When TSG Hoffenheim, the first place team in the German Bundesliga, takes on second-place Bayern Munich on Friday, it will be led by the current goal-scoring leader in Germany. A player who just admitted that if certain things had gone differently, he might have been playing for the U.S. national team.
That player is Vedad Ibisevic.
SBI took a look at Ibisevic back in early September when he was off to a fast start with the Bundesliga newcomers. Some 17 goals later, Ibisevic has become one of the hottest properties in Europe. Not bad for a player who only a few years ago was playing high school soccer in St. Louis.
In an exclusive interview with Jack Bell of the New York Times, Ibisevic revealed that he would have considered playing for the U.S. national team, but wasn't approached:
"I have a green card and my sister is a citizen. But I never had anybody coming up to me asking me, nothing really," Ibisevic told the New York Times. "I had a couple of guys who played with me and had some contacts with national team, Johnny DiRaimondo.
"We played on same college team and did pretty good. He thought I had some qualities to play for national team, but I never had people coming to me to ask. At the time I would have considered it, I really liked the whole situation with St. Louis, and probably if someone would have approached me I probably would have played for the U.S. national team. It is difficult now to talk about because it already past. It would have been possible of course, after all that I got by moving to America, it was very nice, I would of course considered giving something back."
That should be enough to send some U.S. national team fans into an uproar, but the situation isn't as simple as it may seem.
For those wondering, Ibisevic was capped by Bosnia-Herzegovina at age 22. He also left the United States at age 20, after having lived in the United States for four years. According to U.S. government law, someone applying for citizenship would have to be a resident in this country for five years after receiving a green card in order to qualify for citizenship.
With that being the case, would Ibisevic have differed his dream of European soccer while he awaited that chance to become a U.S. citizen? Would he have stayed at St. Louis University, and then spent time in MLS, while he awaited citizenship and the chance to play for the United States? It certainly wouldn't have been an easy decision, and we'll never know how his career would have gone if he had taken that route instead of the route that has led him to be the leading scorer in one of the biggest leagues in the world.
What do you think of the interview? What sort of impact do you think he could have had with the U.S. national team? Will you hold it against U.S. Soccer for not finding Ibisevic, or do you accept that in a country this size there will always be some talented players who slip through the cracks?
Share your thoughts below.
I’ve seen a lot of D1 soccer in my time. I’ve seen guys that have gone on to play in MLS and guys that have played for various youth national teams (US, Canada, various Caribbean and African nations) and have seen guys that went on to play lower division pro soccer in Europe and Africa.
The two best players I’ve ever seen play college soccer in person were Brian McBride and Vedad Ibisevic. Nobody else comes even close. Ibisevic ran through a top 20 program like a man amongst boys. It was an awe-inspiring performance. So much so that my brother and I have kept up with his career and would read match reports of his PSG days and then with great sadness, read that he was capped by Bosnia.
I don’t pretend to have pro scouting abilities, but he was so much better than his contemporaries that it wasn’t even funny and it’s not like he was playing for some crap squad, he was playing at one of the United States’ historical soccer factory programs.
US Soccer totally dropped the ball on Ibisevic.
Not as bad of a loss as a Subotic would be.
He has certainly stepped up his game as of late. I saw him play in his only college season. He was certainly a good player, but I would have never thought to bash USSF about not giving him a look. He is obviously a player who left the US, went to a smaller European club, got better, and is now a very skilled player. Those things happen. Don’t start getting pissed at US Soccer for Ibisevic making the most of his opportunities and getting better.
meant Bosnia not Serbia
So was the USSF supposed to pay him money to sit at home for a year? Pay MLS to take him? How much money would it take to get him to turn down PSG? I’m not sure what some here expected the USSF to do. He’s not a citizen and apparently once gone for PSG wasn’t ever going not play for Serbia. I don’t want the USSF going around buying up players. I want them to put more into things like the academy league.
