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Tab Ramos on Jonathan Gonzalez decision: If you feel Mexican, play for Mexico

U.S. U-20 National Team head coach Tab Ramos has spoken out about Jonathan Gonzalez’s choice to represent Mexico at the senior level.

“I do tell the kids here, you play for the U.S., it’s not a club,” Ramos told Goal.com. “You have to feel the colors of the country, that’s really important.”

He says that if a player wants to represent a country at the national team level, he needs to be clear that he wants to do so above anything else.

“For me, playing for a national team is more a feeling than anything else,” he continued. “If we have players in this country who feel Mexican and want to play for Mexico, I think they should play for Mexico. If we have players here who feel American, who want to fight for the U.S. and represent America, they should play for us. I think it’s as simple as that.”

Ramos has been in regular contact with Gonzalez since before the U-20 World Cup in May, when he was being considered for a place on the squad. After his strong season in Liga MX, where he made the Best XI for the 2017 Apertura season, he was tipped for a place on the U.S. Men’s National Team for a November friendly against Portugal, but was ultimately passed up.

Despite a strong relationship with the 18-year-old, Ramos couldn’t guarantee him a place on the senior team.

“I can only control what happens with the U-20 and down. That’s what I do,” he said. “I kept in touch with Jona, I have a good relationship with him. I’ve stayed in touch with him over the last six months. You can ask him about the relationship that we have.

“If at this moment he felt like Mexico is the right place for him for the rest of his career, then at that point there’s only so much you can do. “

Comments

  1. MLS really needs to improve more and be better at developing young kids. Jonathan was lost when he chose to play in Liga MX. When these kids are able to chose MLS over Liga Mx, then we won’t lose as many. When Mexican federation wanted him on the team it was over. He has too many mouths in his ear in Mexico, how can US compete when the kid is living in Mexico?

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    • That’s probably a little bit of a stretch but Justin Meram played for Iraq, Gabriel Somi just signed with NE Revolution lived his entire life in Sweden but plays for Syria. He didn’t seem to have a shot at making the Swedish team but almost qualified with Syria.

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  2. Yet Ramos did not pick Gonzalez for the U-20s, but he did pick Tyler Adams (and wanted Weston McKennie) so you can fairly ask just how high was Gonzales rated.

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    • Thank you! This are the quotes in better context:

      “I do tell the kids here, you play for the U.S., it’s not a club,” Ramos told Goal. “You have to feel the colors of the country, that’s really important.”

      “For me, playing for a national team is more a feeling than anything else,” the U.S. Under-20 coach added. “If we have players in this country who feel Mexican and want to play for Mexico, I think they should play for Mexico. If we have players here who feel American, who want to fight for the U.S. and represent America, they should play for us. I think it’s as simple as that.”

      “Ramos had been in contact with Gonzalez for the better part of the past year — first when Gonzalez was vying for a place on last summer’s U.S. Under-20 World Cup team, then when the Monterrey midfielder was seen as key figure in the next U-20 cycle.

      Ramos admitted to being concerned about Gonzalez’s international future after he was left off the U.S. roster for a November match against Portugal. He spoke to Gonzalez before and after that friendly, but ultimately was powerless to give Gonzalez any assurances about his standing with the senior national team.

      “I can only control what happens with the U-20 and down. That’s what I do,” Ramos said. “I kept in touch with Jona, I have a good relationship with him. I’ve stayed in touch with him over the last six months. You can ask him about the relationship that we have.

      “If at this moment he felt like Mexico is the right place for him for the rest of his career, then at that point there’s only so much you can do. “”

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  3. Mexicans take the training and run when the Mother country calls them home! The kid wants to please the parents. The offer from Mexico was too good to refuse.

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  4. Not that he cares, but Gonzalez is dead to me now. Will go down in history along with Rossi, Subotic, and Najar. F*ck ’em all. ‘Merica b!tch 😉

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    • I may be wrong, but I thought Najar wasn’t a US citizen. Najar had to wait, and I don’t recall how long, but Honduras came knocking.

