Karamoko Dembele

[Bobby Russell's Lovechild]

Yup, Devlin always considered himself Scottish

[ProudScot]

1 hour ago, Chripper said:

As stated Sullivan seemed to turn up a lot, even when he knew that he'd be the bench. I also think Devlin was proud to play for us, lots of his family are Scottish and he said this after making his debut: "

"Playing at Hampden has always been a dream of mine and to finally achieve that made the match the proudest night of my career. I had 30-odd people in the stand watching me and it cost me an absolute fortune to make sure they could all be here. There were 23 of the clan from up here and a further seven flew up from down south."

I'd replace them with Dominic Matteo and Matt Elliott.

 

Matteo was as Scottish as Dembélé is English too

[Chripper]

43 minutes ago, ProudScot said:

Matteo was as Scottish as Dembélé is English too

That's true, Matteo was born in Scotland and Dembélé was born in England.

[BraveheartGordon]

Anybody know what’s the situation with the kid at Rangers Matthew Shiels? Seems like he’s evoking the same rules as Dembele, was in the Northern Ireland squads but was called up to the Scotland 19’s squad today and seems to have switched back.

[Super_Scotlandfan]

Dembele was called up for England Under 16's today. 

Looks like this is his final decision...will be incredibly frustrating if he ends up living up to his potential. 

I'd hope we've done everything in our power, in this case, to convince him to play for us but we do seem a bit crap in identifying Scottish qualified players at an early age and retaining them through the age groups. 

Wales, on the other hand, seem to be able to do this even with massively hyped players. Ethan Ampadu was born and lived all his life in England but they called him up to their senior team at 16. Even with huge fan and media hype. They've also got David Brooks and plenty others too. 

It would be ideal if all our players were developed in Scotland and we should aim for that but the reality is there's loads of talent in England and lots will have Scottish parents/grandparents who'd be extremely proud to play for us. But we can't even convince Dembele who's lived all his life here. 

 

[ParisInAKilt]

Rather than having to state on your first professional contract, it seems more practical that whoever you play for first should be the country you’re tied to. 

[Tartan_McCole]

9 hours ago, ParisInAKilt said:

Rather than having to state on your first professional contract, it seems more practical that whoever you play for first should be the country you’re tied to. 

He's probably never even set foot in Ireland though!

[stocky]

What annoys me a wee bit about this, is he plays for Celtic which is full of Scottish Players, why are they not bending his ear every day 

Cristie, ,Broon, MacGregor, Gordon, Forrest, Griffiths, Teirney etc 

 

They should be getting him tellt......and getting him tellt every single day ......

I still think McLeish should call him up for San Marino tho......

 

Edited February 18, 2019 by stocky

[er yir macaroon]

28 minutes ago, stocky said:

What annoys me a wee bit about this, is he plays for Celtic which is full of Scottish Players, why are they not bending his ear every day 

Cristie, ,Broon, MacGregor, Gordon, Forrest, Griffiths, Teirney etc 

 

They should be getting him tellt......and getting him tellt every single day ......

I still think McLeish should call him up for San Marino tho......

 

This is true. Fortunately, I’ve seen enough from our u17 and 19s to be less aggrieved than in previous cases. I also refer you to my Alex Lowry comments. Same age as Dembele. Different type of player but composure and touch from another planet. 

[aaid]

On 1/29/2019 at 6:17 PM, Chripper said:

As stated Sullivan seemed to turn up a lot, even when he knew that he'd be the bench. I also think Devlin was proud to play for us, lots of his family are Scottish and he said this after making his debut: "

"Playing at Hampden has always been a dream of mine and to finally achieve that made the match the proudest night of my career. I had 30-odd people in the stand watching me and it cost me an absolute fortune to make sure they could all be here. There were 23 of the clan from up here and a further seven flew up from down south."

I'd replace them with Dominic Matteo and Matt Elliott.

 

I had a long conversation with Paul Devlin at the end of his career when he was playing at Halesowen Town.   His family were from Coatbridge and he was always up there in the holidays, always considered himself Scottish and said he had two ambitions in football, one was to play in the top division in England, the other was to play for Scotland.    Had a very interesting talk with him about Berti Vogts to who he said he was eternally grateful to for giving him the opportunity to play for Scotland, although he felt he was actually playing better for Birmingham City in the Championship and didn't get called up than he was when they were in the Premiership.

