When Cameroon-born Breel Embolo scored the winning goal for Switzerland against the nation of his birth, he declined to celebrate and seemed quite emotional. Journalists and pundits described the moment, which occurred in the opening match of Group G in this year's World Cup in Qatar, as "powerful". I would describe it instead as slightly perverse.
More on this after the jump...
We've had to hear a lot in recent years about the evils of colonialism, the devastation it wrought on Africa in particular and her people who are apparently structurally discriminated against in almost all facets of our modern society as a direct consequence of these past evils. Whatever the merits of this narrative, and I think they only can stretch so far, the long shadow of this praxis looms increasingly large in international football and economic migration in general.
A quick scan of top players and prospects across European teams at this year's tournament reveals many of African descent. Mbappe of France is also of Cameroonian descent, the Dutchman Cody Gakpo part Togolese, part Ghanaian. Rafael Leão's parents emigrated from Angola while Michy the Batman Batshuaiyi's hail from the Congo. In the not so distant past, associations and managers of less established footballing nations had good success convincing players with the relevant ancestry to lace up their boots for the flag of their parents or grandparents. Sometimes it would be a lad with no chance of ever playing for his birth nation such as the incongruous Chris Birchall of Trinidad & Tobago fame.
But you also have stars like Kalidou Koulibaly, who was born in France and could have played for them, instead choosing Senegal in part because he knew his parents would appreciate that respect for the heritage they raised him in. These kinds of national identities are fading away in the former colonial powers, contextualised and reimagined by many in the younger generation. Choosing to play for that big nation is much more of a business decision thaN it even ever was in the past as national teams more and more become corporate ciphers rather than representatives of their people and history.
In no country is this more evident than Germany, not an African colonizer but still a country haunted by past racism and atrocities. Die Mannschaft were once characterized by their machine like efficiency. Even while boasting brilliant flair players like Thomas Hässler and Jurgen Klinsmann they would work through the gears like a practiced crew on a factory floor on their way to an inevitable result. This present iteration by contrast flatters to deceive, a disparate collection of individual talents and egos, heading towards an early exit but looking like the perfect advert for multiculturalism while they signal their support for the LGBTQ cause they profess to care about so very, dearly much.
I'd call it a glamour.
Every time a World Cup rolls around there is persistent discussion about when an African team will finally break out. None has made it past the quarter final stage to date. That seems as far away as ever before today. There is never any accompanying discussion of Asian teams (South Korea made it to the semi-finals on home soil in 2002) probably because as discussed, so many great players in the modern game are of African descent. But you could fill entire teams with the talents that have turned their backs on the continent for the greener vaults of Switzerland and other ancestral masters.
What does it mean to be a citizen today? For Memphis Depay, born to a Ghanaian father and a Dutch mother, how does he reconcile these conflicting facets given his well publicized affinity for his father's roots? A fun game people like to play is projecting what a Yugoslavian national team would look like had that conglomeration remained intact. If Depay, Gakpo and Alphonso Davies played for Ghana, would they have beaten Portugal? If Western European powers did not pluck all the brightest youngsters out, would an African nation now be in a position to win the World Cup?
You see a similar situation with immigration. The stated goal of the British government is to fill in the gaps of our workforce by bringing them from abroad in massive numbers. Beyond any other considerations, there seems something deeply exploitative about siphoning all the greatest, most ambitious minds from countries which remain developing, many impoverished and in desperate need of medical, technological and entrepreneurial leaders themselves. It is not necessarily wrong to import this diverse new class and welcome them as fully fledged, contributing members of our own societies - but it does feel slightly perverse.
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