The World Cup is coming up, starting on June 11, and for those of you who know me, you know that the World Cup is the only time I get excited about soccer. For one month every four years I get me some World Cup fever, and after that I wait three years and eleven months until I care about soccer again. So since I have so little time to appreciate soccer, I hate to start my World Cup coverage on a negative note, but that's just the way it works. Today, my beef is with Giuseppe Rossi.
This past week, Rossi, a 23 year old striker, was left off of the Italian World Cup team, which he had longed to play for his entire life. So, why do I have a beef with the man who just had his hopes and dreams crushed at least for another four years?
Rossi, despite his very, very Italian name, was born in Teaneck, New Jersey. to Italian immigrant parents, both of whom taught language at local Clifton High School. He spent his childhood in the good ol' US of A, yet he's constantly decided to play with the Italians. When he was offered a spot on the Parma youth team, he moved to Italy with his family. Since then, he has played for the Italian national team at almost every different youth level.
Before the 2006 World Cup, Rossi was invited by USA coach Bruce Arena to come to the USA's pre-World Cup training camp, but refused the offer, even though he had no shot at playing for Italy. Chances are he would have made the American squad this year as well for the USA, but Rossi stuck with trying to make the Italian squad and once again got turned away, and I could not be happier.
You figure if Rossi, was not only born in the USA, but spent 15 of his 23 years here, that he would be playing for the Americans. I know that the US certainly isn't a soccer hotbed, but it provided Rossi with a great childhood, a great education and a great life. It's not like he was born here, but spent most of his life in Italy; this guy is an American whether he likes it or not.
Rossi isn't the first person to get all the perks of being an American, while playing for another country when international play comes around. In baseball, so many players are born in America, live in America, have success in America and become wealthy because of America, yet they still play for other teams when the World Baseball Classic comes around.
One example that immediately comes to mind is Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez was born to Dominican parents in New York. At the age of four he and his family moved to the Dominican Republic, but then moved almost immediately back to Miami, when the Dominican economy hit hard times. Rodriguez was born in America, bred in America, has succeeded in America, and his family was bailed out by America when they needed help most. Sounds like an American to me. But apparently, Rodriguez feels that having lived in the Dominican Republic for a couple years as opposed to the more than 30 years he has resided in the United States, and having Dominican parents, makes him more Dominican than American.
I don't want to make playing for the U.S. sound like a chore or a hardship here, but by playing in these international competitions, you are supposed to be doing your country a service. It's almost a responsibility for athletes to represent their country, if they have the talent to do so. Like so many Olympians, these star athletes, every four years, shed their team's jerseys and forget about the millions of dollars that they make, in order to represent their countries in the most renowned soccer tournament in the world.
Guys like Rossi and A-Rod didn't just end up in the United States on accident. Their parents came here for the same reason many other immigrants do, for a chance at a better life not only for themselves, but for their children. And the United States takes them in, because as it says on the Statue of Liberty, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" Sorry, if I'm going all American on everyone's you know what's, but if someone is going to live in America, and reap the benefits of being an American, then in return they should at least use the talents that they have developed here every four years to help out the country they were born and raised in, as opposed to playing for the country that their parents were born in.
So yes, Rossi has Italian parents, and has lived there for the past several years, but he was born in the United States; he was raised in the United States; he was educated in the United States; he got his start in soccer in the United States. This guy is an American first and an Italian second. He has a responsibility to represent his country, and that country is the United States of America.
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