Call it a light week for Americans Abroad.
With several standouts resting from the mid-week World Cup qualifier against Guatemala, there were only a few Americans who actually started matches in Europe’s top leagues this weekend.
Tim Howard and Carlos Bocanegra earn Ironmen awards for starting for their club teams just a few days after playing for the USA on Wednesday.
We also saw Neven Subotic (pictured above) hold his own against Luca Toni as his Borussia Dortmund held Bayern Munich, 1-1 (And no, Subotic still hasn’t chosen the U.S. national team, but we can track his progress until he does make a decision).
Freddy Adu did make his debut for AS Monaco this weekend, playing just three minutes in place of Jeremy Menez, who he could be replacing in the lineup soon if reports about an impending Menez transfer are true.
Here is how all the Americans Abroad did this weekend:
ENGLAND
- Tim Howard started, played 90 minutes, and made three saves in Everton’s 2-1 win against West Bromwich Albion on Saturday.
- Brad Friedel started, played 90 minutes, and made zero saves in Aston Villa’s 3-2 loss to Stoke on Saturday.
- Clint Dempsey came off the bench and played 13 minutes in Fulham’s 1-0 win vs. Arsenal on Saturday.
- Marcus Hahnemann started, played 90 minutes and made six saves in Reading’s 4-2 loss to Charlton on Saturday.
- Bobby Convey started and played 73 minutes for Reading.
- Jay DeMerit started and played 90 minutes in Watford’s 3-2 loss to Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
- Eddie Johnson did not dress in Cardiff City’s 2-2 tie vs. Norwich on Saturday.
SCOTLAND
- DaMarcus Beasley came off the bench and played nine minutes in Rangers’ 1-1 tie vs. Aberdeen on Saturday.
GERMANY
- Neven Subotic started and played 90 minutes in Borussia Dortmund’s 1-1 tie vs. Bayern Munich on Saturday.
- Steve Cherundolo came off the bench and played 18 minutes in Hannover 96’s 0-0 tie vs. Energie Cottbus on Saturday.
- Sal Zizzo did not dress for Hannover 96.
- Brian Arguez did not dress in Hertha Berlin’s 1-1 tie vs. Arminia Bielefeld on Saturday.
- Heath Pearce dressed but did not play in Hansa Rostock’s 1-0 win vs. Alemania Aachen on Sunday.
- Matt Taylor started and played 60 minutes in TUS Koblenz’s 0-0 tie vs. FSV Frankfurt on Friday.
- Grover Gibson started, played 52 minutes and drew a yellow card in Ahlen’s 3-0 loss to FC Augsburg on Sunday.
- Gregg Berhalter started and played 77 minutes in 1860 Munich’s 2-1 loss to Mainz on Sunday.
FRANCE
- Freddy Adu came off the bench and played three minutes in Monaco’s 1-1 tie vs. Caen on Saturday.
- Carlos Bocanegra started and played 82 minutes in Rennes’ 2-1 win vs. Lille on Sunday.
- Quentin Westberg dressed but did not play in FC Troyes’ 1-0 loss to Vannes OC on Friday.
BELGIUM
- Oguchi Onyewu came off the bench and played 16 minutes in Standard Liege’s 3-0 win against KVC Westerlo on Saturday.
DENMARK
- Danny Califf, Jeremiah White and Lee Nguyen were off this week.
NORWAY
- Troy Perkins started and played 90 minutes in Valarenga’s 2-1 loss to Stromsgodset on Monday.
- Adin Brown did not dress in Aalesund’s 1-0 loss to Tromso on Sunda.
- Clarence Goodson started, played 45 minutes and drew a yellow card in IK Start’s 2-0 win against Hodd on Saturday.
- Kyle Veris started and played 90 minutes for Hodd.
- Jay Needham started, played 90 minutes and scored a goal in Alta’s 4-1 win vs. Bryne on Sunday.
- Cam Weaver started, played 90 minutes and drew a yellow card in Haugesund’s 1-1 tie vs. Honefoss on Sunday.
Sweden
- Charlie Davies started and played 90 minutes in Hammarby’s 2-2 tie vs. AIK on Monday.
MEXICO
- Daniel Hernandez started and played 90 minutes in Chiapas’ 3-2 win vs. America on Sunday.
