Team USA: The German Effect

America, while not perfect by any means, is and will continue to be the land of the free, the land of opportunity, the land of immigrants and a land where hard work and dedication take you further than anything else. If you were to walk down the street in most towns here, no matter which state you live in and ask each person you met what their nationality is, you would receive a million different combinations of nationalities, ethnicities and mixes.

That is because America is a land where immigration has been greatly encouraged for decades, where you can change your life and make something of yourself regardless of your social status, education, race, religion or ethnicity. All it takes in America is hard work, determination to never give up until you have achieved success and a desire to shine bright.

“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-tost to me “

The New Colossus, Emma Lazarus, 1883

That historic quote is the message that I would like to give to all of the countries in the world. If you don’t want talented athletes to play for you and they have dual-citizenship with the United States, then we will happily take them and give them a chance for us.

The US National team represents this “melting pot” of society that America truly has been and continues to be. If you look at nearly every player on the US National Team, you could potentially see hundreds of different ethnicities represented in just a few players.

What makes the US National Team so great is that when those 11 players walk onto the pitch, they aren’t just representing one race or ethnicity; they are representing every single person in America from the East Coast all the way to the West Coast from the southern border all the way to the northern one.

Four recent additions to the US National Team have come out of Germany this past year. Danny Williams, Timothy Chandler, Jermaine Jones and Fabian Johnson were all born in Germany to mixed families of German and American heritage. These players have been brought into the fold recently, as Jurgen Klinsmann has attempted to convince talented players of mixed heritage to decide that they want to represent the United States on the national level.

Each of these players may never have lived in the United States; some have only recently visited the US, but all of them have an intense connection to the country and have been truly accepted into the United States fold.  Many of these players, such as Danny Williams and Jermaine Jones, have stated that they feel like they have been judged by their national sides for their mixed ethnicities and have felt more accepted in this foreign to them country of America than in their own country of birth.

"This past summer when I went to the States, it became my dream to play for the United States," Williams stated emphatically. "I really felt connected to this country. When I was in Miami, everyone thought I was American because the way I looked and acted. In Germany, the people see me as a foreigner. Everyone knew that one of my parents [came] from another country. But I feel so connected to the United States after being there and I'm honored to play for them."

Quote by Danny Williams, Williams' American Journey, Brian Sciaretta: Monday, Oct. 3, 2011

These players began their training in the youth squads of some of the top Bundesliga teams in one of the top leagues in Europe. This has given them a very European football upbringing that will be great to see brought into the US camp where youth soccer is still a much evolving and improving part of the game. These players play week in and week out against some of the best sides in world football, including Bayern Munich, Hamburg SV and Schalke 04, which can only improve their skills and abilities and contribute to the US National Team.

Hopefully, the other members of the US National Team can both learn from the technical German way of doing things as well as passing on some of our good old American tenacity and spirit to them. This exchange of knowledge and experience is what America is truly all about, and I personally cannot wait to see what these players can offer for the US National Team.

If Jurgen Klinsmann can continue to convince those players on the fence with their nationality that the United States is where they should commit their International Football careers, then this will be a completely different looking United States side over the next few years. The more options and diversity that the US National Team has, the better they will be situated when it comes to the major tournaments ahead of us.

The United States, and US soccer in particular, leads all the world’s countries when it comes to diversity on the playing field and should continue this process and bring as many of the world’s best players into our national team setup as we can.