterpreted by the South American masses from a game of straight running, muscular Christianity to a much more balletic thing full of twists and turns.”

Alex Bellos, author of Futebol: Soccer the Brazilian Way, offers several suggestions as to how the “Brazilian” style has developed. The incredible technique that typifies Brazilian players may have come from the “informal kickabouts” in which a bundle of socks often substitutes for a ball would lead “their ball skills to be more highly developed and inventive” (34).

“Alternatively,” writes Bellos, “one could explain the flashy individualism by pointing to the national trait of showing off in public.” Tim Vickery concurs with this explanation. He offered me an example: “Say I’ve got the ball and you come and tackle me and I do a little shimmy and you fall on your backside. Even if that move serves no objective purpose and you’re on your feet instantly, I’ve made you look ridiculous, for that one little instant I have humiliated you. And that is the moment that will most get the Brazilian public up.”

Alex Bellos offers a couple of other possible explanations for how the Brazilian style has developed. It may have had to do with race relations, he writes.

Some historians have suggested that reliance on the dribble evolved because of the racism of the game’s formative years. They say that the style was created by black players who improvised artfulness as a way of self-protection against whites. If you were a black, you would not want to have physical contact with a white player, since this could end in retaliation. Blacks had to use guile rather than force to keep the ball. (35)

Or perhaps, Bellos suggests, the Brazilian martial art of capoeira played a part in developed the country’s soccer style. He suggests that the “hip-swinging body language used by a capoeirista is very similar to samba dancers and Brazilian dribblers” (35).

The Netherlands is another country with a unique style of play. The Total Football style of the 1970s, in particular, was unlike anything ever seen (and though not explicitly employed today, remnants of its influence remain). David Winner, in his book Brilliant Orange, claims that this style has much to do with Dutch conceptions of space.

Space is the unique defining element of Dutch football. Other nations and football cultures may have produced greater goalscorers, more dazzling individual ball-artists, and more dependable and efficient tournament-winning teams. But no one has ever imagined or structured their play as abstractly, as architecturally, in such a measured fashion as the Dutch. (44)

Winner claims that Total Football exemplifies the Dutch conception of space. It was “a conceptual revolution based on the idea that the size of any football field was flexible and could be altered by the team playing on it” (44).

Of course, the size of a football field is not flexible, Winner attributes this mentality to the land the Dutch have been given. A small, low-lying country with a long sea coast and a relatively large population, the Dutch have in fact expanded their land through the use of polders and other elaborate water control measures. Winner sees spillover of Dutch attitudes toward land into Dutch soccer. He calls the Dutch “spatial neurotics” and says that “the Dutch think innovatively, creatively and abstractly about space in their football because for centuries they have had to think innovatively about space in every other area of their lives” (47).

A Dutch goalkeeper ponders his country’s water reclamation projects (photo: Roberta on the Arts)

In 2000, I studied in Japan. At the time, Frenchman (and recent convert to Islam) Phillipe Troussier was coach of that country’s national team. The team had long used an all-action, team game (like that of the Koreans in the 2002 World Cup).

A constant refrain from Troussier, though, was that his team was too nice, too polite, too afraid to really mix it up. Japan’s style of play was too team-oriented, as were his individual players, and he told the BBC that “the Japanese are very organised.”

Even in their free time they need organisation. I gave them a day off and they all want to do the same thing. They take the same photographs, eat in the same restaurant. I had to close the hotel restaurant and told them to go out and do different things.

Troussier’s attempts to change the Japanese style of play ran up against the deeply-held value of group unity.

Troussier also constantly railed that his players weren’t tough enough. Again, what Troussier saw as a lack of toughness may have been a manifestation of the value Japanese place on harmony. Being tough is not encouraged in Japanese society the way it is in Europe, and Troussier saw his role as imposing this toughness on his players. In 2000, he told Sebastian Moffett of the International Herald Tribune that “the younger Japanese players are maybe better than Europeans in technical areas. My challenge is to prepare the players for world football — to play against aggressive foreign sides.”

Phillipe Troussier works on scaring his players into being tougher (photo: BBC)

If this last example is staring to sound like national stereotypes transformed into ideas about styles of play, it’s because it is just that. And it’s far from the only such example. One hears constantly about Germany’s Teutonic efficiency, Italian players’ sneakiness and diving, and many other examples that are nothing more than simple stereotypes put in the context of soccer. These stereotypes can at times come across negatively, especially when reference is made to African teams’ lack of discipline. Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated has written: “[I]t sometimes strikes me as a veiled form of racism (especially when a European journalist asks an African coach if his team’s “lack of discipline is a reflection of the national character,” which actually happened during the 1996 Olympics.)”

