Samir Bihmoutine is the latest Arsenal youngster to turn his back on a potential career with England, in favour of representing the country of his origins. Bihmoutine has confirmed he intends to represent Morocco next year.
He follows in the foot steps of Conor Henderson, Daniel Boateng, Ben Glasgow, Steven Smith, Philip Roberts, Callum Webb and more recently, Chuks Aneke. All were born in England, but were head hunted by other national team selectors and have since defected.
The nationality issue has been one which has raised many questions, with some, such as Boateng and Bihmoutine, confirming they didn’t want to play for the Three Lions at an early age. However, the likes of Aneke, Henderson and Ghanaian Emmanuel Frimpong all played for England before committing their future elsewhere.
Samir announced his intentions in an interview with Euro Football Zone, in which he revealed his intent to play for Morocco next year. The reasons why more and more players are rejecting England isn’t clear, but none of the players mentioned have been regulars for the youth ranks and its thought that the large number of English players in the system has seen many tempted elsewhere.
Bihmoutine may be the latest, but he won’t be the last. Alban Bunjaku is eligible to play for Albania while Congo could try and use their influence to tempt Benik Afobe away.
Surely Benik Afobe won’t have his head turned? Congo would hardly help to elevate his career at the top level.. No offence intended but at least Nigeria, Morrocco etc. have a chance of reaching the World Cup.
Obviously it’s about more than that but I’d hope Afobe will stick with England!
Haha, he’s never going to win the World Cup with England anyway so I’m not sure it matters! At least this way he might have an outside chance of winning the African cup of nations. Anyway I’m sure it’s about who he’d be more proud to represent really, don’t you?
Afobe should follow his heart: it is the best way to ensure his happiness, and a happy footballer is a better starting point for a prospect.
I understand that there are obviously going to be a slew of English Gooners on this site, but the reality is that what is best for England is rarely what is best for the Arsenal. I would hope that ALL of our players – and not just the English lads – do what is best for themselves and their careers… And not what is best for Stuart Pearce, or Fabio Capello, or ‘Insert International Manager’s Name of Your Choice Here’.
@Andy – You’re probably right! I just meant that playing for England over Congo would undoubtedly get him more recognition and be able to at least QUALIFY for a World Cup – the highest possible level for a player to play at. Playing at a level like that could really boost his career IMO.
@Noah – Agree he needs to follow his heart. Don’t really care if it’s good for England or whoever; I’m an Arsenal fan first and foremost (before England). If he wants to play for Congo, I have no qualms at all – just think that a level like the ACON etc. isn’t likely to better his career – instead of playing against the best players in the world at a WC, he’ll play with the best African players in the world. A lot of the time there’s a big difference IMO.
Stuart Pearce is the main reason youngsters don’t want to play for England.
Not just him mate. Swain, Peacock, Blake, etc are all clowns. I would HATE to play under them! Football should be played a certain way i believe and their ideologies and philosophy on the game completely go against that. Moreover, politics in the game including selection process, coaching methods and the overall ‘vision’ of the set-up itself will deter many, many talented youngsters up and down this country. The fact that Chuks has turned is gonna bite them HARD one day (and i’m gonna love it). Bunjaku will probably follow suit soon, like how Jamie alluded to in the article. It’s as if technique is still frowned upon by Pearce and his cronies and the F.A OH SO BLATANTLY sing from the same hymn sheet as Laurent Blanc and the FFF but we’re English so we won’t make a song and dance about that! ;)
Hey, if you guys can put together good evidence for your explanation as to why this is happening, maybe in collaboration with Jamie, and publish it here you’d have a real scoop. You gotta get a few critical quotes from players, though, for their decisions. We know a few journos cannibalize this site. Give ’em this story and it will be in the Daily Mail within hours. It has alarmism all over it. The story: England’s footballing future jeopadized! Wenger (ironically in their eyes) is trying to raise up the next generation of technical ball players for England and the old school coaches at the FA are putting them off by picking only pacey and powerful, using antiquated coaching methods, discriminating against foreign born players, etc [fill in the blank here guys – I don’t actually know the story]. Go for it!
