It Will Be Wrong and Undeserved If Amauri Gets Italy Call Up

This week there has been another significant development in Italian football that has been completely overshadowed by the return of Calciopoli. It is to do with Juventus' Brazilian striker Amauri who has just recently acquired Italian citizenship, which makes him eligible to play for the Azzurri this summer in South Africa.

With Amauri having gained the right to play for Italy, there is a good chance that Lippi will take the Brazilian to the World Cup which will be at the cost of a true Italian player being left behind. Such an event, if it were to occur, would be scandalous, to borrow the words from Fabio Quagliarella's father.

And indeed, the Quagliarella's Neapolitan father is absolutely right.

For one, based on performances this season, Amauri has no right to gain a place in the Azzurri for like much of the Juventus side, he has simply been woeful.

Amauri has only managed a measly seven goals in the thirty competitive matches he has started in. Hardly the form of a striker eager to go to the World Cup and hardly the form of a striker Lippi would want to take, when if he looked around, he could find a host of Italian strikers that have outperformed the Brazilian and would love nothing more than representing their country at the biggest sporting event in the world.

One just needs to look at the Capocannoniere (Serie A's goal scoring chart) where four of the top five goal scorers this term are all Italian. Antonio Di Natale, who is No. 1, has had a fine season having notched up 23 goals to date along with five assists. Alberto Gilardino, Fabrizio Miccoli are equal third with 15 goals each, whilst Giampaolo Pazzini rounds out the top five with 14 goals tallied to his name.

With Lippi set to take five strikers to South Africa, Di Natale then surely has to be a guarantee for a place as well as both Gilardino and Pazzini who have done more than enough this season to confirm their spots.

The case is not so simple for Miccoli, who along with Cassano, has virtually no chance of being selected due to past off-field confrontations with the Italy coach. It is a highly unfortunate state of affairs that the Azzurri, come South Africa, will not feature two of Italy's most naturally gifted players. But this is a problem for another day.

But even with Miccoli and Cassano not in contention for a spot, there are still many better options for Lippi to choose from rather than pick Amauri. This is not to say that Lippi is spoilt for choice when it comes to selecting his Azzurri side for the summer, for there is currently a real dearth of talent on peninsula, by Italian standards at least. It is more because this season, it has not been hard for Serie A's Italian strikers to better the miserable performances of Amauri.

Better options for Lippi include Fabio Quagliarella who has scored nine goals this season, Alessandro Matri with 13 goals and five assists, Sergio Floccari (10 goals), and Marco Borriello who has had a stellar, if not spectacular season with Milan having notched up a highly respectable tally of 13 goals thus far. Maybe even a certain Mario Balotelli.

Marco Borriello in particular deserves to be chosen ahead of Amauri. Borriello, like Amauri, is an ideal target man, able to hold the ball up well and also strong on the ball. But, unlike Amauri, Borriello has had a formidable season, helping Milan to a strong third position in the table with his 13 goals in Serie A.

The second reason why Lippi should not take Amauri is because Amauri, despite now being an Italian citizen, is not Italian.

A player should not be allowed to represent a country in which they have no ancestral roots. Amauri is such a player.

Football's governing body would do well to implement certain rules and regulations that prevent players from foreign nations becoming 'naturalised' by local governing authorities so that they can play for foreign national sides. Such action has to be taken in order to preserve the authenticity of international competition.

There is no problem with a country allowing a player to represent their country as long as that player has ancestral ties with that particular nation. Mauro Camoranesi is such a player.

But any player who earns his citizenship of a foreign nation either through work, marriage, or other means, should not be allowed to represent that nation. 

But countries like Italy will continue to award citizenship to foreigners who do earn the right to citizenship and so they should. 

It is here, however, that FIFA has to step in and implement rules regarding a player's eligibility to represent a nation other than that of their birth place. For it is in the interest of International football that such action is taken.

In the case of Amauri, it is not so much an issue of his legal rights to play for Italy, but more about Amauri being completely undeserving of a place in South Africa and this, one hopes, will be enough for Lippi to make the right decision.