Why a former US national team player is now trying to knock the team out of the World Cup


Esmir Bajraktarevic made his debut for the United States men's national team in January 2024 in a friendly against Slovenia. The winger, who was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, was playing for the New England Revolution in MLS at the time and appeared to be on his way to a promising future in international football. On Wednesday (or in the early hours of Thursday in the United Kingdom), Bajraktarevic is expected to take the field in the round of 16 match of the World Cup, where the United States faces Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, he will not be playing for the Americans. But why can football players represent more than one national team and when is this allowed? For FIFA, the governing body of world football, eligibility is based on nationality. A player can represent a country if he or she has citizenship, whether acquired automatically at birth or later through naturalization — a legal process of applying for citizenship. Binationals must have a genuine connection to the country, whether by birth, ancestry — if a parent or grandparent was born there — or by residence; living in a nation for at least five years (or three years before age 10). Before 2004, representing a country at youth level was enough to tie someone to that nation for their entire career, but the Algerian Football Federation pressured FIFA to change the rules as it struggled to attract players. FIFA then decided to allow players who had represented a country's youth teams to make a one-off switch to another national association, provided they had dual nationality, had not played a senior competitive match (a tournament game or a qualifying match) and made the request before the age of 21. In 2009, FIFA changed the rule again, thanks to more pressure from Algeria, allowing players with dual citizenship to switch after the age of 21 as long as they had not made a competitive senior appearance. The most recent relaxation of the rules came in 2020. FIFA now allows players who made up to three senior competitive appearances before turning 21 to change once three years have passed since those appearances if they have never played at a major final tournament.