Well, it’s not like Bihmoutine will make it at the highest level so who gives a fuck anyway.
Daniel Boateng is horrible. I doubt any national team will take him.
Benik Afobe is never going to pick Congo for sure just like Gael Kakuta and Lukaku will pick France and Belgium over Congo.
Henderson will make it for Ireland.England will have McEachran. They are almost the same players so no big deal there.
If Frimpong makes it at Arsenal, it will be a huge problem for the club so I urge Wenger to pick Coquelin over him in the long term.
Aneke will not make it at Arsenal so who cares.
Glasgow,Smith and Webb will never get a look in for the first team so no big deal.
Roberts … let’s see what he does in the next 2-3 years.
Aneke not make it at arsenal? haha dude, what have you been smoking lately?
Why is it going to be a big problem if Frimpong instead of Coquelin is Arsenal’s future first choice defensive-midfielder?
I’m pretty sure Aneke will make it. Wenger clearly rates him to the extent he invited him to train with the first team in December and suggestions were he was going to play a part in the Carling Cup squad, but since Wenger went for it this time, he obviously played more experienced players.
Wenger also rates Djourou whats you point?
Aneke is not gonna make it at Arsenal? Henderson and McEachran are the same player? I’m sorry, i usually respect people’s opinions, as long as they hold some form of validity, but in the words of Hiroo Nakamura, ‘haha dude, what have you been smoking lately?’
Henderson is the most overrated player in the Arsenal youth ranks, by quite a distance, and will struggle to break through at our club. He’s a decent prospect, nothing more, nothing less! McEachran is also extremely overrated! A better prospect than Henderson, but don’t be surprised if he does a bit of a Mark Randall and stagnates. I told certain Gooners on this very site at the beginning of the season, who were all claiming that he was a better prospect than Jack Wilshere (JS must surely remember), that he would go quiet and won’t achieve much this season. Has he featured for Chelsea in 2011? I can’t remember. The fact that he’s been picked in the under 21’s squad all season, despite playing reserve football (i think) is a shambles in itself and goes against what the F.A have always said about players who feature regularly will get a call-up. I noticed that Manure and Chav players have been exempt from this rule over the past few seasons or so….politics!
The main reason for this is that most players feel Britsh but not English and they’ll be reverred in their countries of origin more than here. It’s simple really.
sick of these kids getting ahead of themselves and “confirming” their intention to play for a national team. I am 23 and could play for england or scotland. So to clear it up, im pledging my future to england. Anyone give a fuck?
I think its a joke
Just be looking at the arsenal under 16 it looks like we have got even more african kids coming through.
Alban bunajku has he by any chance been contacted by the fa?
To answer your question: Yes, Alban has got a chance of being contacted by the F.A at some point as he’s very talented and qualifies to play for England. However, he does have a bit of a ‘funny’ name and therefore he may not quite be suited to representing the national side of his country of birth!
cant believe the criticism some people give to some of our young players. drogba did not get noticed until he was around 24/25 and now he has become one of the best strikers around. For someone to say Daniel Boateng is horrible or Aneke will never make it is a joke they are very young to make a judgement on yet and to have made the youth/reserve ranks of a club like Arsenal you need to have a serious talent in the first place.
If they do all make it would be nice to see an english team full of arsenal players.To be honest I am disappointed but there you go
an english team full of arsenal players managed by wenger, that should make a few jocks happy for sure and lets face it the rest of the footballing world would get a good giggle also
Jamie what do u think about these 5 players from the u17 danish team : Norgaard, Amankwa, Fischer, Poulsen and Zohore … i especially like Fischer`s style.
I have been watching the u17 tourney. The quality has been poor, at least in the games I have watched. The u17 South American championships were much better. I looked forward to watching Denmark and mainly Zahore but he hardly seemed a special talent. Just really big. The number 6 center mid seemed ok. He could pick out a pass and the left back was not bad either.
Looks like there’s an intergration issue here!