I think folks are making a big deal out of something that was pretty much a moot point. The Bakary Soumare example is the best analogy. Vedad Ibisevic wasn’t an “unknown”. I remember reading about him, maybe even in previous versions of this blog, several years ago. His situation was as follows: He moved to the USA in his mid to late teens, with green card but not citizenship, with his foreign passport. He does well in high school soccer, and goes to college, but without US passport he is really ineligble to suit up for US Soccer. I think this was known even then. Has a very good freshman year, and I think gets called to the Bosnian U-20 teams. From there, he receives interest from European teams because he has a European passport. Eventually signs with PSG. Spends several years bouncing around I think German minor leagues without much success, I’d probably say comparable to what Conor Casey did more or less around the same time, and along this time gets called into Bosnia’s full national team, probably because he has played for their youth teams. A few years later is a revelation for Hoffenheim. I don’t think he was ever eligible to play for the United States because he never had a passport. And I think FIFA rules state that IF a player who is 21 has not suited for the full national team, he is eligible to switch allegiances to another country for which he “currently” holds a passport. (That’s why Neven cannot play for Germany, he does not have a German passport.) Vedad never had a US passport. He was 19 years old, he has the option to turn pro in Europe or wait a few more years in the US to get a US passport to maybe considered. I’m sure he would have loved to had played for the US, and I’m sure we’d love to have him if his form continues. But he never had a US passport… a moot point.
I remember when I was first informed about him. I had a friend who is of Eastern-European descent who was raving about him. This was before the Jack Bell interview, before Hoffenheim had gotten to this level, and before anyone ever thought about playing Ibisevic for the USMNT. I was still on Neven Subotic addiction, and like most people thought I knew better than him.
My initial thoughts, as well as those of the US staff and media, are what causes these American failures.
I just vomited. This is sickening. Can’t we allocate some resources to make sure this stops happening.
Also with Nevin, we need to put our foot on the gas. If Bocanegra is our so called captain, he should try and make a cameo to watch him play and talk to him. He should be taken to Nike for a marketing meeting. Someone should get him drunk in NYC.
Badly worded post on my part, I didn’t mean USSF didn’t know who Rossi was. Even if it is a long shot, I’d like to think my soccer federation knew who Ibisevic was, and if he’s good enough to get PSG scouts attention, it would have been nice for someone to have talked to him. I would have thought that the high school and freshman college honors would have helped scouts find him.
That said, I don’t think it’s possible to find all the prospects, because you’ll always have some guys who are motivated by being overlooked, and that drives them to be better.
But thanks for an update on Ibisevic, it’s quite a story and I’m very happy to see his success and I love that he says nice things about his time here.
Brett – in the US they could be called Charter Schools. :p
drock- i agree with your synopsis… me and my brother are actually working on forming a free academy for players in the relm of U6-U10, assuming we can get govt. grants or sponsors to cover costs of running it…. we may actually start a travel team that will charge the player the bare minimum just to cover the cost of the league, etc….
these high priced academies are insane…
drock- “AND HOW DOES CHAD MARSHALL STILL NOT HAVE A SPOT IN THE USMNT STARTING 11? HE IS 100 TIMES BETTER THAN ONEYEWU.”
LOL, while i agree that Marshall deserves a look, claiming he’s 100X better the gooch is very humorous 😀
jloome – say hello to MLS academies… O.o
USSF is too busy looking at kids on club teams that have to pay 1000$-5000$ fees. I wonder if the Ibisevic family could have afforded the fees had they moved here 5 years earlier.
Club fees need to be reviewed by USSF and a standard needs to be set. I get paid $2000 a year to coach a U16 team and my team constantly beat clubs who pay their coaches 7 or 8k a season. The bulk of our players come from lower income families.
Why in America is the “Beautiful Game” becoming the “Priveliged Game”? Something needs to change.
AND HOW DOES CHAD MARSHALL STILL NOT HAVE A SPOT IN THE USMNT STARTING 11? HE IS 100 TIMES BETTER THAN ONEYEWU.
Very difficult to blame the US on this. A country of our size is always going to have people passing through it.
It’s tough to keep track of all the non-citizens we have here playing high-school ball.
Why are we going to waste money scouting and developing players who aren’t citizens?
US fans can be lame in how they always need someone to blame for every little thing that doesn’t go their way.
This is a rags to riches story. the kid signs with PSG then floats around Europe, ends up in the 2nd Bundesliga on a team that until 2007-8 had never even been as high as the 2nd Bundesliga. It’s not like the football world was clamoring for him.
To be upset with USSF for missing him is rediculous. This is way to obscure of a happening. Yes, the kid scored 18 at St. Louis but it’s impossible to know if the path his life has taken is what’s responsible for his current success or if it was an inevitable occurance.
“We aren’t Qatar, we weren’t going to fast track citizenship for him to play for us.”
What a farce! So what about Olympic athletes who become “American”?