- Jose Francisco Torres came off the bench and played 45 minutes in Pachuca’s 3-1 loss to UNAM Pumas.
- Jesus Padilla did not play in Chivas de Guadalajara’s 5-3 loss to Santos Laguna. He was serving a red card suspension.
- Michael Orozco did not dress in San Luis’ win against Tigres on Saturday.
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If there are players I forgot to list feel free to list them below. Please remember that I’m trying to focus on first divisions and, in some cases, second divisions, so keep that in mind when suggesting players for the list.
Share your thoughts on how these Americans did last weekend in the comments section below.
Thanks Ives, looking forward to the CONCACAF abroad piece. Definitely appreciate all the hard work you put into the site.
BTW, if anybody else wants to complain about the players Ives doesn’t list, then try to compile weekend stats for the 250+ American citizens playing professionally outside of the U.S. It’s not happening. Try finding game reports for all of them. Hell, try finding scores for the teams they play for.
I keep seeing so much information on Neven Subotic,that I got curious and did some research.
According to the FIFA Statutes a player can switch from one countries national team to another, if the following are true:
1. He requests to do so before his 21st birthday, which for Neven is Dec. 10, 2009
2. He must not have played in an international “A” level match in an official competition. “A” level is full national team level. Neven has not done that.
3. He can only change his representative association once. He currently has the US as his representative association because he played for the US at the youth level.
4. He must have had the nationality of the team he wants to change to before playing for the current team (representative association) if played in an offical match and one of the following is true:
o He was born on the territory of the country he wants to play for; or
o His biological mom/pop/grandmom/grandpop was born on the territory of the country he wants to play for; or
o He lived continuously for 2 years or 5 years (depending on the nationality question) on the territory of the country he wants to play for
As far as I understand Neven fulfills all the requirements to change his representative association except for #4, which is very tricky.
Neven was born in Yugoslavia, which is a country that technically no longer exists. Serbia gave up the name after Montenegro split from it and became just Serbia. This means that the country of birth for all his relevant relatives is likely to be a country that no longer exists. I believe that only Serbia was allowed to accede to Yugoslavia’s place in International treaties.
This suggests that Neven would pass the nationality test for Serbia, but possibly not Bosnia-Herzegovina, which didn’t take on Yugoslavia’s place in International Law. Banja Luka, his birthplace was in the territory of what is now, Bosnia-Herzegovina. In addition if Bosnia-Herzegovina uses descent as its basis for citizenship, then Neven would probably not be considered Bosnian, but Serbian and would probably not be able to obtain Bosnian citizenship.
In regard to Germany, the citizenship laws are new and complicated. The FIFA rule that he must have lived on German territory for 2 years continuously is probably fulfilled. For German citizenship, however, Neven does not have German descent, so he could only have gotten or get German citizenship through naturalization. To be naturalized as a German you must give up your other citizenships unless those citizenships are in the European Union.
As far as I can tell Neven only has US citizenship at this time, but could apply for Bosnian, Serbian, or German. Even if he has Bosnian and Serbian, those countries are not part of the European Union, so he would have to renounce them or have renounced them to be or become naturalized as a German.
With this in mind then, the question becomes whether Neven was a German citizen before he played his first match for the US team at the U-17 level in an official competition. To have become a German citizen before he played for the US, he would have had to renounce any other citizenship and have lived at a minimum in Germany for 6 years, must have spoken German, and not have been supported or been able to support himself without welfare. Although this is possible, it seems doubtful. Lastly, there is an exception for hardship cases.
This seems like Neven’s only real option to claim that he had German nationality prior to playing for the US because he could only have had it passively according to German Law if he was descended from other Germans. Under the hardship provision, however, there might be an argument that he was a refugee and therefore passively obtained German nationality by simply residing in the country.
To sum Up:
If Neven had any German blood or gets a special exemption based on hardship as a refugee, then he might be able to claim that he had German nationality before playing for the US. This seems pretty unlikely given that German laws force you to give up your current nationality and pledge allegiance to Germany to become naturalized. From what I have read he didn’t seek German nationality and could not have while he was in Germany because Germany only changed its law to allow naturalization in 1999. Unless he can make that claim, then according to the FIFA Statutes he should not be allowed to play for Germany.
