Rating Buzz

Don't overlook San Diego at 20 too. Very impressive showing for them!

With Cal, UCLA and Stanford in the top 10 and USC at 17, it could be hard for the NW Pac-10 schools to make a big surge this year.

I was looking through the new recruits' profiles on SoccerBuzz. Sydney Leroux is one of UCLA's top recruits. What caught my attention was her duel youth national team assignments to both the US and Canadian Teams. By far the biggest thing that's listed on her resume was the 2004 U-19 World Championship in Thailand. She was Sophie and Kara Lang's teammate. They did pretty well in their group (2-W 1-T) and advanced to the Quarterfinals where they were eventually were knocked off the tournament by China.

Anyway, I was wondering if Sydney played on any of the US National Teams? Can she? Is it a player's choice? Or does this have to be negotiated between the national organizations? Its an interesting issue to juggle. She's still young...but I imagine the opportunity to play determines which team she'll eventually have to consider....especially when senior team duty calls. I doubt that either national team would want to invest in any more time for player development very soon.

Sydney Leroux Soccer Buzz Profile

GO PILOTS!!!

Check that...I found the answer to my own question. Looks like she HAS and CAN play for both national teams.

Sydney Canadian National Team Profile

GO PILOTS!!!

GUPhantom wrote:Check that...I found the answer to my own question. Looks like she HAS and CAN play for both national teams.

Sydney Canadian National Team Profile

GO PILOTS!!!

Playing on YNT's does not lock you in to one country.

Once you play an international cap on a full national team for one country, it's pretty hard to change and play for another. There is an example of a U.S born player playing for Brasil who is going to have to decide in a couple years where to play. she has played on youth teams for both countries.

Once you get capped with the full national team, you cannot switch allegiances. I heard of a player petitioning for it in an extremely rare circumstance (I think he had like 2 or 3 caps for one of the small island nations in the Caribbean and extraneous circumstances led to his switch) to FIFA to change countries and they allowed it. But typically a player decides based on the likelihood of making the full team on a regular basis. For example, former Pepperdine goalkeeper Anna Picarelli (whose older brother Mario played for Portland from 2000-2004) has dual citizenship in the US and Italy; she decided to play for and has recently been capped for Italian team in their Euro qualifiers because in all likelihood she wasn't ever going to crack the full US team, even though she had stints in the US youth camps. Even Clive's daughter Sarah had her pick of 4 different countries to play for: the US (full-time citizen), Canada (mom's birthplace), England (dad's birthplace) and Wales (her birthplace), and she picked Canada. Holly Pierce had her choice between the US and Ireland and she picked Ireland. It really just comes down to how legit a shot a player has of making the full team; if they haven't been a mainstay in the youth system, then chances are if they can, they'll go to another country for the chance to play international soccer.