North Korea?

It'll be difficult to disprove either of those, at least. A search for Cuban football in Wiki brings up very few results in English (11 players - 3 members of the '38 World Cup squad, 8 defectees who are currently playing in the USL in the States), and even fewer in Spanish (not a single player!).

The Asociación de Fútbol de Cuba also doesn't appear to have a website. If it does, it's not listed in Google Cuba.

Not speaking / reading Korean, I'll let someone else try researching North Korea...

North Korea's current squad includes a couple of Japanese-born players.

can i dive in and spur a delicious tangent, by asking how a north koren (hong yong-jo) has managed to end up playing in serbia (for fk bezanija)?

in five minutes i'm going on my holidays for a week, so you should probably pm me the answer - if there is one - then start a thread in about a week telling me i have a pm.

anyway, yeah. a north korean international playing in serbia. seems odd.

I signed a North Korean for Racing on Football Manager once. For no other reason than I fancied having an obscure nationality in the side, and had a good enough team to be able to afford a really, really shit striker.

He was DREADFUL.

I also signed a Zimbabwean forward who did alright for us before buggering off to some club in Italy's Serie C2 or something.

I don't want to talk about Football Manager. My season is collapsing around my ears.

I accept that Cuba would be hard to disprove. I think it is a good call because it is a poor country with little interest in football (therefore little incentive for exiles children to return) and, of course, many of the exiles are unwilling to return.

Other possibilities would be the likes of Bangladesh or Laos.

However, immigration into Cuba was still a major cause of the country's population growth until well into the twentieth century. Fidel Castro's dad was Spanish. So what I'm thinking is one of these incoming Spaniards may also have played for them.

When I'm in Havana (four weeks to go!) I'll try and check it out, if I've got time, but I don't expect I'll get anywhere.

Chippy beat me to it - I think the likeliest places are small countries in Asia. Nepal, Laos, Cambodia, that kind of place.

In fact, one or two of the central Asian republics like the Kyrgyz Republic may be even better shouts becuase they've only been in existence since 92.

Though the problem with those is that by definition no player over the age of 16 will have been born in the current independent entity.

My guess is that Cambodia's colonial ties were too strong for there not to have been at least one French-born player in the team if it played a significant number of matches before WWII. A more isolated nation is a better bet, and Bhutan is an even more likely possibility than Nepal, given the latter's long history of attracting Seven Years in Tibet types.

OngelukkigOranjeVoetbal wrote:

QUOTE:
can i dive in and spur a delicious tangent, by asking how a north koren (hong yong-jo) has managed to end up playing in serbia (for fk bezanija)?

in five minutes i'm going on my holidays for a week, so you should probably pm me the answer - if there is one - then start a thread in about a week telling me i have a pm.

anyway, yeah. a north korean international playing in serbia. seems odd.

I read this morning that he was born in Serbia, he scored both goals in their 2-0 win over Jordan in WC qualifying this weekend.

Sempronio Carpentiere wrote:

QUOTE:
I read this morning that he was born in Serbia, he scored both goals in their 2-0 win over Jordan in WC qualifying this weekend.

otf wins again!

I thought you were on holiday.

Shit, look at them dates. Time flies.

aye.