5 football stars who could have represented 3 countries in international football
What if Lionel Messi would have played for Spain or Zinedine Zidane for Algeria or Mesut Ozil for Turkey? Would they be able to earn the same amount of glory like they have earned by now? The question will forever be remaining unanswered.
In the past, we have seen many such incidents when legendary footballers represented more than one country. Alfredo Di Stefano, Ferenc Puskas, Juan Alberto Schiaffino, the list pretty long and in most of the cases, the reason has not always been the hunger for glory.
Not long ago, the curious case of Adnan Januzaj shook the world of sports media. Januzaj could have represented Belgium, Albania, Kosovo, Turkey or England, having his past and present associated with all the 5 countries in some way or another. Keeping 5 countries interested at the same time, Januzaj eventually decided to represent his birth land Belgium.
Today we look at such 5 current football stars who could have represented 3 countries in international football but eventually chose to stick to just one nationality.
1) Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Imagine a Sweden team without Zlatan. Can you? Neither can us. Well not until that day when Zlatan finally decided to hang up his boots. Although in reality, this entire story could have been different altogether and Sweden would have to find a different successor for Henrik Larsson.
Šefik Ibrahimovic, Zlatan’s father was from Bosnia and his mother Jurka Gravic was from Croatia. So Zlatan was eligible to play for either of these two countries but instead he chose Sweden where he was actually born.
Zlatan’s parents parted ways when he was just 2 years old and have had a very troubled childhood. That was the most important reason of all why he didn’t choose to represent either of his parent’s homelands.
Though he did exceedingly well and made a legend of himself in Swedish colours, it is least to say that with current the Croatian team, he would have done even better.