Today, the traditional styles of play that have typified footballing nations for years are less pronounced than in the past. With more and more players and coaches crossing borders and games being broadcast across the globe, it’s often hard to pinpoint a style as coming from one country. David Winner wrote in March of last year that Arsenal – a team based in London but coached by a Frenchman and who rarely feature an Englishman in their lineup – are the only team that best typify Total Football today. But Arsenal are different, a team that actually seeks to play with style. Most are content to play with whatever style (or lack thereof) will win them the next match.

As an American, I have often thought about whether there is an “American style.” As a country of immigrants, it would make sense for our style to reflect the people who have come to the United States. But for most of our soccer history, I don’t think this has been the case. The historical soccer connections between the US and the UK have meant that American soccer has often been more British in its style than anything else. That may be changing today, though, especially with the influx of immigrants from Latin America.

Jay Martin, longtime men’s soccer coach of Ohio Wesleyan University, laments the fact that for too long American soccer has not had its own identity, but has simply sought to replicate that of other countries. He hopes to see the development of an American style, as he wrote in an article for the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) in 2006.

The fact is we are Americans. We are not Brazilians, Germans, Dutch or French. We cannot play the style of those countries. It is simply not possible. We cannot replicate the Brazilian culture and society. These factors influence — no, dictate — how the Brazilians play. Social, economic, political and cultural forces directly impact how any national team plays. Nor can we replicate the club systems of England and Germany or the youth system of France and Holland.

American soccer is unique. America is unique. We can and should learn from other soccer nations, but we should develop and play an American style. There is no question that there is a great deal to learn from other soccer-playing nations. We should, however, take these lessons and use them in the context of an American style.

So, my fellow gringos (and others), what do you think? Is there an American style of play? If so, what is it? Because frankly, I don’t have an answer to that question.

Steve Menary (photo: Play the Game)

How did you get the idea to write Outcasts?

I’m just a self-employed freelance journalist. There’s no career structure: you write an article and then you write another one and then you write another one and it goes on. I wrote an article about football in the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and Jersey, and why they didn’t play international football. When I’d done that, I thought, “this is quite an interesting idea and no one’s ever written about this.”

Not everyone who applies to FIFA can get in or there would be the FA of David Keyes [ed note – not a bad idea!] and anyone could join. When I looked into it, they had turned some places down. FIFA would admit they turned someone down if I could find them out, but I asked them many times for a list of people who they’ve rejected and they would just ignore me.

I wrote a few chapters and I realized there were a few things like the Island Games … that I could go to and I could meet Greenland. They don’t even play in Greenland anyway and the flight there would have been about 1,000 pounds. The Falklands would have been about 2,000 pounds. But I realized I could go to the [2005 Island Games in the] Shetlands and I could see these people.

Shetland’s Steven Umphray during the Saaremma vs. Shetland match (photo: Shetland Islands Council / Steve Lindridge / www.idealimages.co.uk)

I sent it out to some big publishers and they said, “It’s very good, but we don’t know how much we’ll sell.” The publishers were okay, they gave me pretty encouraging rejections, if there is such a thing.

I knew David Conn and he said, “Why don’t you try to get in touch with World Soccer?”So I had a chat with [World Soccer’s] Gavin Hamilton and he said to me, “Come along, write something for us [on a non-FIFA “country”] each month.” World Soccer paid me fairly and he said, “If you get a book deal, don’t worry about [the rights]. It’s fine.” So that meant, for about a year, I could carry on researching the book. Each month I’d do an article [for the non-FIFA section] and I’d amass so much information, more than I could fit in a 500-word article. Then I found a smaller publisher after that, Know the Score.

Tell me more about the research you did for the book. Did you do it mostly at tournaments?

Yeah, I realized that the Greenland and the Falklands were good stories. I decided I was only going to do a chapter on a team if I could go see them play, meet with them in person, or have substantial dealings with them on the phone or by email. It’s very easy in this day and age to go on the Internet and cobble something together, but I just thought that was a cop-out. That was a quality control I set for myself.

I didn’t go to the Northern Marianas, which you probably guessed. The guys there, Vince [Stravino] and Peter [Coleman], were fantastically helpful. We exchanged a lot of calls and emails.