I can’t believe that any of these players would get ‘their head turned’, if in their heart their dream was to represent England then feeling mistreated or ignored by England youth coaches probably wouldn’t have changed that.
It’s much more likely that their wish has been to represent their country of heritage all along, and disappointing experiences with England youth sides may have just made their mind up and convinced them that was the right decision.
Spot on TJ DA GOON. The sad thing is that we have finally caught up with the continent with regards to the standard of young players being produced up and down the country but are not maximising the potential with the poor coaching set up throughout the age groups.
Welcome to the life of America. So many people live here but half of them claim another nation. We have lost out on Subitoc, Funes Mori, Gioseppi Rossi, Hangeland, and the # 10 for Argentina’s u20 team in recent years. To be fair to Hangeland, he was just born here but raised in norway.
Subotic and Hangeland have never struck me as being particularly American… but Giuseppe Rossi is about as Italian as the bowl of spaghetti I had for dinner the other night. A @#$%ing traitor and I cheered when he was left off of Italy’s World Cup roster.
What is being American though? Like I said, half the country claims to be something else. Anyways, yah Rossi is the only one I hate. This douche bag has on his twitter account that New Jersey will always be is home.
I just watched a youtube video of this kid Alban Bunjaku and have not seen much of our youth teams this year so I was wondering what people think about this kid. He looks brilliant from the video.
Wrenny, we had an issue with Subitoc from Dortmund here. He was the captain of our u20 team and then one day the u20 coach told him he was not good enough and dropped him from the squad. 6 months later he was performing great in Germany and we tried to call him up for our full national team. At that point he chose Serbia because he was upset with how he was treated by the u20s.
His name is SUBOTIC!And now because of that Serbia has one of the best defenses in the world (Ivanovic-Vidic-Subotic-Kolarov) :D I understand Bihmoutine because I remember when Bojan Krkic chose Spain before Serbia everybody here were saying that he forgot where is he from and a lot of Serbs started to hate him…
Really, yelling out minor spelling errors. Nice. I was not saying anything about anyone hating the player. Was just responding to wrenny’s comment on how players do not choose nations because of things like this.
I was on holidays I didn’t know that aneke had chosen Nigeria … That’s terrible news for England. The FA coaches are a bunch of muppets . What a joke . The same thing is gonna happen with Bunjaku. The Current England u17 team can’t make 2 passes in a row and yet peacock hasnt even called bunjaku . How depressing !
Zohore has played champions league football lol he’s in the Copenhagen 1st time.
Fischer has signed for Ajax apparently he’s better than eriksen.
Tournament been poor probably the worst one I have seen.
Btw js you heard about Denmark calling up bendtner for the under 21 tournament?
Bunjaku is a super talent . By far the best prospect of the current u18 team for me. Very skillful and classy on the ball, super first touch. IMO he is going to be special
Only worry I have with Bunjaku is we had a similar talent in Barazite who was brilliant in reserves and for youth. Not saying they’re same but similar players. I really hope he does make it though as he is a super talent and technically the most gifted we’ve produced since Wilshere.
I hope to find a full game of this kid soon. He has this Zidane about him from the video I saw. Elegant player.
Well honestly, who would wanna join the England national team if they could choose something els?
England is much like Liverpool FC. living on past glory.
England is bread and circus really. its Wags, its flasy money,its all about being a star.
Take germany, germany is all about winning. England is all about showing off.
the reason these kids don’t chose england is that they been contacted so know they will get a chance at int level
As others have said, there’s a lot of politics in the English set up. Ask any young player in the England under-teams. It’s enough to put you off.
At least the other countries are more appreciative of their players, and more supportive.
Believe it or not the reason a lot of these players dont want to play for England is that they would not enjoy it. Look at countries such as Ghana and Morocoo. Players enjoy going back to these countries to play national games and to be in touch with their culture. The England National sides seem like a burden on players more than an enjoymenyt. A classic example is the World Cup. Look at the Ghanaian side and the English side. The ghanaians enjoyed every moment of the tournament with a smile on their face just wanting to make their nation proud. The English were a complete contrast to this. What do you think is more attractive to a young player??
