Spanish football site Airfutbol claimed this weekend that Barcelona Atlètic winger Jeffren Suárez (21) had doubts on playing with the Spanish under-21 national team this week because this could prevent him from playing in the future for Venezuela, his country of birth.
Although Jeffren, who was part of the Spanish squad that won the European under-19 Championship in 2006, has played for Spanish youth teams before, participating in tonight's friendly game against Norway could mean there's no way back: once you turned 21 and you play for one country, you aren't able to play for another country anymore.
Read more:
Barça B: Mino, Botia and Jeffren called-up for u-21
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Barça B: Victor Vazquez and Jeffren sign renewal
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Difficult 'Spain or Venezuela' choice for Jeffren
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9 comments:
I don't know the rules, but if that rule exists, I wonder if it also would count for friendly games?
Once you play for a country at age u-21 you cant switch. At least that was the rule i know. El salvador attempted to have some players register for the concacaf qualifiers and as far as i understood the situation he could not because he represented the USA(or another country i cant really remember) at u-21 level. There was another player that played for the trinidad and tobago U-17 team at the last U-17 world cup who however has switched USA U-20 team because he did not represent trinidad and tobago after the U-17 world cup.
And yes friendly u-21 games count just as friendly international games count as international caps.
Thanks. I would also have some doubts if I was him...
yeah venezuela are on the up in south america and there are many great players ahead of him for spain right now.
The rule states that if a player has played for a certain national team and wishes to change his status, he should apeal for a change at the FIFA before his 21st birthday...
I am from Moroccan origin, and as you all might know, we moroccans are scatterd all over Europe. We have had many cases of players switching from Dutch, French and Belgium national team to join the moroccan one...
he should go with venezuela team if he wants to get some caps.i dont think he will ever make it to the spanish national first team.
choosing spain must be really tempting but there is much more bigger chance that the kid wont put a national jersey on at all. to me, venezuela would be patriotical choice from the heart. it can also bring much more international football minutes to him..
The thing is that if he stats to play for Barca first team soon he will get Spain call-up....just like other players this year....
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