But I pretty much met [everyone else]. I went to the Island Games, I went to that tournament on the Isle of Man, I went to Gibraltar, I went to the Wild Cup in Hamburg, I went to the Occitania vs. Cyprus game, I took the whole family down to Montpellier. I went to a couple of NF Board meetings, one in London and one in the Hague.

Northern Cyprus and Zanzibar face off in the 2006 FIFI Wild Cup final (photo: FIFI/Corbis)

I went to the [2006 ELF Cup in] Northern Cyprus, which was a great bonus. They wanted to invite some journalists out there and they invited me and the guy who did the photographs for the book. That was great because the problem was the cost. I could have blown the advance I got for the book just going to the Falklands. You kind of had to have an imaginative way.

I also got some commissions. I did a thing for Guardian Unlimited about the Sami Cup. The great thing about that is that I’m in the journalist union and I was flipping through the magazine. There was a little ad in the bottom corner that caught my eye. It said that the Norwegian Embassy in London funds journalists’ trips to Norway. At the time I was thinking, “How am I going to get to Lapland? I’m never to be able to find another magazine to pay me to go up there.” I got in touch with a guy at the Norwegian Embassy and he said, “Right, when do you want to go?”

I had to make each thing pay. I wasn’t going to lose money going anywhere. It was more fun that way anyway.

Do you have an overall goal for the book?

I kind of wanted to try and look at how nationality is defined on the football pitch. I come from the UK and to most other places, it’s Great Britian. To us, we’re all English or Scottish or Welsh or from Northern Ireland. I live in a place that isn’t a country to the rest of the world, but it’s a country to us. In terms of football and rugby union, it’s a country.

I knew that I’d end up asking more questions than I answered. But I thought maybe it would just be a way of exploring it and writing something that will make people think in the way it made me think.

What are some of the questions you think you’ve asked?

I suppose, what is nationality? What is that, really? The Tibetian [player Karma Samdup] said: “It’s just a passport and you travel on that passport.” Or the Greenlanders. To them, [Greenland] is a place, [it’s] a country. It’s almost the same as the Faroes, who are in FIFA. There are certainly anomalies and there’s so much madness. It’s all about politics at the end of the day as much as anything else. There’s that idea that sport and politics shouldn’t mix. But clearly, they’re tightly intertwined.

Would you like to see the countries you profiled get into FIFA?

When I started telling people I was doing the book, they all kind of thought I was writing some kind of manifesto. I was never doing that. You couldn’t conceivably have the Falklands playing against Argentina even if [FIFA] let them in, which they never would. It would be ludicrous.

I think some of the places need more help than others. Certainly, Greenland deserves more sympathy than others because it’s been practically abandoned. They couldn’t go [to the Island Games last year] because they didn’t have the money to send the men’s and the women’s team and they thought it was about time the women got to go. They had played in every Island Games since 1989, but they had no money so they said, “Right, let’s let the women go” and [the men] stayed home. That seems madness really.

Greenland (in red) and Zanzibar face off in the 2006 FIFI Wild Cup (photo: FIFI/Corbis)

I don’t think they can all go in, but some of them, like Greenland and Gibraltar, they only want to play amateur football. They don’t want to play in the World Cup qualifiers; they don’t want to play in the Champions League. That was never really their ambition. I think they just wanted some help with the football they were organizing and they weren’t getting any.

Did you ever feel like you were ever covering teams that were too amateurish to warrant your covering them?

Some of the things with the NF Board were more about making a statement. A Lapland journalist, for example, told me that, in his opinion, a West Papuan team had no intention of ever turning up [to the 2006 Viva World Cup]. That was a bit amateurish.

And the Sami team that went out there murdered everyone because they had a lot of good players. They had people who had played international football at the under-21 level. So yeah, some of those teams, you feel, there’s got to be a real team, there’s got to be some basis to it rather than just a political stunt. Some of the teams didn’t have enough substance, but maybe if they got going long enough, they would have some substance.

Clearly, these teams aren’t going to win the World Cup. What, then, do you see as the value of your book?

They’re not going to win the World Cup, that’s true. But if you take some of the teams that are in FIFA, say Luxembourg. It’s 300,000 people, they’re not going to win the World Cup. I think they won a competitive match last year for the first time in 10 years. But they’ve been playing a long, long time. Luxembroug played in the early Olympic games. I think in the mid-1960s they knocked Holland out of the European Championships when it was a two-legged tie. Every dog has its day.

The nature of competition is that someone’s going to win and someone’s going to be last. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing golf or if you’re playing football. Someone’s got to be Arsenal and someone’s got to be Derby, and that’s just the nature of it. But you can’t go around and say, “Derby are really crap so let’s drop them” because maybe next year Derby will be better.