Posted by: Jonathan | December 04, 2008 at 03:37 PM
Citizenship requirements are less strict for the USOC than USSF. USSF requires citizenship to play in official matches. THe USOC says that citizenship is required, but in practice, that isn’t true. Plenty of athletes have appeared in US colors that only have a green card or an “intention” to pursue US citizenship.
If you leave the US for longer than 6 months while a legal permanent resident, then you have to restart your 5 year period. Of course, as mentioned before, you only have to be present 30 months out of that 5 years, so potentially, someone could become a citizen if they just sat in the US for 2.5 years after getting LPR status. However, in his case, as a professional footballer, very unlikely that he would have done so unless MLS got to him early.
If I read it correctly, somebody actually thinks that 17 goals in 15 games is due to a flash in the pan team? Rather humourous analysis, if you’ve ever watched TSG Hoffenheim – actually – play. Two of their young stars were called up by the German national team recently … so I guess the entire Bundesliga and national team structure is a flash in the pan too? Anyways, what I do appreciate about this article is that Ibisevic’s development would have probably been retarded by the normal MLS route, had this kid not gone out and did his own thing abroad. The same for Subotic and Rossi. And even then very good club team players do not always make great national team players – look at Ronaldo, for example. He just won the Ballon d’Or and chokes with the Portugal team; whereas a guy like Milan Baros is amazingly hot with the Czech Republic but can’t get anything done at the club level. The club game and the national team game are not even on the same wavelength anymore, so to wring your hands over what got away … at least have a balanced approach which this blog entry does have.
Eek, my bad. The bit on Edu should say 22 now, so he’ll be 24 or so, assuming it takes a couple of seasons to adapt.
Actually,
this is the kid thay played at PSG and as I stated earlier. He wasn’t that good at the time nor was missed by US Soccer at the time. He wasn’t good enough at the time. Plain and simple. It’s good to see that he’s become a top goal scorer in Germany but people need to chill on this one. Hell, he’s a great example of why you don’t right off a younger player. God Bless him and I hope he becomes a rock star in the game but don’t do the US Soccer missed this one, blah,blah,blah, crap.
“We aren’t Qatar, we weren’t going to fast track citizenship for him to play for us.”
What a farce! So what about Olympic athletes who become “American”?
Ossington’s right, this whole situation points directly to the frustrating arrogance of North America’s sports culture, and the fact that it waits until college to start developing these players properly.
Think about this in current context:
1) By the time Mo Edu — about as natural a footballer as you’ll see — gains both the skill, confidence and mindset to play full-time for rangers, he’ll be 26. He’s 24 now, and can’t even make the bench for most games.
2) By the time O’Brien White recovers from his knee problem, turns pro and is (maybe) signed, he’ll be 25.
3) By the time Xavier Balc was tearing apart college — but positioning himself as too slow for the pro game — he was 23, likely too late to be taught the kind of positional and game-reading adjustments that would have saved his career.
You can argue about great players having come from NCAA but they’re so far in the minority compared to the number who don’t go on to play pro, that to compare its success rate with the system in Europe — where kids are identified and groomed from pre-teen years on, and moved into special amateur programs and academies — is laughable.
If MLS is truly partly about improving the level of the USMNT (or in Toronto’s case the Canadian MNT), then the best favour it could do itself would be to delink from the NCAA and start a real grassroots growth system that focuses on community player identifaction, support and grooming.
At worst, he’s another Marek Mintal, and Mintal would certainly be on our national team even today.
With the demise of the reserve league and only 4 dev slots per team, how does the next high-scoring collegiate foreigner wedge himself into MLS?
We found Movsisyan (who one day will play for the U.S.) at tiny Pasadena City College but not a guy who put in 19 as a freshman at St. Louis U?
Yes, Yes Salary Cap. That has been said hundreds of times. The CBA expires at the end of 2009 season I seriously doubt anything is going to change before then.
This really brings into question the way the US or MLS scouts talent. I understand the Bob Bradley probably isnt going to be going to many youth soccer games or highschool games. But shouldnt the MLS teams have a pretty good eye on players like this?
I’m not really worried about it.
I love the kid, and I think he would be a valuable contributor to the US, but he didn’t even have citizenship when BH capped him. We aren’t Qatar, we weren’t going to fast track citizenship for him to play for us.
Have I played the “what if” game when looking at players we have “lost” like Ibisevic, Rossi, and Castillo? Yes. Our team would look a lot different and have a lot more quality to it. Canada would have one of the best midfields in CONCACAF if they had the younger DeGuzman and Hargreaves, but getting angry about it won’t do anything.
