From Russia in 2018 to Qatar in 2022, the world of football cannot do without one word - immigration.
While accelerating the global flow of talent, it also gives football new possibilities.
In the last World Cup, the French team was defined by the outside world as "relying on African American players" to win the Hercules Cup, and in this year's World Cup, immigrant football has become the mainstream of some teams.
Especially the Moroccan team that reached the last four.
Grand Parisian star Ashraf was born in Spain.
They are all immigration players
There are 16 non-native players in the Moroccan squad who were either born outside Morocco, have overseas family backgrounds, or studied football elsewhere.
Ziyech and Mazraoui are players born and raised in the Netherlands, Ashraf was born in Spain, Roman Seth was born in France and Elias Chel was born in Belgium.
In contrast to Morocco's use of large numbers of overseas migrants, Belgium has absorbed many immigrants – most notably Lukaku, Batshuayi and Tielemans from Congo, Amadou Onana was born in Senegal, Jeremy Doku's family is Ghanaian, Yannick Carrasco, and his parents are Portuguese and Spanish.
Of course, none of them are the biggest beneficiaries of football immigration, and 22 members of the Canadian team have immigrant backgrounds.
Hutchinson's parents are Trinidad and Tobago, Milan Bojan was born and raised in Croatia, and Jonathan David was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Haitian parents who came to the United States under the guise of visiting relatives.
Bayern star Alfonso Davis's family was refugees.
The team's biggest player, Alfonso Davis, was born in a refugee camp in Ghana to Liberian parents and moved to Edmonton, Canada, as a child.
"Immigrants have always played an important role in Canadian football." Former Canadian national team coach Stephen Hart said he had more say than most.
Hart himself, originally from Trinidad and Tobago, moved to Canada in the late 1970s and initially did not intend to pursue a career in football, just to go to university, but then changed his mind.
Looking back on the fact that Canada has participated in this major event since the 1986 World Cup, the Qatar World Cup is the result of years of continuous development in Canadian football, and Hart said, "A lot of immigrants are working for it, not only the coaches, but also the players. Only when we build a better scouting system and invest more money will this cause really come to fruition. ”
Hart pointed to former assistant coach of the Canadian national team, German Holger Osijek, and Algerian coach Ottmane Ibriel, who said he and the foreign coaches have been committed to helping children with immigrant backgrounds enter the youth system of Canadian football.
'A lot of times it's not intentional, you just want a good team and you want better players involved.'
Ziyech was born and raised in the Netherlands.
Return to the motherland, or represent a foreign country?
In Hart's view, the tradition of football among people of Latino, African or Caribbean backgrounds, who love football and many of whom are able to perform better than local players, is a positive factor.
Of course, Hart also sees that most immigrant players still choose to play for their former homeland for stronger emotional reasons, as the Moroccan national team did.
Romain Seth is a prime example, he was born in France to a Moroccan family, and his respect for his grandfather and the influence of the Moroccan family made him choose to play for Morocco.
Roman Seth chose to return to play for the Moroccan team.
In 2017, Seth was called up by the Moroccan national team for the Africa Cup of Nations, losing their first game to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and if they lose another game, they will have to go home.
Just before that match, Seth's grandfather died — he was told he could return to France and stay with his family if he wished. But Seth stayed and decided to continue on the path his grandfather had set for him.
Seez scored the crucial goal in a 3-1 victory and is now captain of Morocco in this tournament.
Not everyone will make the same choices as Seth, such as Nasser Shadley. He was born and raised in Belgium and is of Moroccan descent, but in the end he chose to work for his birthplace.
"I initially wanted to pick Morocco, but the Belgian coach invited me to visit the team. I didn't want to rush my decision, I still love Morocco, but after my visit, I changed my mind. ”
In a 2015 interview, Shadley revealed, "Morocco put a lot of pressure on me to make a commitment, and there was no such problem when I joined Belgium." ”
Moroccan immigrant fans on the streets of Belgium.
When you lose, you are blamed
Different players make different choices in the face of pressure, and both Ziyech and Mazraoui are of Moroccan descent, both born and raised in the Netherlands and ultimately chose to represent Morocco.
Dutch legend Gurit revealed that he tried to convince some Dutch-born immigrant players to play for the Netherlands a few years ago, but to no avail, "their families will push them to make the right decision [for Morocco] and they have no choice." ”
A Dutch-born player of Moroccan origin, former Watford midfielder Notting Amrabat admits that there is a different story behind each choice.
'You can't generalize, not all players have that option, if you're not asked to play for the Netherlands, it's Morocco.'
His message is clear: sometimes, a football powerhouse like the Netherlands doesn't open its arms to all immigrant players who want to play for the national team.
Against Croatia, Romelu Lukaku missed four must-have goals in the game.
In fact, it is true that immigrants are not always welcome. Lukaku expressed a sentiment in a 2018 Players Tribune.com article:
"When things are going well, I read newspaper articles and they call me Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku, and conversely, they call me Belgian striker of Congolese origin Romelu Lukaku."
That said, when you win, everything is fine, and when you lose, immigrant players tend to be blamed for nothing.
Former Canadian national team coach Stephen Hart did not shy away from this, "This situation will never go away, you can't forget the Ben Johnson incident at the 1988 Olympics, he has always been Canadian." When the doping scandal broke out, he immediately became Jamaican. ”
Lukaku is of Congolese origin.
All 137 were immigrants
In any case, immigrant players are playing an increasing role, not only Canada, but Belgium, the last World Cup's semi-final four, has also risen to the top of the ranks surrounded by immigrant players.
The Belgian Football Federation has long realized that if they want teams to get better, they must tap into a rapidly growing immigrant population – Michel Sablon, the association's former technical director, deliberately hired an anthropologist named John Lehmann to figure out the best way to integrate these immigrant communities into the national football team.
"Not that all people will become engineers, but you can create hope, sport is one of the tools, you can set an example in these communities..."
In the past 20 years, a large number of concrete pitches and football cages have appeared in many cities in Belgium, allowing more outsiders and refugees to contact football.
According to the data, 137 of the 831 players who participated in the World Cup in Qatar, or about one in six players, gave up their birthplace to fight for other countries, a figure far higher than the 82 in the World Cup in Russia four years ago.
The complex sociology and game among football immigrants have created the current situation, and whether immigrant players choose to "stay in their birthplace" or "return to their homeland", world football is being affected as a result. Hart said, "We want to change the way world football is played. ”