I think if you give people a chance, there’s a chance they’ll improve. I think if you cut them off, which is what’s been done to some of these places, then [the level of play] will just dissipate.

Who were some of the most interesting people you met while working on Outcasts?

I think some of the NF Board people. They’re very interesting. [President] Jean-Luc [Kit] is a very interesting guy. The Sami guy, Leif Isak Nilut, too, when he’s up on stage doing one of his yoiks.

President of the Sami FA, Leif Isak Nilut, in traditional clothing (photo: NRK.no)

And some of the Greenlandic people, too. It’s quite a harsh world out there. There are 15 kilometers of road in the capital and none of them go anywhere.

Probably the best thing about the book was that I met a lot of really interesting people and everyone was really interested in talking to [me]. That was one of the joys of doing the book. [I’d] ring someone up and they’d say, “Yeah, I’d love to speak to you.” The response from people was fantastic.

Do you see potential for change on FIFA’s part in terms of which countries they’ll let in?

UEFA have taken a reasonable stance and said, “You’ve got to be in the UN.” Whereas FIFA have just said, “You’ve got to be in the international community.” They don’t say what international community. It’s whatever international community they want it to be.

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The Tibetan national team (photo: Kaos Pilot)

FIFA likes to promote the fact that it has more members than the UN. The international governing body of soccer got to its current level of 208 members (compared to 192 who belong to the UN) by various means, as Menary explains. Being the birthplace of soccer gives England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland separate teams. Chinese Taipei represents the island of Taiwan, and has since 1954 (the mainland Chinese team, like the country itself, was, for many years, an international pariah, and only joined FIFA in 1979). More recently, there has been a boom in FIFA membership, as some regional confederations with, as Menary dryly puts it, a “far looser idea of what constitutes a ‘nation’ than others” brought new members into the fold in a bid to boost their influence in the world governing body. CONCACAF has used this strategy most often, adding Arbua, the Turks & Caicos Island, and Anguilla among others to their ranks. Oceania boasts such powers as New Caledonia, Tahiti, and American Samoa. These three “countries” are not in fact independent. The first two are French territories, the latter an American possession. But they were let into FIFA in an earlier era. Today, becoming a new member of the club is a far more difficult proposition (only newly-independent countries such as Montenegro have achieved this goal in the past few years). But the fact that FIFA’s many non-independent nations have maintained their membership makes a mockery of the current argument that new members must be members of the international community (how exactly FIFA defined this is unclear, as Menary points out). Some of the teams have been rebuffed because they are technically parts of other countries that do have FIFA membership. In this category are Greenland, the Channel Islands, the Falklands, and Zanzibar, and the Sapmi people of Norway, Sweden, and Finland. For some countries, their entry into FIFA is too politically sensitive for the supposedly apolitical governing body to countenance. The national teams of Tibet, Northern Cyprus and Gibraltar have seen their progress hampered by larger countries with a political interest in the territories. When Greenland scheduled a match with Tibet, the Chinese government threatened to put an embargo on the Danish territory’s exports of shrimp to China. The match was called off. (In reality, FIFA is hardly apolitical. Menary describes their 1994 decision to give membership to Palestine as “a blatantly political act for a non-political organization.”) Then there are teams that Menary covers whose existence is an oddity at best. The Occitànian team is made up of speakers of the language of the same name, most of whom live in France, Spain, and Italy. The players who represent the Northern Marianas Islands, and whom Menary describes as “football missionaries” are mostly American expat “soccer dads.” In a game against neighbor Guam, the Northern Marianas team put out a team with a14 year-old and a teammate who, at 48 years old, could have been his grandfather. It’s easy to laugh off players and teams whose sole ambition is not to win, nor even qualify for the World Cup, but instead just to play in officially sanctioned matches. But all share the same dedication and work ethic as the players who lift the World Cup trophy every four years. Menary’s empathetic writing draws us into the world of Niklas Kreutzmann, Greenland’s captain and a dental student who would not let down his coach by missing a tournament that occurred just before his exams, and spent all his free time in between matches and training in his hotel room studying. Or Zanzibar goalkeeper Salum Ali Salum, who “has to be carried from the pitch crying uncontrollably” after his team loses a match in a penalty shootout. For these two players, as with nearly everyone Menary documents in Outcasts, the struggle to play international soccer is a task to which they have dedicated extraordinary effort.