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      • Yeah, I think Najar would have had to go through the process like Nagbe and Manneh did, which requires up to 5 years to get his citizenship. Also, as I recall, Najar had some complications in his situation as to whether he was a legal resident or not. I think he would qualify now as a dreamer, but that wasn’t available at the time he chose Honduras.

    • Lay off Subotic. Rongen was being an ass to him and was very unprofessional.That was why he switched. Treat others the way you want to be treated. If not I am out the door? ✌

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  5. Benidicto Arnoldo. If you are really an American you wouldn’t play for Mexico its as simple as that. If your loyalty is to another country thats fine. I dont have a problem with German born players playing for the US if thats where their heart and loyalty are. However, if he feels more Mexican and his parents urged him to represent them..then they should go live there and retire there and use that countries resources. Now, if he is representing Mexico because they gave him the best offer and because they are going to the world cup then he is totally being disloyal to the US and a total Benedict Arnold. His DUTY was to stick around and help rebuild the US program and not bail when the chips were down. Aligning yourself with another country because their prospects look better is exactly what Arnold did.

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    • Although it would probably require a change to the law and Congress doesn’t care about these things, I think it would be fair that if a player who is a US citizen chooses to play for another country, then they should be treated as if they are renouncing their citizenship. Have them surrender their US passport if they go to another country to play for their national team.

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  6. I think this is Tab saying, “F this kid. I, and the other coaches, invested a lot of time in his development and held his family’s hand. I’m not going to have any regrets that he chose his parents’ country and the country where he has been playing for the past few years.”

    Serious question: Do we know whether he was ever called by the El Tri youth teams? Was he consistently choosing the US youth teams over Mexico? Maybe he was just waiting for El Tri to call him up all along, and his breakout season at Monterrey was what finally convinced Mexico that he was the real deal.

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  7. Bullshit.
    Just like every German that decides to play for the US, at some point business decisions have to be made.
    Create a program players want to be part of and you avoid this kind of situations.

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    • And we have made a decision, to empower the elected USSF president and disempower Gulati, to punt the coach decision until after the election and perhaps even after Russia. That makes the new president more happy and powerful. It is not good for the NT. To me this is wasted time. By the time we get going in earnest even the teams that went to Russia will be back working for next cycle. These several months could have been a head start on a new coach, system, players while other teams either slacked or had to prepare for Russia.

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      • I replied to a similar post of yours a few days ago, but in case you missed it.
        No quality coach is going to sign with the US at this time, without knowing who his boss will be and what the parameters of his control will be. Most managers are either in season or preparing teams for the WC and thus aren’t about to bolt for the US. That leaves you with naming a manager in MLS or I suppose at the time Liga Mx (an interesting proposition, Herrera would have been entertaining that’s for sure). I have seen no indication anywhere that Tata is interested so that leaves Vanney, Vermes, Pareja, Porter, Berhalter, Marsch. We may end up with one of those, but I think we could do better.

    • Klinsmann was a crap coach but he plus our qualification history was a player magnet.

      As a Houston Dynamo fan, where we won the first two seasons’ titles but none since, success helps sustain itself. Once that disappears you have to earn it and with our U-23 and to some extent U-20 struggles, I don’t know if we have the institutional memory of how to run USSF strictly to win.

      I think we have become a more mature soccer federation and at this point, hmmm, the bigwigs start to think too highly of themselves, we are money obsessed at the expense of winning, etc. They need to go back to, I don’t care if we host all the tournaments, I don’t care if we have huge money making crowds, I don’t care if we put games where the other team’s fans want to attend, this is about winning.

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      • The JK question is an interesting one. On one hand he would have been much more likely to include Gonzalez on the roster for qualifiers given his starting for Monterrey. However, he certainly pushed the US adopting a more European model which may have pushed Gonzalez and others in his situation towards Mexico. Size may have been a factor but both Gooch and Pulisic are not giants and saw their chances come up under Klinnsman.

  8. The club would not release him. Look at facts surrounding this drama. Monterrey had 3 crucial games (11/18, 11/23, 11/26) in 8 days after the Portugal match (11/14). Let’s not change the narrative to fit his agenda.

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