Hey Look! It's a Jerse-Bro!

The United States soccer team outscored the reigning world champions. I mean Italy still won the game, but the United States scored more goals.

Wait, wait...what?

I know some Americans, including a few reading this blog are clueless when it comes to soccer. I mean Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure level clueless. So when I say the US scored more goals in a game, and lost! You might as well be attempting to explain complex astrophysics and relativity to someone like, well, me.

The flaw in this, the beautiful game, lies in the even more complex rules that govern international eligibility. These are the rules that allow Kenyans and Ethiopians to run marathons under the flags of every nation in the world or allow a Brazilian named Alex to feature for the Japanese soccer team.

The Macedonian National Basketball team recently gained a new player when Darius Washington Jr. gained a passport in the country. You might remember Washington playing for Memphis in the early Calipari years and airballing two free throws with nobody on the line that would have sent the Tigers to the NCAA tournament and then breaking down into a emotional heap on the floor. Washington now gets to play international basketball and throw some alleys to the likes of Predrag "Peja" Samardžiski. What a duo? Aside from Peja there, can you name one Macedonian since Philip? The thing that would confuse people is what connection does a young black kid from outside Orlando have to a Baltic country less than 20 years old? I haven't the faintest idea. It wasn't even like he played professional basketball there. It makes zero sense! But such is the world of international sports.

On Monday it is true that the guys in the Blue with the Italian crest scored three goals while the US only had one on a 39th minute penalty slotted home by Landon Donovan (Sidenote: how underrated is a term like slotted home? You just don't hear it outside of soccer. Couldn't Dwight Howard "slot home" one of his ugly hook shots? Lawrence Tynes could "slot home" a game winning field goal right? I'd even say K-Rod could slot home his game ending slider! Just think of the possibilities!). But who scored two of those goals for Italy? Teaneck, New Jersey's own, Giuseppe Rossi.

So wait, a Bergen County boy is scoring goals in a game AGAINST his own United States. Where are the calls for Treason! Benadict Arnold lives, and he plays striker for Villarreal!

I don't agree with the practice but the use of ancestors and naturalization to get players for various national teams will not stop. In fact the ability to change country affiliation just became easier for those in the world of "football," now playing in a friendly (game not part of an organized tournament for those scoring at home) no longer prevents you from playing for another country later on down the road. In fact the United States -- fresh off wrangling Texas--born winger José Francisco Torres from the clutches of the Mexican national team -- landed midfielder Jermaine Jones, who had three caps for the German national team. Now perhaps Jones (born in Frankfurt, Germany) would have found a home as a regular in the German team had his country not preferred the services of various players born in Poland and Turkey.

Now its one thing for Macedonia or nearly every other country in Europe to pick up a player from the basketball rich nation of the United States. Its another entirely for a team like Italy, who is a top five team in the world with just players born within their borders, to poach a player from the suburbs of New York when the US often struggles to compete on an international level. But I guess you can't blame Rossi.

I mean who wouldn't trade the Meadowlands in for Milan?