Greenland (in red) and Zanzibar face off in the FIFI Wild Cup (photo: FIFI/Corbis)

The book is not without its faults. Many of the chapters were written as stand-alone pieces, and the book has a slightly pasted-together feel. And Menary’s decision to write about so many teams means that some of the more compelling stories are given short shrift. But overall, Outcasts is a wonderful addition to the increasingly homogenized diet of soccer writing being produced today. In an era in which so much soccer journalism simply repeats the latest result, transfer rumor, or Joey Barton arrest, the unique stories that Steve Menary writes about in Outcasts are a rare treat. Outcasts: The Lands That FIFA Forgot is published by Know the Score Books and is available from their website or Amazon.

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Surprisingly, George Weah is one of the few former soccer players to use their fame to move into a career in politics. Former players are some of the most prominent people in society and were they to move into politics, they would begin their new careers with higher name recognition than many politicians in office for years. But, for whatever reason, few players attempt to make this transition. A few of those who have (along with some former coaches, officials, and referees) are listed below. I’m limiting this list to those who have played at the professional level. Many politicians played soccer as kids (though few are as bad as Tony Blair).

Blair attempts to at least make contact

The most recognizable former soccer player of all, Pele, has tried his hand at a few things since retiring from the game. Unfortunately, he’s been bad at just about all of them. His stint in politics was no different. Appointed Extraordinary Minister for Sport in 1995, he went about trying to kick out corruption in Brazilian soccer (a much-needed task). His attempts to do so were unsuccessful and Pele left his job in 1999. In 2001, Pele himself was accused of profiting off of a charity match staged for UNICEF that never happened.

Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is today visiting Washington, speaking with George Bush about the situation in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq and Turkey. But before he got into politics, Erdogan was apparently a professional soccer player, though with which team I don’t know.

Far less notable is Toshiro Tomochika, current member of the Japanese Diet and former J-League player. Tomochika was part of the surprising Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) sweep of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the upper legislative house earlier this year. Soccer features prominently on the legislator’s website.

Toshiro Tomochika playing for J-League team Ehime FC (photo: Live Door)

Eastern Europe under the Iron Curtain produced two politicians who were former players. Jozsef Bozsik was a friend and teammate of the great Hungarian Ferenc Puskas, and also a great player in his own right. He won 101 caps for the Hungarian national team. After his playing days were over, Bozsik was also elected to the parliament, though perhaps elected is too strong a word to describe the political system in use at the time in Hungary.

Several decades later, Oleg Blokhin became a star for Dynamo Kiev and the USSR national team, for whom he earned 112 caps in total. He also won the European Footballer of the Year in 1975. Blokhin later coached several teams, including Ukraine, whom he guided to the 2006 World Cup. His coaching duties have not stopped Blokhin from serving in the Ukrainian parliament, to which he was elected in 2002.

Soccer club officials go into politics in far greater numbers than do the players they employ. Silvio Berlusconi parlayed his career as owner of AC Milan into a stint as Italy’s prime minister. Elected as head of Forza Italia (a party with connections to soccer supporters), Berlusconi ruled the country twice (1994-95 and 2001-06), though never as successfully as he has run AC Milan.

The always dapper Silvio Berlusconi (photo: Monte Cerignone e dintorni)

Berlusconi’s peer at Boca Juniors is Mauricio Macri. The Argentine won election as mayor of Buenos Aires earlier this year, a victory that just happened to coincide with Boca’s victory in South America’s Copa Libertadores. Some have suggested Macri may have his eye on the presidency, though he will now have to take down Argentina’s equivalent of the Clintons, current president Nestor and his wife Christina, who just won the election to take over his job.

Jack Warner is a mover and shaker in the FIFA hierarchy. The Trinidadian is a vice president of the world soccer body and head of CONCAF. He has allegedly used these position for his own profit when he resold 2006 World Cup tickets for $1 million, despite FIFA edicts against the practice. Warner announced his candidacy for the Trinidadian parliament recently and used his prominent position to win a seat in yesterday’s election.

Jack Warner (left) with Trinidadian Prime Minister Patrick Manning (photo: Office of the Prime Minister)

In addition to Oleg Blokhin, Argentina’s Carlos Bilardo is one of the few coaches to go into politics. The man (whose fantastic and accurate nickname is “Narigón” or “big nose”) who coached his country to victory at the 1986 World Cup announced he will become sports secretary of the province of Buenos Aires.