We learn from our mistake and we move on. To me, missing Ibisevic isn’t a mistake because he is still not eligible to play fo us.
MattC – very few teams in fact turn a profit…. yes the income is increasing, but the fact remains is the funds are not there…. the MLS has resourses from the expansion fees but id rather they keep ahold of that to prevent going under when we are all expansioned out… this isnt like all the other leagues in the US… the MLS has to deal with foreigners who follow other leagues and look down on the MLS… and they also have to deal with Eurosnobs who look down on the MLS rather then support their local side…
its easy to point fingers and say this and that needs to happen now, but to truly find a reasonable rate of growth is harder then that…
He would have played for the US if he were good enough at the time AND have gottten a call up AND knew he would have not gotten a call up for Bosnia. Glad that he’s doing well but to say we missed on him is a lod of crap. As someone else said earlier people need to chill. He may have been spotted by a scout from my beloved PSG but that means nothing on the grand scale and thank goodness. PSG also had a younger Bosnian from SLU a few years ago and it was due to the current manager at the time. Had the manager not been Bosnian, the could would have never played at PSG. We had youth players at the time whom were better.
Soumare has yet to be called up for Mali. He’s hoping for a call from Mali but if for some strange reason between now and the time he gets his Green Card, if he isn’t called up for Mali – it could happen, Mali has a few players ahead of him on the depth chart and they’re not old – then I’d expect to see him playing for the USA.
If iceskaters, gymnasts, and other athletes can get instant citizenship, why not soccer players? Seems like the US Olympic association has better contacts in Washington.
Maybe the USNT was a long shot because of the citizenship issues, but to me it is equally troubling that MLS wasn’t able to secure his services. I love MLS but the salary cap situation is really hurting the quality of play. MLS has access to some very good players that are either American or played college soccer here. You just cannot ask these kids to take $30K per year to play here in MLS.
MLS is expanding and more teams are getting soccer specific stadiums. It is now time to address the quality of the play on the pitch. The fans will come if you attract the top quality talent. The only way to attract that talent is to increase the salary cap dramatically and improve the youth academy system. The Salary cap should be at least doubled, and I mean immediately, and the minimum salary in the league should be at least $75K. If you want us to believe that MLS truly is “major league” then you have to act like it.
I believe Bakary Soumare with the Chicago Fire has a similar issue. He’s about two years away from being eligible for the US team, and in the meantime Mali has called him up. A bird in the hand …
http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_by_ives/2008/11/soumare.html
Eric, I would disagree that this is “like Rossi” or worse than Rossi. Ibisevic was in this country four years, came and went. That’s pretty much a needle in a haystack. Would it be nice if U.S. Soccer had hundreds of scouts scouring the country looking for talent, but that wasn’t the case four years ago and still isn’t the case.
As for the Rossi reference, a common misconception is that U.S. Soccer didn’t know about Rossi. That’s not at all the case. U.S. soccer tried repeatedly to call in Rossi when he was much younger but his father wasn’t interested in having him traveling back and forth when he was getting settled in the Parma youth system. If anybody wants someone to ‘blame’ regarding Rossi’s decision it’s Rossi’s father, who never let him develop ties with the U.S. youth national team system and who exposed him only to European soccer. In the end, it’s his son and that was his prerogative.
sublicon,
hes much more than a flavor of the month, hes got 17 goals in 15 games … you put any striker in the world into the Bundesliga and he is not going to have the same strike rate … 4 years ago he was doing well enough to be spotted by a PSG scout when he got a bosnian youth call up …. im not saying he’s going to amount to a world beater, but hes right up there among the leading scorers in all of Europe and that cannot be taken lightly.
I don’t see this as an issue. He never would have waited for citizenship to play for us.
Actually, while the law is that you have to be a permanent resident of the U.S. (i.e., a green card holder) for 5 years before applying for citizenship, you only have to have present in the U.S. for 30 months out of those five years. I think Ibisevic was and still maybe is pretty close to being eligible for U.S. citizenship.
yeah he broke Brian Mcbride’s freshman scoring record, couldnt have been that much of a slouch …. it really seems like if the US approached him he may have decided to stay in the US because at the time, he literally had nothing else on his plate and would have been thrilled the have been noticed by a National team … he moved here 8 years ago, so im guessing he had his green card after a few years, probably during college sometime, and would have been a citizen a couple years ago had he stayed … such a flawed system.
geez, now we have to wade through all the posters bashing the USMN….
if the US were to follow everyone and anyone who could possibly play for the US if they had X number more years till they become citizens we would have to staff a large number of people just to sort through the possiblities…
i guess if the US were to approach him, they could have found a loop hole, but we cant beat ourselves up for not securing a guy who was not even an option at the moment…
A.S., Dempsey and Howard are American citizens. Once you get the citizenship you don’t have to stay here. If you are in the process of applying for citizenship, you have to be a resident and be physically in the United States at least half the time. That’s what I’ve been told on good authority. So, if Ibisevic had applied for citizenship he would have had to stay in the United States until he received it.