Alban Banjuku is 16 first year for the under 18s.
Hes going to be sensational next year.
I can see him scoring some special goals.
Really reminds me of matt le tissier.
The way hes goes past players, touch, control really is like matt le tissier
Would any England fan really want players playing for their country if they weren’t fully committed anyway? Putting in lacklustre performances like we’ve seen over recent tournaments?
I’m good friends with some of Albans immediate family and they all seem to be very proud of their heritage. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if he chose to represent them. Our loss but the FA doesn’t make these kids feel AS wanted at a younger age while other nations make a concious effort to attract them.
When did Aneke choose Nigeria?
Wish more of these youngsters would choose England, though tbh if they don’t consider themselves English I would prefer for them to not play for us.
The reason could be very simple indeed. Since FIFA relaxed their rules on players changing nationalities, young players can represent smaller countries with less competition at youth level, only to swap at senior level once they’ve gained the experience.
Not surprised really. The players of African descent are quite proud of their roots and wouldn’t have any problems making the switch.
I can also see Zak Ansah “getting his head turned”. Of what descent Akpom? I’m guessing Nigerian, if so it wouldn’t be surprising if he made the switch ala Chuks Aneke.
yes its up to them, but surely wenger must be getting a little pissed off after all his rants about we have englands future.
It really isn’t Wenger’s fault at all mate. He produces the talent and these twats at the F.A choose to neglect top young talents in favour of less talented, over-hyped lads. I can already see England as a whole being super pissed in about 5-10 years when they realise just how much ‘British’ talent that would have gladly represented the NT, they’ve missed out on simply because they couldn’t give two shits about some foreign kid’s talent and implement them into the system. It’s not just at Arsenal. Other clubs have very good players coming through that won’t get the same chances as others simply because their name doesn’t fit.
First of, im a dane therefore follows the danish leagues and its talents, so i can tell you a little bit about the U17s.
Kenneth Zohore: Impressive physique and has drawn comparise to Didier Drogbe ( Which btw is his fathers cousin) but lack a lot of technique and generel playing intelligence, i personally dont rate him at all.
Viktor Fischer: A big talent with impressve talent and technique, a real no.10. Already been snatched up by Ajax.
Patrick Olsen: Looks like a real prospect, good physique and a very good passing rate.
Danny Amankwaa: Tricky winger with good dribling ability and crosses, needs to improve his playing inteligence.
Lucas Andersen: Has been injured all tournament but have been hugely impressive in the superliga (danish league). A bit like Viktor Fischer with good technique a real talent for that need touch and passing rate. Already making an impact on the AAB team at the tender age off 16.
Just a a little resume of the most talented players on the dansh side. Also players like Riza Durmisi, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Frederik Holst deserves a mention. Cheers!
whaaaaaat Aneke for Nigeria??? When did he chose Nigeria?
This is what the english national team get when they don’t chosea few talanted players and stick with only one group for too long.
TJ, I for once disagree with you. Mceachran is going to be special , he is physically less mature than Wilshere so it will take him more time to be a starter in the PL, but I saw him being the best player on the pitch by some distance against marseille away in the CL. French commentators were raving about him. He will be loaned next year and will be a starter for Chelsea the year after mark my words. Technically he’s different class
He is immensely good in a technical sense and has a very good final ball. I haven’t seen nothing else! Ultimately, what will let him down, UNLESS he improves drastically in this instance, is his lack of fight. JW is a little beast and never shirks a challenge (and he’s a good couple of inches shorter than JM). JM has a bit of the Diaby/Denilson about him in the sense that he’s a bit of a biscuit and crumbles/gives up easily. Luxury players that don’t wanna put the work in on the football pitch! I’m not talking about physical strength – I’m talking about heart! McEachran hasn’t really got the fight in him (he’ll fit in perfectly at Arsenal with all that technique and NO fight). I’ve seen him get mugged a few times this season and not bother too much to try and win it back. Ancelotti’s a smart guy. He realised the kid was way out of his depth in the PL and pulled him out of the firing line straight away. Obviously, he’s under pressure from the Russian to win titles too so he had no other choice but to do this. Since then, i’ve seen him play for the under 21’s a couple of times and get outshone by the likes of Danny Rose! He should have been out on loan THIS season so you lot could all see just how overrated he actually is. I would look good playing CM for Chelsea being surrounded by players like Essien, Drogba, Lampard, Terry, Cashley, Ivanovic, Anelka, Malouda, etc, etc too. Still, it remains to be seen how this kid turns out. I still maintain that Chuks Aneke is a different class to him!