Argentina seems to produce more politicians from the ranks of soccerdom (perhaps it’s because the politics and soccer are so intertwined in the country). Javier Castrilli is, as far as I’m aware, the only referee to jump the ranks of arbiters to politics. The man once known as “El Sheriff” has hung up the whistle and become an official with the Argentine Ministry of Internal Affairs, focusing on security at stadiums.

Though the ranks of former soccer players, officials, coaches, and referee going into politics are fairly limited, there are two current players who one can imagine having a political career after retiring from playing. Not surprisingly, they both play for Barcelona, a club that define its identity in political terms. Defenders Lillian Thuram and Oleguer have both spoken out forcefully on political issues they feel strongly about. Will they devote themselves entirely to politics in the future? Only time will tell.

Have I missed any former soccer players, coaches, officials or referees who have gone into politics? Let me know by leaving a comment.

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Croatian-Australian Mark Viduka (photo: Getty Images/ABC)

The connections between Croatia and Australia began in the 1850s during the Australian Gold Rush. The number of Croatians moving to Australia was small (not getting over 1,000 until after the turn of the century). The first Croatian soccer team in Australia was founded in 1945 by Marin Alagich.

A wave of Croatians who had been displaced by World War II came to Australia shortly after the fighting concluded. These new immigrants filled the ranks of Croatian teams, which multiplied throughout Australia’s major cities. Roy Hay, in his article ‘Those Bloody Croatians’: Croatian Soccer Teams, Ethnicity and Violence in Australia, 1950-99 has written of one ambitious club official. “Joe Radojevic, secretary of Geelong’s Croatia club in the 1950s, visited incoming ships in the company of a Slovenian priest to recruit Croatian soccer players, bringing around 350 to the club in his own estimation” (79).

The clubs grew and became integral parts of the Croatian communities in Australia (Hay claims they were initially more important than the local churches). The clubs took on great importance to community, standing for the Croatian state that many hoped would eventually become independent of Yugoslavia. Australian academic Philip Mosley has written:

More than any other ethnic group in Australia the Croats used soccer for political means. It was not just that they expressed their own nationalism. Plenty of other groups did so as well. What differentiated them was how pointed was their expression of nationalism. Convinced of perceived injustice, the Croats gave voice to their antagonism to Tito’s Yugoslavia … (35).

There was occasionally violence associated with Croatian soccer clubs and their fans. In 1972, a Croatian team was expelled from the Victorian Soccer Federation after numerous incidents of violence surrounding their matches. Matches against other ethnic Serbian teams were particularly charged. During the wars in the Balkans during the 1990s, matches between such teams had to be played behind closed doors.

Wray Vamplew has claimed that the violence was to “some extent … a product of the media, particularly the Australian press, which has focussed on crowd disturbances seeing them as newsworthy in the light of the European experience” (1). Accurate or not, the perception of violence among ethnic teams was such that teams with ethnic names were at one point not permitted to play in Australia’s professional league.

But more lasting than any violence is large number of players from the Croatian community who have reached the highest levels of Australian and international soccer. Australia’s former professional National Soccer League had two teams – Melbourne Knights and Sydney United – with strong connections to the Croatian community (neither features in the new A-League but do play in regional leagues as well as the annual Australian Croatia Soccer Tournament). The following players on Australia’s 2006 World Cup team had Croatian ancestry:

• Jason Culina (his father, Branko, is a coach and the entire family is featured on the Austrlian Migration Heritage Centre’s website)
• Tony Popovic
• Josip Skoko
• Mark Viduka
• Ante Covic
• Zeljko Kalac
• Mark Bresciano (his last name comes his Italian father, but his mother is Croatian)

The Australian national team (photo: Xinhua)

At the 2006 World Cup, Australia and Croatia played each other, drawing 2-2 in a first round match. The game is best remembered for Graham Poll giving Josip Simunic 3 yellow cards before sending him off. The English referee’s mistake has since become infamous, but perhaps Poll was confused about which country Simunic was really representing. After all, the defender was one of three Croatian players (along with Joe Didulica and Anthony Seric) born in Australia.

If I had to choose one word to describe Kosuke Kimura, it would have to be determined. The Colorado Rapids midfielder would not be where he is today were it not for his determination. From a young age, he knew he wanted to be a professional player, but at times it seemed such a goal would be impossible to attain. He has achieved his goal, although far from Japan, the country where he grew up. But determined as Kimura is, he is unwilling to rest on his laurels, and now has new goals for himself as a player.

