Home nation doesn't always mean home (News Feature)

By David Hein Jun 9, 2010, 15:14 GMT

Hamburg - Playing for your country at a World Cup is one of the biggest honours a footballer can experience. But some two dozen players and another dozen coaches at South Africa 2010 will be donning national team colours of a nation not their own.

The largest contingent of players not playing for their true home nation is Brazil.

The Portuguese national team includes an impressive trio of Brazilians in stars Deco, Pepe and Liedson as well as Venezuelan Danny.

'The match against Brazil will be special, but I know that I am here to help Portugal and the rest of the team. It will be (a game) to enjoy,' said Pepe, who will face off against Brazil in Group G action.

And lining up for the Japanese is defender Marcus Tulio Tanaka, who is the third Brazilian-born player to represent Nippon at the World Cup following Wagner Lopes in 1998 and Alessandro Santos in 2002 and 2006.

Tulio though is the first Brazilian of Japanese ancestry - his grandfather immigrating to Brazil at 11.

'No matter how, I wanted to repay my grandfather who was courageous enough to become a pioneer in Brazil,' said Tulio, who came to Japan at age 16 in 1998.

Many of the players suited up in their home countries' jersey at the youth ranks but changed their minds at the senior level.

Algerian midfielder Hassan Yebda was part of the French national team that won the FIFA U17 World Cup title in 2001 before debuting for Algeria last September.

Many Algerians are French-born but play for the sole Arab representative in South Africa, including Carl Medjani, Nadir Belhadj, Antar Yahia and Rais M'Bolhi.

Another nation with international connections is Germany with Poland-born strikers Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski as well as Brazilian forward Cacau.

'I hope that I can give Germany a lot of happiness because Germany took me in so well. Germany kind of adopted me. I am happy being part of this team and part of this nation,' said Claudemir Jeronimo Barreto - Cacau's real name.

Cameroon have two German-born players in their ranks in Joel Matip and Eric Choupo Moting. And German-born Kevin Prince Boateng will play for Ghana after a long German youth career.

Argentine Lucas Barrios made headlines when he was awarded a Paraguayan passport in April - just in time to play for his mother's home nation.

'My family are all happy for me for the chance I have become. This is a very important step in my career,' Barrios told the German paper Bild am Sonntag recently.

North Korea striker Jong Tae Se meanwhile was born and raised in Japan; and Australia forward Nikita Rukavytsya moved from Ukraine to Perth at 14 years old; while Serbian Zdravko Kuzmanovic is a Swiss native.

Switzerland actually do well in their own regard with Blaise Nkufo from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gokhan Inler of Turkish origin and Erden Derdiyok with Kurdish roots.

The trio of Xherdan Shaqiri, Albert Bunjaku and Valon Behrami were all born in Kosovo with Shaqiri and Bunjaku both coming from Gnjilane.

The Swiss even have a German at the helm in Ottmar Hitzfeld.

But the Nati boss is not alone as far as coaches leading 'foreign' sides. All told, there are 12 such instances at South Africa 2010.

The other coaches are Dutchman Pim Verbeek with Australia; France's Paul Le Guen at Cameroon; Argentine Marcelo Bielsa with Chile; Swede Sven Goran Eriksson at Ivory Coast, England's Fabio Capello, an Italian; Serbian Milovan Rajevic with Ghana.

In addition, German Otto Rehhagel is with Greece; Colombia native Reinaldo Rueda coaches Honduras; Swede Lars Lagerback is at the helm of Nigeria; Argentine Gerardo Martino leads Paraguay; and Brazilian Carlos Alberto is guiding hosts South Africa.