Sullivan is slightly different, some English friends of mine met him at Euro 88, he was there with his family as an 18 year old at Wimbledon supporting England.    That said, when he got called up he was completely committed and gave it his all.   There were times when it would've been easier - when he wasn't playing club football regularly - to call off but still turned up and did his best.    

Elliott is a definite chancer, he was at Scunthorpe earlier in his career with Graeme Alexander and used to take the piss out of him about Scotland, Alexander was raging when Elliott suddenly got called up before him.

Matteo is a bit of a strange one, I think he was put under pressure at Liverpool as a youngster to declare for England.  At that time UEFA had the three foreigner rule and it was put to him that playing for Scotland would harm his chances at club level.  Mind you, Hutchinson was told the same thing and told Liverpool to stick it.    Ultimately Matteo was no great loss, a player of great potential but whose injuries meant he never really lived up to that.

[Rude Gullit]

17 hours ago, Super_Scotlandfan said:

Dembele was called up for England Under 16's today. 

Looks like this is his final decision...will be incredibly frustrating if he ends up living up to his potential. 

I'd hope we've done everything in our power, in this case, to convince him to play for us but we do seem a bit crap in identifying Scottish qualified players at an early age and retaining them through the age groups. 

Wales, on the other hand, seem to be able to do this even with massively hyped players. Ethan Ampadu was born and lived all his life in England but they called him up to their senior team at 16. Even with huge fan and media hype. They've also got David Brooks and plenty others too. 

It would be ideal if all our players were developed in Scotland and we should aim for that but the reality is there's loads of talent in England and lots will have Scottish parents/grandparents who'd be extremely proud to play for us. But we can't even convince Dembele who's lived all his life here. 

 

As I understand it he is allowed to switch one more time - so if he had opted to accept an U16 call up for us for the upcoming round of games he'd be tied to Scotland.

So as it stands (correct me if I'm wrong), he can still switch, but only one more time... and only if he really wants to.

[mccaughey85]

It's disappointing but at the end of the day he obviously doesn't feel that Scottish and we should be giving caps to ppl who want to play for Scotland. It will be alot more disappointing if he turns out to be brilliant but that is just a pill we will have to swallow. Tbf he can still switch over to us but I think it's best he doesn't because he clearly isn't dedicated to Scotland.

 

[Bobby Russell's Lovechild]

3 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

It's disappointing but at the end of the day he obviously doesn't feel that Scottish and we should be giving caps to ppl who want to play for Scotland. It will be alot more disappointing if he turns out to be brilliant but that is just a pill we will have to swallow. Tbf he can still switch over to us but I think it's best he doesn't because he clearly isn't dedicated to Scotland.

 

But how can he seriously feel English? All his family are Ivorian and they didn't think England was good enough to stick around in. Growing up in Glasgow and going to a Catholic school, how many of his mates were English, which could have influenced his decision? At a guess I would say next to none. This is purely a career choice and it would stick in my throat a bit if we ever saw him in Scotland shirt again as this would have meant that England have dropped him like a hot stone. He still has a hell of a long way to prove himself as we've had plenty of very promising kids over the recent years that have come to nothing. Celtic fans seem to be very excited about him, but he'll have to do a Feruz if he has any chance of getting into much older England teams

[Caledonian Craig]

4 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

It's disappointing but at the end of the day he obviously doesn't feel that Scottish and we should be giving caps to ppl who want to play for Scotland. It will be alot more disappointing if he turns out to be brilliant but that is just a pill we will have to swallow. Tbf he can still switch over to us but I think it's best he doesn't because he clearly isn't dedicated to Scotland.

 

Absolutely hits the nail on the head. Great post.

[Caledonian Craig]

21 minutes ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

But how can he seriously feel English? All his family are Ivorian and they didn't think England was good enough to stick around in. Growing up in Glasgow and going to a Catholic school, how many of his mates were English, which could have influenced his decision? At a guess I would say next to none. This is purely a career choice and it would stick in my throat a bit if we ever saw him in Scotland shirt again as this would have meant that England have dropped him like a hot stone. He still has a hell of a long way to prove himself as we've had plenty of very promising kids over the recent years that have come to nothing. Celtic fans seem to be very excited about him, but he'll have to do a Feruz if he has any chance of getting into much older England teams

Well all that matters is he does not feel sufficiently Scottish to want to represent us. Mind you we have been down this road before with Feruz who we bent over backwards to allow him and his family to remain in Scotland and he stabbed us in the back.