Kosuke Kimura (photo: Colorado Rapids/MLS)

I knew of Kosuke Kimura because he is the only Japanese player in MLS. The league has said that it wants to attract Japanese players, but has yet to do so (my own hypothesis is that Japanese players aren’t that interested because the level of play is not much higher than the J-League and the pay is often lower). MLS didn’t attract Kimura to the league; he found it through his own roundabout career path. He sat down recently in Denver to talk about how he got to the US and differences he sees between American and Japanese soccer.

Kimura realized when he was in elementary school that he had quite a talent for soccer. But he did not have connections to professional teams that lead many similarly talented youngsters to spots on J-League youth teams. In middle school, he heard about an open tryout at his local team, Kawasaki Frontale. Of the nearly five hundred players there, the team announced they would select only three for their youth program. At the end of the tryout, Kimura heard his name called. It was an incredible boost to his confidence. He said of that day, “I felt like I had something. I felt like I could make it.”

Kimura began training with the youth team at Frontale and did so well that at age 15, he began practicing with the first team. Everything was going smoothly until, in his last year of high school, he broke his fifth metatarsal. Kimura recovered, but couldn’t return to his previous level of play and Frontale released him. It was a huge setback, and one that might have dissuaded Kimura from pursuing his goal of playing professionally. But it didn’t.

The other option for Kimura at that point was to play college soccer in Japan. But, he told me, “The problem is, in Japan, usually people go pro after high school. Only a few people go pro after college.” Kimura had a friend who told him that in the US, college players often did turn pro. His friend had recently received a scholarship to play in the US and urged Kimura to do the same.

The idea of playing college soccer in the US was appealing, but posed a major problem: Kimura spoke almost no English. He used the little English he had to research schools and write to college coaches. He got some responses, but none offered scholarships. Several offered to have him come to open tryouts, including the coach at Western Illinois University. He spoke to the coach there, who told him he could come but only if he attended an ESL (English as a Second Language) class that began in two weeks. Fourteen days later, Kimura boarded a plane for the US.

After his ESL class, Kimura was immediately thrown into regular college classes, which he found difficult. The first semester, he said, “I had no idea what the teachers were talking about.” Dealing with difficult academic material in a new language, he had to work twice as hard as his classmates.

On the soccer field, however, things went much more smoothly. He went to the college team’s tryout with a Kuwaiti he had met in his ESL class and both thoroughly impressed the coach. After the first practice, the coach came up to the players and said, “You guys have to come. You guys have to help us.”

And help they did. The team won their conference championship three out of the next four years and made the prestigious end-of-year NCAA tournament. Not coincidentally, Kimura was named to the All-Conference after three of his four seasons with the team. Upon his graduation, Kimura’s coach said of Kimura, “he has been an inspiration to his teammates over the last four years.”

Kosuke Kimura playing at Western Illinois University (photo: AJ Self/Western Courier)

Despite his stellar college career, it was a bit of a surprise when the midfielder found out he had been drafted by the Colorado Rapids. His college team had never gone very far in the NCAA Tournament, and he assumed this would put a damper on his hopes of going pro. But the Rapids saw enough of Kimura to offer him a spot on their team.

Since coming here four years ago, Kimura has come to appreciate many aspects of playing soccer in the US. Here, he said, he gets along well with all of his teammates, whom he finds very open. “It’s much easier to interact with teammates here.”

He contrasted that openness with what he saw in Japan. There, Kimura found that Japanese society’s emphasis on hierarchy (see this discussion of sempai / kohai) hampered relationships between teammates. “In Japan, it’s hard to break down the relationships … When I was in junior high school or high school, I didn’t talk to older people. If they wanted to talk to me, I talked to them, but I never tried to talk to them.”

Kimura has also noticed differences in the style of play that characterizes Japanese and American soccer. The J-League is “much faster” with more “skill and technique” while MLS “is more mixed … It combines the skill and physical [strength].” Kimura posited that MLS’s style of play is due to its drawing players from all around the world.

He also suggested that the difference can be partly accounted for in the different ways youth players are coached in the two countries. “When I was a kid in Japan, they focused on little details. When I was little, my coach only focused on skills.” In coaching he’s done in the US, Kimura says he’s often been shocked at the poor level of skills he has observed.

(Were I to explain this difference, I would point to Japanese society’s emphasis on perfecting the proper process of doing things. Often seen in martial arts training, Japanese society traditionally encourages a mastering of process, or kata, through repetition. In my work in a Japanese middle school, I observed this emphasis on mastery of process through repetition and noticed how different it was from the typical American ideal of learning through exploration and expression of creativity. The constant repetition of Japanese education that encourages children to repeatedly work to improve their skill would undoubtedly make more skillful players, though one might wonder if they would lack creativity. That said, Celtic’s Shunsuke Nakamura ain’t bad.)

