Ahead of the World Cup, each country had a lot of worries about its players. In the case of a soccer powerhouse, this concern would not exist much, but for a weak country, advancing to the World Cup was very special, showing a lot of preparation.
Here, several countries were showing that they were currently pursuing naturalization projects ahead of the World Cup. First of all, Ghana, which was included in Group H with South Korea at the Qatar World Cup, was pushing for an aggressive naturalization project, making Korean soccer fans nervous.
Ghana was pushing for naturalization of many players, including Callum Hudson-Odoi and Eddie Nketia, and questions begin to arise about the naturalization project of Korean football.
How many points can you give to Korean soccer participating in the World Cup in terms in the World Cup? South Korea set an amazing record of advancing to the semifinals at the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup, but Korean soccer could never be said to be strong in the reality that it aims to advance to the round of 16.
It had to produce reasonable results as it invested more money than any other sport, but it was always eliminated in the group stage, and other countries replaced this shortage with naturalization projects, but Korean soccer did not.
The beginning of a naturalization project
It was not too long ago that a naturalized player began to play in the World Cup. In the 1990s, France failed to advance to the round of 16 in two World Cups, and in 1998, the naturalization project was launched.
Initially, many countries had negative tendencies due to people who value pure blood, but France accepted David Trezeguet, Marcel de Sai, and Zinedine Zidane in 1998 to achieve good results in the World Cup, and they succeeded in winning the World Cup.
For this reason, neighboring countries began to open their minds little by little to naturalize players, and today came when players with multiple nationalities could choose the national team.
Multiple nationalities
There were quite a few players from Europe, many of whom had more than two nationalities, and this was an example of the nationality caused by past colonial rule.
Dual citizenship begins to be considered in the European Football Association in that it is not difficult to meet people of various nationalities because of the dual nationality created by colonial rule in the past and European countries.
But Asia was different. There was no colonial culture of different races like Europe in the past, and Korea was ruled by Japan in the past, but it could be seen that there was a big difference compared to Europe and the background.
Naturalization Project in China and Japan
In Asia, Japan pushed for this in a positive way to naturalize players, and they even dressed foreigners in national team uniforms.
Japan qualified him to be included in the Japanese national team in terms of his proficiency in Japanese language, long-lived, and understood culture, and Japan still showed an open mind to naturalization of players, allowing him to see players in hepatoretic Japanese national team uniforms.
In the case of China, it was the most aggressive naturalization project in Asia. China was a weak country in soccer as it was hard to see in the World Cup.
The number of people was large and they always had enough talent to aim for a gold medal in Olympic events, but the story was different for soccer.
Thus, they seduced foreign players playing in the Chinese Super League with the Chinese national team, and Chinese Super League players, who had difficulty thinking about their country’s national team, showed acceptance.
However, as Chinese football was a weak team that did not show much difference from the previous one, there were players who eventually gave up their Chinese nationality and headed to their homeland, and above all, commercially created clubs participating in the Chinese Super League were disappearing in history due to financial difficulties.
Naturalization of Korean Soccer Players
Korean soccer, which had fewer multiple nationalities than Europe, always showed limitations in soccer. Soccer’s perception of the country played a growing role, with many differences from Korean soccer in that other countries had different approaches to soccer, and K-League clubs also expected a lot of players from Brazil or soccer powerhouses.
Ahead of the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, the Korea Football Association pushed for naturalization as a player, and in 2002, Hiddink saw the player himself and judged that he was not suitable as a national player, and in 2006, Choi Kang-hee strongly wanted to naturalize as Eninho, but he could not give him Korean citizenship.
In the past, there were foreigners who played in the K-League with Korean nationality, but so far, there has been no record of such players wearing Korean national team uniforms.
Then, why is there no naturalized national soccer player in Korean soccer? The language and culture of Hangul, and it was difficult to access unless you were a foreigner who grew up in Korea from an early age and acquired nationality.
Most of all, he had to face military service even if he was naturalized, and it was thought that these conditions might make him not pay much attention to Korean nationality compared to his own country.
At this point, Cesinha
Daegu FC captain and ace Cesinha, who is from Brazil, has long wanted to wear the Korean national team uniform. He mentioned that he would live in Korea in the future and was planning a coaching and leadership career at Daegu FC even after retirement.
Amid rumors of naturalization due to his good performance, he said that he also wanted to play in a national uniform with Son Heung-min.
Cesinha was quite active in acquiring Korean nationality, but he said he was satisfied with Korean life and wanted nationality because he liked Korea, not just for the national team.
He did not want Korean nationality for financial reasons and in terms of difficulties in competing for the national flag in Brazil, and he said he did not want special naturalization and thought it would be an honor to include the national flag after acquiring it.
Cesinha said he was ready for the national team at any time, and many Korean soccer fans also wanted to be included in the national team due to Cesinha’s naturalization, indicating that many people were listening to him at the recent K-League Awards.