[mccaughey85]

14 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Well all that matters is he does not feel sufficiently Scottish to want to represent us. Mind you we have been down this road before with Feruz who we bent over backwards to allow him and his family to remain in Scotland and he stabbed us in the back.

It is a bit annoying to see this happen because lots of other countries football teams benefit from immigration and England have a huge pool to choose from. We need all the help we can get but at the end of the day if he doesn't want to represent us then he's better off not imo.

[Bobby Russell's Lovechild]

9 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

It is a bit annoying to see this happen because lots of other countries football teams benefit from immigration and England have a huge pool to choose from.

That's the problem Dembele is going to have, he'll be a small fish in a big pond breaking into the full England squad

[ParisInAKilt]

Without knowing anything about his upbringing I can on the face of it understand why he wouldn’t have a strong desire to play for Scotland. At the same time playing for England is most likely a career decision. Fair play to him. Them the rules.

[mccaughey85]

8 minutes ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

That's the problem Dembele is going to have, he'll be a small fish in a big pond breaking into the full England squad

This is true but my point was more that we should be benefiting from immigration as opposed til losing out on a potential star player. Countries like Belgium,France and England have lots of children of immigrants playing for them and if we could get one or two gems ourselves then it would help. Even Sweden has had stars like larrson and ibrahimovic who were the sons of immigrants. I think dembele has real potential and he looks like he could be a great player but if his heart isn't in it then he shouldnt be playing for us. It's a shame because ourselves or the ivory coast could do with a special talent as opposed to England who have lots of talented players to pick from.

[ParisInAKilt]

Refreshing comments from Kilbane, like to think we’ve still a few guys in our squad that feel the same. 

[Caledonian Craig]

39 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

This is true but my point was more that we should be benefiting from immigration as opposed til losing out on a potential star player. Countries like Belgium,France and England have lots of children of immigrants playing for them and if we could get one or two gems ourselves then it would help. Even Sweden has had stars like larrson and ibrahimovic who were the sons of immigrants. I think dembele has real potential and he looks like he could be a great player but if his heart isn't in it then he shouldnt be playing for us. It's a shame because ourselves or the ivory coast could do with a special talent as opposed to England who have lots of talented players to pick from.

I just think a lot of it is to do with our current standing. We haven't qualified for anything for 20 years now. What is the motivation for these immigrants to want to turn out for us? Given the chance they'll go where the hope of qualifying is and at present that isn't us. Dembele probably pictures himself playing at the World Cup but doesn't picture us playing at the World Cup so he'll look elsewhere.

[PASTA Mick]

27 minutes ago, ParisInAKilt said:

Refreshing comments from Kilbane, like to think we’ve still a few guys in our squad that feel the same. 

Kilbane got a lot of stick early in his career when he turned England down at youth level.

He talks about his dad and uncles and if you met them you'd understand why he picked Ireland, if he hasn't already made his point in the clip there.

I believe he also got in a bit of trouble because he kept turning up for training at Preston in a Celtic shirt

[Toepoke]

11 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

It's disappointing but at the end of the day he obviously doesn't feel that Scottish

For all we know he may well feel completely Scottish, he's lived almost his entire life here after all. Unfortunately he's also eligible to play for a bigger team than us and seems keen on pursuing that, no doubt because of increased earning potential. 

[Bobby Russell's Lovechild]

5 hours ago, Toepoke said:

For all we know he may well feel completely Scottish, he's lived almost his entire life here after all. Unfortunately he's also eligible to play for a bigger team than us and seems keen on pursuing that, no doubt because of increased earning potential. 

If that was to be the case, then we might as well just jack in international football. It is obviously a money factor as it's strange there has been no mention of a chance of representing the IC. Surely they would be sniffing around a player with a reputation he has atm?

Edited February 19, 2019 by Bobby Russell's Lovechild

[Toepoke]

1 hour ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

If that was to be the case, then we might as well just jack in international football. It is obviously a money factor as it's strange there has been no mention of a chance of representing the IC. Surely they would be sniffing around a player with a reputation he has atm?

Sadly it seems to be the mindset of modern footballers. It's no more about striving to win medals with your club and earn caps for your country, but earning the most dosh. Which tbh is understandable given the sums on offer.