Come on guys the reason why so many of our youth team players have such a multicutural background is because arsenal are a london-based club and its a multi-cultural city and were nt the only country with this problem becuase if you look through ranks of germany and frances national set up roughly half of them are able to play for other countries
I’ve just seen this bit floating around: Anderlecht chief Herman Van Holsbeeck was in London last week for talks with Arsenal about player exchanges. Gunners pair Oguzhan Ozyakup and Wellington were discussed. Apparently he also inquired about Vela as well.
I say, give us a good deal on Lukaku and they can have all three! A fantasy of course, as Lukaku is bound to end up with the Chavs.
And then i wonder what would have happened if the Ferdinands’ and Defoe chose St Lucia instead of England
St Lucia would have become a world power!
Just think what a young player with a decent head on his shoulders thinks looking at Jack Wilsheire. Fantastic footballer, stunning prospect, an his country want to run him into the ground. This could stunt his entire career, limit his potential and cause him grave psycological and physical damage.
I think i’d say sod that for a game of shoulders and pick the country of my heritage, whether it’s the country in my heart or not. An tbf, a lot of young people don’t really give a toss about this country anyway, it’s not the most endearing of places at times, especially towards the young.
nb game of shoulders is a real game.
Is there any kids in the reserve that are any good? I remember JS banging on about Chuks Aneke, but from what I’ve read it seems some think that ‘praise’ is a bit unjustified.
Chuks, JET, Frimpong, The English defender who is on loan who’s name always slips me,which of them can make a step up even in the medium term.
At the end of the day it is up to each indervidual who they choose to play for in regards to international football, but ability wise he is no great loss to the England national team set up.
It has to be up to the player which country they play for. I am of the that opinion you should play for the national team that you identify with, if Bihmoutine feels Moroccan and not English he should choose Morocco. It’s just a shame that, as other’s have suggested, that some of our brighter talents seem to be over looked by England’s youth set up for whatever reason, whether its politics or old fashioned coaching ideals. However, I can’t help but think these decisions will hinder Aneke et al chances of making it at Arsenal for the simple reason that Wenger or future managers can’t build a team around a group of players that will be playing their parts in the African Nations every two years in the middle of our domestic season.
P.S great site, haven’t commented before but have followed it for a long time.
This remind me of an interesting case. Sporting Lisbon has very good center back called Eric Dier. Is an English kid. He was already convinced to play for Portugal…instead he (and Sporting) decided to send him on a loan to Everton because here he wasn´t getting any attention from the English squad. And they knew about him. I don´t know about how´s the situation now but I thought in share this story and show how you can lose another valuable player for apparently no reason
Well Hangeland only lived in America for 2 years, he grew up in Norway with Norwegian parents. Had he choosen USA it had been more like this. And Subotic wasn’t even born in the States
erm, if all of these arsenal kis stick together and play 7 – 10 years for arsenal, they could surely do a barca and win the world cup for their country.
TJ , Mceachran was the best player on the pitch vs italy under 21! The Rose comparison is very harsh to say the least! I see what you mean, yes he’s not tough like Wilshere but the comparison with diabilson is harsh. He is going to be a big player for England and I can see him being the English xavi ( with Wilshere being iniesta)
Was that the game Ben Mee (another player out of his depth) got sent off in?
He clearly wasn’t English, so why does anybody actually care? Clearly these people aren’t ‘international’ football fans.