Spain 2010 World Cup Winners - picture source guardian.co.uk
España España España España España España España España
España, pronounced [esˈpaɲa]
Spain won the 2010 World Cup, this was their first Cup win, hard to imagine since they are supposed to have the best players on their teams, such as Ronaldo and Beckham for Real Madrid. Local teams can have players from around the world, however the World Cup team players must be national. This got me wondering what are the player requirements for the World Cup, after a bit of searching below is what I found.
Means of qualifying to play for a nation:
1. If your parent or grandparent was born in a country, then you are eligible to play for that country.
2. Marrying a national.
3. Naturalized citizens of the country are eligible also.
Players may play for a single country, but many are ‘imported’ from elsewhere in the world as their day jobs are actually elsewhere. Looking at Spain’s 2010 World Cup team only three players play for non-Spanish teams, the rest play on Spanish teams, pretty impressive.
