Havre
Registered User
- Jul 24, 2011
- 8,459
- 1,733
Don't think that conversation will lead to anywhere good, but his Norwegian is "better" than Zlatan's Swedish (all depending on how you define "good Swedish/Norwegian"). An old friend of mine (we used to play for the same team) came to Norway when he was around 12 or something from Bosnia. His Norwegian vocabulary is fantastic, better than most Norwegians, and his grammar is perfect, but his pronunciation still comes with a fairly strong accent. And he jokes about how he now has 0 languages - as his Norwegian isn't perfect, but as he says when he goes back to Bosnia he isn't speaking the local language perfectly either.
Among Nowegian players a better example would be Tarik Elyounoussi - who came to Norway as an 11 year old. Impossible to hear that he isn't a native speaker. Even with his language skills you can obviously argue how "Norwegian" he is.
Should Tarik be allowed to play for Norway? I don't know. In football it is hardly a big issue, but you have seen in other sports nations basically buying themselves teams. Many years ago you had Austria in women's handball - packing their team with Eastern Europeans. Qatar have recently done something similar for men - filling up their team with "foreigners" and ended up playing a world cup final on the back of it.
The Swedes in question however should clearly be allowed to play for Sweden - if the want to. I'm assuming Isak could also have played for Eritrea if he wanted to etc.
Among Nowegian players a better example would be Tarik Elyounoussi - who came to Norway as an 11 year old. Impossible to hear that he isn't a native speaker. Even with his language skills you can obviously argue how "Norwegian" he is.
Should Tarik be allowed to play for Norway? I don't know. In football it is hardly a big issue, but you have seen in other sports nations basically buying themselves teams. Many years ago you had Austria in women's handball - packing their team with Eastern Europeans. Qatar have recently done something similar for men - filling up their team with "foreigners" and ended up playing a world cup final on the back of it.
The Swedes in question however should clearly be allowed to play for Sweden - if the want to. I'm assuming Isak could also have played for Eritrea if he wanted to etc.