Critiques of American youth coaching aside, Kimura is happy to be playing in the US. He’s far from home, but “right now, I want to stay outside of Japan and try to move on with different soccer. I want to get more experience and work hard towards the future.”

Kosuke Kimura playing for the Rapids reserve team (photo: Mark Leffingwell/Daily Camera)

Kimura has achieved his goal of becoming a professional player, albeit far from Japan, but Kimura is now aiming higher. “Whatever I do, I try to follow plans,” Kimura told me. “For now, my short term goal is to make it to the first team and play. It’s going to be hard because we have so many older, good players and this is only my first year. After that, something will open up for me. I have to play for the first team first and maybe some people will see me and I’ll have another chance … Eventually, the ultimate goal is to play for the Japanese national team.”

Right now, Kosuke Kimura is a long way from that ultimate goal. But given the determination he’s shown throughout his career, he might just reach it.

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One the most important factors shaping people’s lives in the 21st century is the ever-increasing pace of globalization. We are familiar with many of the changes globalization has brought: the multitude of products manufactured in China, information available on-demand on the Internet, and people increasingly moving to different countries in search of a better life. But sometimes, globalization brings about a change that is totally unexpected.

When DC United signed forward Nicolas Addlery at the beginning of the season, I read in the press release that the Jamaican had spent the previous year playing in Vietnam. How strange, I thought. How could a player from Jamaica end up playing in a country halfway across the world from his homeland? Well, the short answer is globalization, but the long answer is far more interesting.

Nicholas Addlery sat down with me recently and talked about how he ended up playing in Vietnam and what he took away from his time playing and living there.

Nicholas Addlery (photo: DC United / MLS)

Addlery was born in Jamaica and lived there until he 17. He had made the national under-17 pool and was scouted by a coach at California University of Pennsylvania, where he played for four years. Addlery had a stellar college career, including being named a second team All-American in 1997.After college, Addlery began his pro career in Trinidad and Tobago, first with the South Starworld Strikers and later with San Juan Jabloteh. How did he get there, I asked? Addlery shrugged and responded that the similarities with his homeland had been a draw. “Jamaica, Trinidad, it’s close enough.”

The next stop on Addlery’s career, though, was anything but close to Jamaica. The coach of his team in Trinidad, former English international Terry Fenwick, had connections to a sports marketing company with ties to the Vietnamese team Dong Nai FC. Asked if he wanted a new challenge, Addlery agreed and was soon on a plane to southeast Asia.

He went to Vietnam with another player from his former Trinidadian club, but his teammate soon returned home. While Addlery mentioned several players who struggled to adapt to life in Vietnam, he himself relished it. He lived in Dong Nai province, a highly industrialized area with many factories producing goods for export. He would often go to the capital Ho Chi Min City, which he described as “very modern.”

Addlery would spend his free time at what have become global pastimes: shopping and visiting Internet cafes. He also has fond memories of getting massages (“not the type of massage you’re thinking,” he assures me).

While in Vietnam, Addlery made an effort to fit in with the locals. He bought himself a dictionary and picked up the basics of the language, ate local food (“a lot of rice”), and learned to use chopsticks.

Addlery may have grown used to many parts of life in Vietnam, but many Vietnamese were not used to seeing him. Listed at 6’1”, 185 pounds (that’s 1.85 meters, 84 kg for those lucky enough not to use the imperial system), he is a large man in the United States, let alone Vietnam.

When his team traveled to rural parts of Vietnam, Addlery was often the first black person many rural Vietnamese had ever seen. “They weren’t used to seeing black people,” he told me. “In the rural areas where they don’t really have soccer teams, they’ve never seen a black guy before. You see a black guy that big, you’re like ‘Wow, that’s a big black guy’.”

Addlery’s presence could sometimes be dangerous. “I’ve caused accidents just standing on the corner of the street.”

The Jamaican forward enjoyed this notoriety. “Here, I’m just a regular person,” he told me. “There, I’m like ‘oh my God!’”

Would he go back to Vietnam or another Asian country? “Definitely, if I’m available and they put some good bread on the table,” Nicholas Addlery told me.

“Some people say, ‘I want to play in Europe.’ Me, I want to play in Asia. There are opportunities to do so many other things. It’s just a little different lifestyle … I’m always looking for new experiences.”