As I recall, there was an issue regarding Hakeem Olajuwon wanting to play for the US basketball team; he’d been on a junior Nigerian football team more than a decade earlier, and had to apply for some kind of special dispensation.
It would be ugly indeed if football was as lax as cricket in national qualification. I think close to half of England’s team was born in South Africa now.
Here’s a pic of my desk in work.
World Cup stremaing at my desk. Sometimes it’s cool being a SysAdmin 
National team eligibility gets complicated in the case of “national” teams that do not correspond to sovereign nations, such as England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. AIUI a British citizen is eligible to play for any of those countries in which they, a parent, or a grandparent was born. Naturally that leaves a lot of people eligible to play for more than one of the four national teams.
Dual citizenship arrangements in Ireland complicate matters further. I am not sure exactly what the rules are there but they were noted for fielding players whose connection with Ireland was a little tenuous.
Well, so far the reign in Spain is looking rather plain.
Oh no. Somebody better go check on RedFury.
Another goalkeeping howler, but not from a North Korean or an Englishman who had no business being there, but from Iker Casillias? Spain 0, Guyere Wall 1.
RedFury must be thinking about hanging himself right now.
I bet he’s gone cuckoo!
Wow, Switzerland almost closed them out right there.
This game has had some great action and a lot of unlucky opportunities.
sigh That’s how it goes with my country’s team in every WK they’ve been in: Great going in, and crashing once they’re in the fray.
Oh well! Par for the course.
And that’s that.
It seemed as if Spain could have played for 300 minutes (the ref almost gave that much in added time) and not scored a goal. As all of us guys know, some nights you do everything right, and you still can’t score.
España: 0 Suiza: 1
Esto sí que es el colmo de los colmos.
Que mala suerte 
Makes our (the Yanks) victory over Spain feel a little less special now that the Swiss have done it too.
Can someone explain why there always seems to be more stoppage time at the end of the 2nd half versus the 1st half? Spain got close to an extra 6 minutes to try and tie the game!
Also, I wasn’t watching, but the ESPN texts mentioned that Iniesta left injured? If so, that would be a major blow to Spain in addition to the loss.
On nationality, the rule was for many years that a player was eliginble to play for a country if he, either of his parents or any of his grandparents were born in that country.
There’s many a player who chose to be picked for Wales or Northern Ireland rather than fight for a place in the England squad.
I imagine that, during the first half, the referee doesn’t have many chances of doing an accurate accounting of time to add, and will perhaps add less than needed. During the half-time rest, they can check on how much extra time should have actually been added, and that is added to the 2nd half, on top of whatever the referee calculates on the spot. This is me talking out of my posterior, of course.
Another explanation, by the way, would be for the referee to try to help the team perceived as being the “superior” team that is having a bad time of it 
¿Cuál es el colmo más pequeño? El colmillo 
Spain got off of their game in the last 30 minutes. They forced in crosses to the center where they had no chance and took very low percent chances on shots from distance and bad angles. The goal by the Swiss had a couple of lucky bounces but it was the determination of the Swiss that got it in. And they almost got a second later on that shot off of the post. A very exciting game, particularly in the second half, but a very disappointing result for la Furia Roja.
Re national teams, as long as your parents are from the country in question, they are pretty liberal about letting you choose what national team you want to play for. In the upcoming Ghana v. Germany game, there will be two brothers playing against each other (assuming they’re both on the field at the same time).
But as Frodo points out, once you pick and play for the adult team, you’re stuck with that team forever. There are quite a few players who could play for more than one team: Miroslav Klose, Podolski, Camoranesi, etc.