Seriously, when are people (fans and journalists) going to get this? If a player is not American, he cannot choose to play for the U.S. No amount of wishing by fans, or abuse of the USSF, will ever change that.
Now, Diego Fagundez is, unfortunately, not American. He’s been in the U.S. for a long time, he’s been invited to American U-15 camps (which sometimes include prospects yet to receive citizenship), but he’s not through the process of becoming a citizen. Though MLS doesn’t make it easy to tell, it’s not even clear he’s gotten a green card yet.
As far as anyone can tell, he’s years away from citizenship. And now he tells Goal.com “exclusively” that he’ll suit up for whichever national team calls him first. Please. What a lame job of reporting.
Irresponsible, really. If you’re an American soccer fan, it’s probably time you demand more from your news sources. After the entire country, even the AP, was taken in by Andy Najar’s country-selection publicity stunt, when there was really no decision to be made, please don’t be fooled by Fagundez.
The kid is Uruguayan. Uruguay does have a lot of talent, but not so much to ignore this kind of promise at the youth levels. If he’s as good as he seems, there’s no chance he’ll ever play for the U.S. If he’s not, who really cares?
There’s no middle ground. Certainly, he’s not eligible to play for the U.S. now. If he were, he’d be in the team at some level. So the line of “I won’t wait for either country” is intellectually dishonest, and printing it is either irresponsible or just plain stupid. Same as it always was with Najar.
So at least spare yourself the Fagundez quandary. As much as fans, and maybe even he, might like it to be different, there’s no choice to be made. We already went through it with Najar. Let’s be smarter this time.
great artcile Brent. As a hardcore fan I will admit to always looking at the positive side of these stories, hoping beyond hope they can suit up for this country, but alas will probably never win these battles. See Mendiola as well.
Do you have any information on how far along in the process Diego still has to go in getting his citizenship? When he states stuff along the lines of “he’ll play for which ever nation calls him in first” makes it seem like he is somewhat close to getting citizenship. That being said, no one has really figured out/reported how close he is to becoming a US citizen.
In regards to Najar, I believe some US supporters knew he would have to wait a few years for his citizenship and wrongfully thought that he might wait so he could play for the US and have a better chance of playing in World cups.
I don’t have that information, and neither, it seems, does anyone else outside the family and the league. Presumably he’s been asked and hasn’t divulged. Immigration issues can be personal, so that makes sense. It’s likely but not certain he got his green card just before being signed full time for NE, but other sources in the past have speculated that he doesn’t have one yet. It doesn’t matter. If he’s not a U.S. citizen, saying he’ll answer whoever calls first is not accurate. He can’t take a U.S. call.
Najar’s situation was well documented. (I documented it myself.) He received his green card the spring before signing for DC, and still has more than three years to go to apply for citizenship, longer to get it. The whole “he’s making up his mind” in my opinion, was a publicity stunt — one that worked. He never had the option to play for the U.S. If people want to fall into that trap, fine. The problem is when it results in criticism for the USSF. This is a very complicated issue and very few fans or writers educate themselves before sounding off on it.
Thanks for the update. It definitely seems that more people are already coming to grips that Diego is not a US citizen, I think they learned from the Najar ordeal. Like you said the whole gaining US citizenship is a pretty complex issue and takes a very long time for everyone to obtain. I would think that US Soccer would have had at least some discussions with Diego and his family about this as he was in some US camps.
Someone needs to make a database of where players such as Mwanga, Zakuani, Nagbe, and Diego F. are at in obtaining their US citizenship process. There would definitely be a lot less talk on bigsoccer with that information.
Keep up the good work!
It’s just such a shame that a kid that is essentially, culturally, an American has such low odds of actually playing for the US. If he came over at age 5, he can’t have many memories of his birth country. And sadly, he doesn’t seem to identify as an American — as far as his national allegiance is concerned.