Anyone “pissed” needs to cool off . . this guy is the flavor of the month, that’s all. His team is doing well, he’s doing well.
Was he doing that well 4 years ago? 2 years ago? Maybe, but on a much smaller stage, which begs the question: Why the hell is the USSF going to freak out over some foreigner on his way to a green card who did well with a USL team?
Sorry, it’s an interesting story, but I’m not moved by the possibility that he could have played for us. No one player is going to win us a World Cup, and I’m certain that player isn’t Ibisevic . . or Rossi for that matter.
Much ado about nothing.
the amount of players in canada and the us that go missed is insane, we can blame the current systems in place. Imagine the talent in lower class neighbourhoods that currently have no interest in the sport or do but arent being reached out to.
All because its based aroudn the garbage NCAA system. Thats slowly changing but even then, theres still a ways to go.
How do we know the USNT didn’t know of him? If they knew of his situation I wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to wait a couple years and see if citizenship was ever in the cards.
Despite the fans who want to cap anybody with an accent if the US is seen as rushing to cap tie any player with a competing claim from a national team…players will notice when 80% end up with one or two caps and never get called in again, and the US will lose out on really special players.
“According to U.S. government law, someone applying for citizenship would have to be a resident in this country for five years after receiving a green card in order to qualify for citizenship.”
Can you “be a resident” in the US even if you play professionally in Europe? Is Clint Dempsey or Timmy Howard still a US resident?
I read the article over the weekend Ives and what can you say when the horse is already out of the barn?
The kid scored something like 19 goals in his first year at the University so to say that he didn’t appear on anyone’s radar screen appears disingenuous to begin with.
How can you NOT know who he is after scoring 19 in his FRESHMAN Year?
But it really is a non-story in that there is nothing to be done but for the USSF to be more vigilant and i think they have gone a long way in doing so what with bringing Torres/Orozco into the fold and making sure that kids like Nazzani are being sent clear messages that you will be considered for the USMNT if you can show you can play.
Something like 100 possible players in the USMNT pool at this point. That’s head and shoulders above where is was even five years ago (around Ibisevic’s time).
Dave, it might have been much longer than a one-year wait for Ibisevic. It’s five years from when you get the green card, so it’s a one-year wait if he got a green card as soon as he got here, which doesn’t happen as far as I know.
It’s unfortunate that things couldn’t have worked out and he wound up an American citizen, but who knows if he still winds up a star if he had taken a different path that kept him here a few years longer.
That’s almost as bad as Rossi, they flat missed him. Oh well, looks like we’re learning and now playing Italian kids who don’t even know English.
How would the 5 year citizenship wait have worked? Would it keep him from all the U-XX teams as well as the senior team? If it really would have been 5 years before any international soccer, you have to call his inclusion unlikely even if the coaches had noticed.
To me it seems that at the time he was contacted by the Bosnian national team he had no other options and would have welcomed the opportunity to play in the states. When he got his green card exactly, I dont know, so how long he would have had to wait I cant comment on, but if US soccer reached out to him and let him know that he was on their radar, with no other options on his plate, I would bet to say he would have stayed in the US and given it a go.
Wow, the question is, how good was this kid when he left the US for europe at 20 and SHOULD US soccer have recognized this prospect at the time and approached him about playing here? That’s a really tough question-it’s easy to say now, the US sucks for missing this guy but who knows how good he was then and if there was any reason to go down the long road you painted well Ives-staying another year to get citizenship, playing in MLS, etc etc to then be able to play for the US team.
I follow things pretty closely and had never heard of this kid until this year-it is pretty disheartening that NO ONE approached him about possibly playing here but there’s really no point in speculating now-he’s gone, let’s take some steps to prevent stuff like this from happening again and do our BEST to get Subotic to change his mind and play for the US.
My guess as to how long it will be before someone claims that Giuseppe Nazzani is the solution for MNT left back: 3 days.
Color me yellow for pissed.