Subotic and Rossi are different cases in so many ways. It’s worthless to compare them. I don’t hate Rossi for choosing Italy, and I won’t hate Subotic if he doesn’t choose the US.
Unless you have been in a situation where you feel 100% one nationality and 100% another, then you can’t understand it. Rossi is Italian and American, fact. Subotic is American, Bosnian, Serbian and whatever other ethnicity he actually is, fact. You can be more than one thing.
BTW, go find Andrea Canales post on Sideline Views from a month or two ago about the 2005 U-17 World Cup in Peru, where Subotic was a member of the US team. Reading that story, I can’t blame Subotic for feeling more German or Serbian or whatever.
Sushant, Brede Hangeland moved to Norway when he was toddler, not 14 like Rossi. In that case, we could start including Hull goalkeeper Boaz Myhill, who was born in Cali before moving to the UK at age one. And yes, Hangeland has 45 caps for Norway.
As for the second division designation, Norway is the only league whose second division I’m including players from aside from England because there are several Americans there. Just keep that in mind going forward.
Is Jay Needham’s team in the first division? I thought it was second division but maybe he was promoted.
As to Subotic. The kid is hardly as wonder-bread american as Rossi and in the end international football is about passion and pride and players should play for the nation that they want to represent. It would irritate me if Subotic played for Deutschland (or serbia) but that’s his choice and I wouldn’t hold anything against him since he has lived in germany longer than he ever lived in the US.
Same holds true with Rossi (but I still don’t like him).
@metrostar4life – AGF beat Brondby 2:1,but Feilhaber didn’t dress. Jeremiah White played the first 81 mins, however.
Skinn – your comment sounded odd, so I took a look. It appears that Taylor was Freidel’s backup at Villa on Saturday. It will be interesting to see when/if Guzan beats him out for a spot on the bench.
Posted by: A.S. | August 25, 2008 at 02:56 PM
Yup, sorry, my mistake. I totally jumped over his name on the scoresheet.
re: Vidal. Started, played 45 in a 1-1 v Toluca.
re: Davies. played today v AIK in a fan-fighting, flare-throwing, crap penalty derby v AIK. Had to stop the game for a bit, ended. 2-2.
And forgot earlier, but in the Koblenz game with Taylor, (Brad’s former Blackburn backup) David Yelldell got his second straight shutout, 0-0 at Frankfurt.
TCompton, that was a very thoughtful and well written response and I respect it.
I still call total Bull S@*t. When Quarranta got traded to RB, it took me all of 5 minutes to think he was doing drugs. If you ever knew someone with a bad drug problem, the signs scream out.
Secondly, when a guys is smoking crack, doing heroin, etc…..also he goes from an up an coming star to bench fodder, you’ve got to be stupid to miss it.
I think the media knew about it or had an inkling. They were too whimply to out him because they were scared other players wouldn’t talk to them.
Charlie Davies is in action right now in the AIK vs Hammarby Stockholm Derby. Well, it should be close to over by now, anyway. He started and played 90 minutes, 2-2 draw.
Over the winter Quaranta went into rehab… How come the media never tipped us off on this?
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That’s because it was kept quiet by the people who knew and were close to Quaranta. At the beginning of this season, Santino mentioned to Steven Goff that, once he was ready, he would tell him his story. After another reporter started digging around and asking questions, Santino decided it was time to talk to Goff to control its release.
I doubt the media knew much about Tino’s drug problems during his usage phase. That said, I doubt many of his teammates new either. Several members of United have said that Santino was excellent at hiding this fact. And although the League knew about him failing his drug tests and checking into rehab, they weren’t at liberty to make this news public at any time.
Ives,
One request please. I know the teams in the 2nd division for England, but not for the other countries.
When you are listing 2nd division teams, would you mind noting if they are 2nd division?
Thanks
Hey,
What about “goal-scoring hero Brede Hangeland, who was born in Texas but moved to Norway as a young child”?
Since he’s American by birth, doesn’t he count? If we’re covering Rossi, we might as well cover him as well 😉
BTW, what’s the story with Brede? Is he cap-tied to Norway?
Thanks